Silage

An unofficial Silo client for Linux and Windows — a fullscreen, couch-friendly home-theater app for your Silo media server.

Features

• Direct play, full quality. Silage plays your files as they are, with no server transcoding, using mpv (FFmpeg + libplacebo) with hardware decoding (VA-API, NVDEC, Vulkan).
• HDR passthrough on Linux. On a monitor with HDR enabled (KDE Plasma), video plays in a native Wayland surface with true HDR. Other displays and the Windows build tone-map HDR content to SDR.
• Experimental Dolby Vision on Linux. The helper and private playback runtime are included. Enable it in Settings → Video and restart; only the display helper receives administrator authorization. Tested with Intel Arc A380 and ASUS PG32UCDM over DisplayPort, including Profile 7 MEL/FEL processing. Full Dolby tone-mapping/color accuracy remains unverified. See setup, compatibility and limitations.
• Great upscaling. 1080p films on a 4K screen use mpv's high-quality profile (ewa_lanczossharp, debanding).
• Choose your copy. The best-quality copy is selected by default. When a title is in several libraries (say Movies and Movies (4K)), pick which version to play: 4K · Dolby Vision · HEVC · TrueHD or 1080p · H.264 · E-AC3.
• A player HUD like Silo's web player. Seek bar with buffered range and intro/credits markers; audio, subtitle and speed menus; playback info; Skip Intro / Skip Credits.
• Subtitles. Built-in tracks, server subtitle search/download and AI creation, with appearance controls and your profile's choice switched on automatically.
• Plex-HTPC-style browsing. A sidebar of your libraries, poster rows with a backdrop marquee, library grids, collections, movie and series pages with seasons and episodes, search, and a watchlist.
• More ways to browse. For You recommendations, calendar, shuffle, profile collections and cast pages, with right-click actions for favorites, watchlist and watched status.
• Requests and notifications. Request media, follow its progress and read your notification inbox. Background arrivals use native desktop popups that open the inbox.
• Episode playback. Next episode, Up next, autoplay and automatic intro skipping, plus chapters and a draggable seek bar.
• Remember me. Per-server saved sign-in, with Linux desktop keyring support and Windows account encryption. A single-profile account opens directly.
• Resume anywhere. Playback picks up where you left off; Back returns you to exactly where you were.
• Made for a remote. Everything works with arrows, Enter and Esc, as well as the mouse.

Install

Windows 10/11 (x64): Download Silage-Portable.exe, put it in a writable folder, and double-click it. Java and mpv are included. No installer or administrator access is needed. A ZIP alternative is also available. See WINDOWS.md for portable settings, saved logins and build instructions.

Linux: Packages below use the same app features. See LINUX.md for desktop integration, saved logins and build notes. All development now happens on main.

One command, any distro. Detects your distro and installs the latest release (the .deb, the .rpm, or the Arch package):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/evman/silage/main/install.sh | sh

Or pick yours:

Arch Linux:

curl -fLO https://github.com/evman/silage/releases/latest/download/silage-bin-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst && sudo pacman -U silage-bin-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

To build the Arch package yourself, download the release's PKGBUILD. It pins the matching Linux tarball checksum and can be built with makepkg.

If you previously used the portable DV helper setup, use the one-command installer above to switch to the Arch package. It transfers the three unowned helper files into package ownership automatically, avoiding pacman's file-conflict error.

Ubuntu 24.04+ / Debian 13:

curl -fLO https://github.com/evman/silage/releases/latest/download/silage_amd64.deb && sudo apt install ./silage_amd64.deb

Fedora 40+:

sudo dnf install https://github.com/evman/silage/releases/latest/download/silage.x86_64.rpm

Fedora's stock FFmpeg leaves out H.264/HEVC; for full codec support, install FFmpeg from RPM Fusion.

Any other distro (portable build into ~/.local):

curl -fL https://github.com/evman/silage/releases/latest/download/silage-linux-x86_64.tar.gz | tar xz && ./silage-*/install.sh

Linux bundles Java, a private playback runtime and the DV helper. Keep mpv 0.37 or newer (libmpv) from your distribution installed: it is the fallback when the bundled renderer's native dependencies are incompatible. Packages declare the helper's Python/polkit/Intel GPU Tools dependencies. Run silage --check to check the selected runtime. On first launch, enter your Silo server's address, sign in, and pick your profile. Experimental DV is disabled by default; ordinary playback does not ask for administrator authorization.

Build from source

On Linux, needs JDK 21 and mpv:

git clone https://github.com/evman/silage.git
cd silage
./gradlew :app:run

scripts/package.sh <version> builds the Linux release packages (needs nfpm). On Windows, use package-windows.cmd -PappVersion=<version> after preparing the dependencies in WINDOWS.md. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the shared development and release workflow.

Controls

	Browsing	Playing
Arrows	Move around	←/→ skip 10 s (HUD hidden); move between controls (HUD shown)
Enter	Open / select	Show the HUD / press the focused control
Space	—	Play / pause
I	—	Playback info
Esc	Back, then confirm quitting at the root	Close an open menu; otherwise leave the player
Backspace	Back	Close a menu, hide the HUD, then leave the player
Media keys	—	Play/pause, stop, next/forward, previous/back
Ctrl + / Ctrl − / Ctrl 0	Interface size	—

Settings

Settings → Interface controls Size and Sidebar libraries/order. Settings → Video controls HDR, autoplay, intro skipping and preferred copies. Settings → Subtitles controls subtitle appearance. Startup fills the screen and shows the loading animation for at least four seconds before fading. The intro blocks input. Selecting a file version returns keyboard focus to Play. Linux's experimental Dolby Vision setting takes effect after restarting the app.

See the changelog for release changes.

Logs

On Linux, playback logs and unexpected errors are written to ~/.local/state/silage/ (or $XDG_STATE_HOME/silage). On Windows, they are in userdata/State beside the portable EXE. Settings → About shows the log folder. Include relevant logs when reporting a problem.

Credits and license

Silage is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (see LICENSE). Its shared module is vendored from Silo's open-source Android client, silo-android, also AGPL-3.0.

Silage is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Silo project. Silo and the Silo logo are trademarks of Silo Media L.L.C.