Nova Player

The Jellyfin player for Windows that just works.

Nova opens the moment you press Play, never freezes, remembers how you sort every library, and keeps your audio and subtitle choices for the whole series.

⬇  Download for Windows

Portable version · Website · All releases

How it works

Sign in to your Jellyfin server once, and Nova feels like a streaming app: your libraries on the left, Continue Watching and Next Up on the home screen, and a player that responds straight away.

Nova plays files directly whenever your PC can, and only asks your server to convert what it has to.

Features

🚀 Never freezes on Play

The official Jellyfin desktop app can lock up the moment you start something. Nova can't:

• The player opens instantly. Everything after that happens in the background, with a Cancel button the whole time.
• Every request to your server has a timeout, and Back or Esc cancels it on the spot.
• If a file can't play directly on your PC, Nova switches to server transcoding by itself instead of hanging.
• If the server is slow, you get a clear message with Retry, Retry with transcoding and Close.
• Press I for the playback info panel. It tells you why something is transcoding, in plain English.

🗂️ Sorting that sticks

Every library remembers its own sort, order, filter, genre and card size, even after a restart. Sort your anime by Latest episode added once and it stays that way.

• Going back from a show restores your exact scroll position.
• A–Z jump bar when sorting by name, for big libraries.
• Filters for Unwatched, Watched, In progress and Favorites, plus genres.
• Shuffle a whole library, or a single show.

🎧 Remembers your audio and subtitles for the whole series

Pick Japanese audio and English subtitles in any episode, and every episode of that show follows. Nova remembers what the track is, not its position:

• language
• title (Signs & Songs, Full Subtitles…)
• forced or SDH
• commentary or main audio
• codec

So it picks the right tracks even when episodes order them differently, which is exactly where Jellyfin's own "remember my selection" breaks. Subtitle sync is remembered per series too. You can see what's remembered on the series page and reset it with one click.

🌸 Anime subtitles done right

• Styled ASS/SSA subtitles are drawn by libass exactly as the release authored them: their own fonts (including ones embedded in the file), colours, signs, positioning and karaoke.
• Dual subtitles: show a second language at the top of the screen, for example English at the bottom and Japanese at the top. Great for learning a language.
• Live sync with Z / X, remembered for the series.
• Image subtitles (PGS / VobSub) are burned in by the server automatically.
• Plain subtitles get your own size, colour, background, position and outline.

🎬 Built for binge-watching

• NEW badges on shows with recently added episodes (with a count), on the new episodes themselves, and a New Episodes row on Home. You choose how long things count as new.
• Subtitles are ready the moment an episode starts. Nova fetches them (and their fonts) while the video loads, and grabs the next episode's subtitles while you're still watching.
• Skip Intro / Recap button, or skip automatically. Uses Jellyfin media segments (10.10+) or the Intro Skipper plugin.
• Up Next countdown when the credits start, then the next episode plays.
• Chapters: marks on the seek bar, chapter names on hover, a chapter list, and PgUp / PgDn to jump.
• Trickplay previews when you hover the seek bar.
• Night mode evens out explosions and dialogue, and volume boost goes up to 300% for quiet files.
• Remove things from Continue Watching, and mark a whole season watched in one click.

🪟 Mini player

Press T and Nova shrinks into a small always-on-top window in the corner of your screen, subtitles and all. Keep watching while you work. Press T again to go back.

✨ And the rest

• Updates itself: new versions download in the background and install when you close Nova, or click Restart to update. A short What's new note shows after each update.
• Right-click anything for quick actions: play, from start, mark watched, favorite, shuffle, go to series.
• Home stays fresh: it refreshes when you come back to Nova, so new episodes appear without a restart.
• Screenshots: Ctrl+S saves the full-resolution frame to Pictures\Nova Player.
• Quality menu for watching away from home, and playback speed from 0.5× to 2×.
• Streaming buffer setting (1, 3 or 10 minutes ahead) for slow or unstable connections.
• "Ends at" time on every movie and episode.
• Trailers, cast and "More like this" on every details page.
• Search across movies, shows and episodes.
• Quick Connect sign-in. Your login is encrypted with Windows' own data protection.
• Media keys work, and your screen won't go to sleep while something is playing.
• Remembers volume, window size and position.

Settings: track memory, languages and subtitle style	Player: playback info, chapters and previews
Library: sorting that sticks	Home: Continue Watching, Next Up, Favorites

Install

1. Download NovaPlayer-Setup.exe from the latest release.
2. Run it. By default it installs just for you, so it doesn't need admin rights.
3. Windows may show "Windows protected your PC" because the installer isn't code-signed yet. Click More info → Run anyway.

Prefer not to install anything? The portable version runs from anywhere. It can't update itself, but it tells you when there's a new version.

Works with Jellyfin 10.8 and newer on Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit).

Getting started

1. Connect. Type your server address, like 192.168.1.20:8096 or https://jellyfin.example.com. Nova tries http, https and port 8096 for you.
2. Sign in with your username and password, or use Quick Connect from a device that's already signed in.
3. Set your sort. Open a library and pick how you like it sorted. Nova remembers it from now on.
4. Pick your tracks once. Start an episode, choose audio and subtitles, and the rest of the series follows.

[!TIP] Want Skip Intro? On Jellyfin 10.10 or newer, turn on media segment detection in your server's dashboard, or install the Intro Skipper plugin. Nova picks the segments up automatically.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action	Key	Action
Space / K	Play / pause	F / double-click	Fullscreen
← / →	Seek (hold Shift for 60 s)	M	Mute
J / L	−10 s / +10 s	A / S	Cycle audio / subtitles
↑ / ↓	Volume	Z / X	Subtitle sync −/+ 0.1 s
0–9	Jump to 0–90 %	[ / ]	Slower / faster
N / P	Next / previous	I	Playback info
PgUp / PgDn	Previous / next chapter	T	Mini player
Ctrl+S	Screenshot	Enter	Press "Skip"
Esc	Exit fullscreen or mini player, then close

FAQ

Press I while it's playing. The Why line says what your PC can't handle, like 10-bit H.264 or DTS audio. Nova then asks the server to convert just that part. If playback fails completely, choose Retry with transcoding.

Update Nova first (Settings → Updates → Check now). Jellyfin 10.11 and newer changed how media links are signed, and Nova 1.2.1+ handles both the old and new way. If it still happens, try another subtitle track and check your server's log for that file.

Nova uses the intro and credit markers your server provides. On Jellyfin 10.10+, enable media segments in the dashboard and let the scheduled task scan your library, or install the Intro Skipper plugin.

Fonts come from the video file itself when it includes them. If a font is missing, libass falls back to a similar one. You can switch to plain subtitles under Settings → Audio & Subtitles → Styled anime subtitles.

Nova isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn you: click More info → Run anyway. If Smart App Control is turned on, Windows may block unsigned apps entirely; there's no safe way around that until Nova is signed.

It only does what any Jellyfin app does: it reports what you watch, so your progress and Continue Watching stay in sync across devices. Your audio and subtitle memory, library sorting and settings are stored on your PC.

In %APPDATA%\Nova Player\nova-store.json. Screenshots go to Pictures\Nova Player.

How it plays your videos

When you press Play, Nova tells your server exactly which formats this PC can decode (H.264, HEVC, AV1, VP9, AAC, Opus, FLAC… checked live on your hardware). If the file fits, it direct plays with no conversion at all. If only the container doesn't fit, the server remuxes it without touching quality. Only what's truly unsupported gets transcoded, streamed over HLS.

Styled subtitles are rendered by libass compiled to WebAssembly (JASSUB), on a separate thread, so even heavy karaoke and typesetting don't slow the player down.

For developers

You'll need Node.js 20 or newer.

git clone https://github.com/Bryson-he/nova-player.git
cd nova-player
npm install
npm start

npm run dist builds the installer and portable .exe into dist/.

Releasing: bump version in package.json, commit, then tag and push:

git tag v1.2.1
git push origin main --tags

GitHub Actions builds both executables, uploads them to a draft release, checks everything is there, and publishes it. Installed copies pick the update up automatically.

Path	What it is
src/main/main.js	Window, settings storage, mini player, screenshots, auto-update
src/renderer/js/player.js	The player: direct play / HLS, tracks, subtitles, skip intro, up next, sound
src/renderer/js/tracks.js	Audio and subtitle choice, and per-series memory
src/renderer/js/subtitles.js	Plain subtitle parser and renderer (styling, sync)
src/renderer/js/profile.js	Detects what this PC can decode and builds the Jellyfin device profile
src/renderer/js/api.js	Jellyfin API client with timeouts and cancellation
src/renderer/js/views/	Home, library, details, search, settings and sign-in
scripts/copy-vendor.js	Bundles hls.js and JASSUB into the app
docs/	The website (GitHub Pages) and README images
.github/workflows/release.yml	Builds and publishes releases

Credits

Built with Electron, hls.js (Apache 2.0) and JASSUB / libass (MIT / ISC). Demo screenshots use Caminandes (CC BY 3.0, Blender Foundation) and Pioneer One (CC BY-NC-SA) from the Jellyfin demo server.

Nova Player is an independent project and isn't made by or affiliated with the Jellyfin project.

Released under the MIT License.