Aether
Wellspring
Where the library comes from.
Aether plays what a server hands it. Wellspring is that server — a Mac app that sits in the menu bar, reads the folders your films and shows are already in, and serves the original files, untouched, to every Apple device in the house. Point Aether at it and the library you have on disk is the library you have on the sofa.
Built for Aether
Aether
The player Wellspring was written for — iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Vision Pro. Add the server once and it appears beside whatever else you already watch from.
Wellspring is one source among several, not a replacement for the ones you have. Aether merges them all into a single library, so adding it does not mean moving anything.
A menu bar icon, and a web page for the rest
A media server usually means a window you never open and a dashboard you have to learn. Wellspring splits the difference: the part you touch every day is a menu bar icon, and the part you touch twice a year is a web page it opens for you.
Wellspring
Running
Libraries
Now playing
Settings…
Quit Wellspring
It lives in the menu bar
No Dock icon, no window in the way. The drop up there says the server is running, what it is scanning and who is watching right now — and that is the whole of the everyday interface.
Settings are a page on your Mac
Choose Settings and Wellspring opens a local web UI in your browser: libraries, folders, people, metadata. It is served by your own Mac, so the same page is there from the sofa or another room with nothing to install.
It gets out of the way
Start it once and it comes back with the Mac. Nothing to keep open, nothing to sign into, and no account anywhere — the server is a program on your machine, not a service you subscribe to.
From a folder to your television
Point it at your folders
Add the folders your films and shows already live in. Wellspring reads them where they are: nothing is copied, renamed, or moved into a library of its own, and your naming survives contact with it.
It works out what everything is
Files are matched to titles, seasons and episodes, and each one collects its poster, year, cast and description. Whatever could not be matched is listed rather than quietly hidden, so you can correct it instead of going looking for it.
Your devices find it
Aether on the same network sees the server and asks for the library. One sign-in per device, and then a phone, an Apple TV and a Vision Pro are all reading the same catalogue and the same watch progress.
It sends the file, not a version of it
Press play and Wellspring serves the original bytes across your network. No transcode is started, so the Mac never spins up, and the film arrives exactly as it is on disk.
That last step is the design rather than a shortcut. A server that transcodes is sized by how many people are watching at once; a server that only sends bytes is sized by your network, and your network was already fast enough.
The server sends. Aether plays.
Every media server eventually meets a file its clients cannot open, and the usual answer is to re-encode it on the server — slowly, hotly, and at some cost to the picture. Aether does not need that answer, because the hard part already runs on the device you are watching on.
PrismCore does it on the device
Aether’s own engine repacks MKV and MPEG-TS into what Apple’s player accepts, on the iPhone or the Apple TV itself. The server is never asked to convert anything, because by the time it would matter the conversion has stopped being necessary.
Nothing is re-encoded
The picture and the sound arrive as they were mastered: hardware decode, Dolby Atmos passed through as a bitstream, Dolby Vision engaged on the panel. A transcoding server would have flattened all three on the way out.
A Mac mini is enough
Sending a file is work a machine from ten years ago can do. The reason a media server usually asks for a fast processor is the transcoding — take that away and the requirement goes with it.
What’s inside
Films and shows, properly sorted
Seasons, episodes, specials and multi-part films, with posters, backdrops, cast and descriptions filled in for you. A show split across two drives is still one show.
Your files, where they are
Any folder on the Mac, and any drive the Mac can see — an external disk, a NAS mounted over SMB. Wellspring reads them in place and never writes into them.
People, not one shared login
Everyone in the house gets their own user, with their own Continue Watching, their own watchlist and their own ratings. What one person watches does not turn up on anyone else’s home screen.
Progress that follows you
Stop on the Apple TV and pick up on the phone at the same second. The position lives on the server, so every device you own agrees about where you got to.
Subtitles it finds for you
Subtitle files sitting next to a film are picked up automatically, and the tracks inside the file are offered as they are — including the picture-based ones, which Aether reads on the device.
It stays on your network
The server listens on your own network and talks to your own devices. There is no cloud service in the middle, no account to create, and nothing about your library leaves the house unless you deliberately open a door for it.
Questions people ask
Do I have to give up Plex or Jellyfin?
No. Aether treats Wellspring as one more source and merges it with the servers you already run — the same film on two of them is still one entry in your library. Running both for a while is a perfectly sensible thing to do, and nothing about Wellspring assumes you will stop.
Does the Mac have to stay awake?
It has to be awake for anything to play from it, which is true of every media server there has ever been. A Mac mini left running is the usual answer; a laptop works too, and the library is simply unavailable while the lid is shut.
Will it transcode for other apps?
Wellspring is written to serve the original file and Aether is written to play it, which is the whole reason neither of them needs a transcoder. A client that can only take a converted stream is not what this server is for.
Is it open source?
The repository is private while the server is being built. PrismCore, the playback engine inside Aether, has been open under LGPL from the start, and the intent is the same here — but a half-finished server in the open helps nobody, so it stays closed until there is a first build worth running.
Will there be a Windows or Linux version?
Not at first. Wellspring is a Mac app because that is the machine it is being built and tested on, and because a menu bar item with a local web UI behind it is the shape that fits there. Nothing in the design rules out other platforms later.
Get Wellspring
Wellspring for Mac
One app, and one folder to point it at. It runs on the Mac that already holds your files — an always-on Mac mini is the obvious home for it, but the laptop you are reading this on works too.
Free. Open the download and drag Wellspring to Applications.
Just want to watch something?
Wellspring is one way to feed Aether, and it is not required. If you already have a server — or just a folder of files on your phone — Aether plays from those today.
See AetherWellspring is built by Václav Zmrhal · zmrhal.cz