The iPhone and iPad companion app for rustyDLNA.
rustyView connects to your rustyDLNA video library. Browse your collection, pick up where you left off, and take movies with you for the flight, the commute, or anywhere without a connection.
- Find something to watch. Explore poster artwork, browse folders, search your collection, and sort movies the way you like.
- Press play. Stream originals when your device supports them, with automatic server-assisted conversion for media that needs it.
- Watch your way. Choose audio tracks and subtitles, jump between chapters, adjust playback speed, and select a streaming quality that suits your connection.
- Keep your place. Resume unfinished movies and skip forward or back with a double tap. Keep favorites and a history of movies you have watched.
- Take it with you. Download a compatible copy for offline viewing and manage your collection from the Downloads tab.
- Feel at home on Apple devices. Enjoy layouts for iPhone and iPad, Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, and AirPlay and Picture in Picture where supported.
rustyView works with your own rustyDLNA server. You'll need an iPhone or iPad running iOS 17 or later and access to the server's HTTPS address and sign-in credentials.
- Set up rustyDLNA. Follow the rustyDLNA setup guide to serve your library. Enable its web player and use an HTTPS endpoint protected by HTTP Basic authentication. Enable server transcoding for compatible streaming and downloads.
- Connect in rustyView. Enter the server address, user name, and password, then tap Connect. Your password is stored in the device's Keychain.
- Choose a movie. Open Library, browse or search, and tap a title to see its details. Tap Watch to start, or resume from your saved position.
You can update your server address or credentials in Settings → Edit Connection. Leaving the password blank keeps the saved password only for the same server and user name. Connection edits are verified before replacing your current library. If a connection fails, the app offers actions for the cause: edit rejected sign-in details, retry an interrupted connection, or open downloaded movies while offline. An unavailable Keychain password is kept distinct from a missing password. Cancelling a connection attempt leaves your previous connection intact.
My Movies puts Continue Watching, Favorites, and History in their own tab, with search across your saved library and within each collection. Library also offers the latest unfinished movie with a direct Resume action. Continue Watching brings unfinished movies back within reach. Tap Resume to continue or choose Start Over from the row's actions menu. Start Over first saves that choice; if saving fails, your current player and previous saved position remain available. Removing a movie from Continue Watching hides the row while keeping its position for the next time you open its details.
Use a movie's actions menu to add it to Favorites. History shows each movie once, with its latest viewing. Movies appear only after playback starts; finishing one marks it watched. Favorites and history remain after a local copy is deleted or the movie disappears from the server.
Saved entries belong to their original server and account. When a ready local copy exists, Resume uses that copy even after you forget the connection. A movie from another account never silently opens through the current login. Local resume and remaining time use the inspected file's duration, so an old online bookmark cannot seek past the end of a shorter saved copy.
Library remembers your browsing mode and sort for each account. Returning from details, search, or a folder can restore the visible movie within that browsing session. Loading feedback identifies a new folder or search while its results arrive. Empty libraries offer Refresh, and an empty search offers a way back to your collection.
Search editing is isolated from movie-grid updates, so typing can continue while results load. New searches cancel superseded requests, and clearing the field restores the previously browsed pages and position.
Tap the video to show playback controls. Double-tap the left or right side to skip ten seconds, or use the timeline to find a moment. Audio, subtitles, playback speed, and fit or fill controls are available in the player; open playback options for chapters and streaming quality.
Audio choices show the language code alongside the track title, codec, and channel layout. Audio, subtitle, speed, and quality selectors scroll, with wrapping labels so long lists remain usable in portrait and landscape.
With a keyboard, Space plays or pauses, arrow keys skip ten seconds, and O opens playback options. Accessibility text sizes keep controls visible until you dismiss them.
Play and Pause reflect what will happen even while a movie is preparing. If playback stops advancing, rustyView makes a bounded recovery attempt while preserving your time and choices. Retry Current Playback lets you try again after a connection problem; Close always leaves the player.
Leave Quality on Auto for everyday viewing, or choose a specific quality before you play. Your preferred quality and audio language are saved for later movies. If a server does not offer your preferred quality, the player explains that it is using Auto for this movie and keeps your saved preference. Available audio tracks, subtitles, chapters, and quality choices depend on the movie and your server.
Streaming changes inside the player stay in a draft until you tap Apply Streaming Changes. Cancel leaves playback unchanged. The draft keeps Original and encoded-quality choices consistent before you apply them.
AirPlay video output is unavailable for online streams because rustyView keeps their media requests under the app's control. The player explains this before output selection. Use Screen Mirroring to show the device's screen elsewhere. Saved movies retain native output options where supported.
If a stream points outside your connected server, playback stops with an error. rustyView does not follow that reference or automatically try another format. Check the connection before retrying; saved movies remain available offline.
Settings remembers Automatic, Always On, or Off, plus a preferred subtitle language. Choosing a language or Off in the player remembers it for the next movie. A missing preferred language is explained without erasing it. Subtitles show a loading state until usable text arrives. If a subtitle cannot load, Retry Subtitles tries that choice again and Turn Subtitles Off clears it. The menu includes embedded subtitles exposed by the device and separately saved or server-provided text. Separate text is drawn inside rustyView; it does not appear in Picture in Picture or AirPlay video. The player explains that limitation before you start those output modes.
When the server advertises subtitle streaming, embedded text loads in two-minute windows around the playback position. The next window loads ahead of playback, and recent windows remain available for quick backward seeks. Older servers and sidecar captions use complete files; offline downloads always save complete subtitle tracks.
Playback pauses for audio interruptions and when an audio device disconnects. After an interruption, it resumes only when iOS permits it and you have not changed the playback intent. A movie opened during the interruption stays paused until you choose Play. If iOS restarts its audio services, rustyView prepares the current movie at its retained position and waits for Play. Now Playing and remote controls follow the current movie's position, speed, and play/pause state; closing the player releases those controls. A routine position-save failure shows a nonblocking notice with Retry Saving Progress; playback continues. Start Over still waits for a successful save before replacing the player.
Open a movie and tap Download to start immediately using your saved download preferences and the selected audio language. The movie's Audio control overrides the preferred language for that download. Download details shows the expected output and size; some copies have no reliable size until downloading. To save the unchanged source instead, choose Original file from the movie's (…) menu. That action also starts immediately and retains all source audio tracks; playback support varies.
Settings → Downloads → Maximum quality saves a download-only resolution and video bitrate limit, initially 1080p / 8 Mbps. It is independent of streaming quality. Smaller sources retain their dimensions. If the server cannot honor the limit, the app explains the problem before offering that copy. While a copy downloads, Download details shows Up to the saved maximum. Completed compatible copies show the dimensions inspected from the actual saved video.
With a supporting rustyDLNA server, compatible downloads preserve supported audio and can include all audio tracks; unsupported audio becomes AAC with up to eight channels. All supported text subtitles are saved automatically, including embedded tracks exposed by an updated rustyDLNA server. Language, track title, and forced/default flags are retained. Image-based subtitles such as PGS/VobSub remain unsupported and are disclosed before download. Video budgets exclude preserved audio, so the final file size can be larger.
For a movie already saved, choose Download Missing Subtitles from its (…) menu in Downloads, movie details, or Manage Copies. This checks the owning server/account and downloads missing tracks without downloading the video again. The existing copy stays playable during updates; subtitle transfers support pause, cancellation, retry and process relaunch. Switch languages in the offline player's Subtitles list. App-rendered subtitles retain their Picture in Picture and AirPlay limitation.
Preserve HDR is on by default. Compatible encoding requests source-specific HEVC HDR10 when the server advertises it. If HDR cannot survive the chosen download limit, choose Original or explicitly allow SDR in Settings. Streaming also tries advertised HDR output before portable SDR recovery and explains an HDR playback failure. HDR encoding and native audio downloads require the corresponding rustyDLNA API support; screen brightness and Dolby Vision output still require validation on the target device.
Downloads and movie details show preparation progress and bytes received. Once the final size is available, they also show transfer percentage and bytes remaining. Pause and cancel acknowledge the tap immediately while saving progress or removing the transfer. Once the movie is marked Ready to Watch, play it from that tab or tap Watch Offline on its detail page—even in airplane mode. Progress updates are coalesced to reduce rendering work, and optional preparation polling stops when it is finished or the app is in the background. For battery reports and measurement instructions, see Energy diagnostics. Each movie appears once. If you keep both original and compatible versions, open its actions menu and choose Manage Copies to play or delete a specific copy. Your offline movies remain accessible after forgetting the server connection. Open a saved movie to see its local details, included audio and subtitles, and chapters. Watch Online remains available when connected, with its own audio and quality choices. A local playback failure never silently switches online. Transient download failures retry automatically up to six times; after that, choose Retry Now when your connection is available. Automatic recovery and Retry Now retain saved bytes and the same prepared file. On servers supporting progressive downloads, compatible copies transfer video while preparation continues. The app keeps received ranges and resumes within an interrupted transfer when switching between Wi-Fi and cellular. Preparation progress and downloaded bytes remain visible together; the copy becomes playable after the server confirms its final size and the app verifies the local file. Failed requests and their selected format remain in the queue across relaunches until you retry or remove them. Retry requires the account that requested the download. Retrying a stalled local verification uses the retained bytes and does not require signing in or downloading them again.
rustyView inspects downloaded video before marking it ready. An original that the device cannot play remains stored with that limitation shown. You can download a compatible copy while keeping the original. Inspection checks the media structure and sample decoding; an actual playback failure still offers recovery. Verification can continue beyond thirty seconds while it makes progress. A stalled check remains retryable instead of being labeled an unsupported codec. Older copies are checked again locally, and older copies without account information stay accessible in Downloads without being attached to a new account's library.
Downloads can continue in the background. If you force-quit rustyView, reopen it to let transfers continue. Pause a transfer and resume it later; rustyView preserves transferred bytes when the server and system support resumption. An older server without resumable delivery, a replaced server file, or system removal of temporary bytes may require a fresh transfer. To save mobile data, select Wi-Fi Only under Settings → Downloads → Network. Waiting for Wi-Fi, a paused download, and a scheduled retry have distinct states. A small number of transfers run at once; the rest remain queued. Choose Delete Download from a copy's actions menu to free space on your device; your server's original stays in your library. Saved-file storage includes local posters and subtitles as well as video.
Search Downloads by title or saved description, and sort by recently saved, title, or time remaining. Each row shows a concise status and one playback or transfer action; other choices stay in its actions menu. Deleting a copy requires an explicit confirmation and does not remove its favorite or viewing history. If saved-library storage cannot be read or updated, the app shows a recovery action and preserves the existing files.
Build rustyView from source with Xcode and XcodeGen on a Mac:
xcodegen generate
open rustyView.xcodeprojSelect the rustyView scheme, choose an iPhone or iPad simulator, and press
Run. For a physical device, configure your signing team and a unique bundle
identifier in an ignored root-level Local.xcconfig:
RUSTYVIEW_BUNDLE_ID = com.example.private.rustyView
RUSTYVIEW_DEVELOPMENT_TEAM = YOUR_PRIVATE_TEAM_ID
Contributing? See the contributor guide for architecture, build
and test commands, and privacy requirements. Enable the commit hook with
git config core.hooksPath .githooks, and run scripts/privacy_check.sh before
sharing changes. Keep local configuration and captures in ignored paths.
TestFlight distribution requires an Apple Developer Program membership and an
App Store Connect app record matching the bundle identifier in Local.xcconfig.
Keep the signing team in that ignored file so regenerating the project preserves
it without checking private deployment identity into source control.
Set MARKETING_VERSION and CURRENT_PROJECT_VERSION in project.yml, incrementing
the build number for each upload, then run xcodegen generate. Select the
rustyView scheme and Any iOS Device (arm64) in Xcode, choose Product →
Archive, and use Organizer's Distribute App → App Store Connect flow.
After processing, add the build to a TestFlight group in App Store Connect.
The app bundles PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy for app preferences, owned-file metadata,
download space checks, and playback timers. Its encryption declaration covers
Apple-provided HTTPS, Keychain, and CryptoKit; review both declarations when adding
new APIs, data collection, or dependencies. Before inviting external testers,
provide Apple with a reachable demo server, synthetic media, and dedicated review
credentials through the private TestFlight review information.
Copyright 2026 rustyView contributors.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.