Ultima Syncplay

Ultima Syncplay

Syncplay is a really useful tool that allows people to enjoy a shared viewing experience no matter where they are in relation to each other. You and your friends can watch anime, movies, TV shows and other media together, as if you were sat in the same room together.

The Syncplay Client launches a media player on your computer, connects to a Syncplay server and joins a virtual room on that server. Pauses, un-pauses and seeks made within that media player instance are relayed to fellow viewers via the server to allow for these actions to be replicated by the media players of everyone else in the same virtual room. The server keeps track of where everyone is in the video so if someone joins they can be brought to the right place, and so if someone is too far ahead they can be brought back in sync.

Syncplay can also share information about what files you are playing to make it easier for your friends to confirm they are playing the same file, or they can be warned if they are playing different files. Users can choose what file information is sent to the server in plain text, sent hashed, or not sent at all. Official public Syncplay servers operate in ‘room isolation’ mode. This means that any information sent by you is only passed onto your friends in the same virtual room, and conversely other people cannot see what rooms currently exist. You can also run your own private password protected Syncplay server.