Preferences and device overrides

Silo is in active development before 1.0. These guides are updated frequently.

Most preferences belong to your profile and follow you to every device. When one screen or sound system needs something different, such as an audio delay for the bedroom TV, change that device only.

The mobile and TV apps have their own Playback and Subtitles pages under Settings. The pages below are in the web app.

Change a profile preference in the web app

Open Settings from your profile menu. The settings pages replace the app’s sidebar, and Back to App at the top returns you to the page you came from. Search settings finds a setting by its name. On a phone or a narrow window, Settings opens as a list of pages. Choose a page:

Playback: quality, skipping, and what plays next.
Language & Subtitles: spoken and metadata languages, when subtitles appear, and how they look.
Home Screen: which rows appear on Home and in what order.
Title Pages: title art, theme music, spoilers, and advisory ages on movie and show pages.
Navigation & Cards and Accessibility: how the web app looks. These don’t change the native apps.

Metadata language sets the language for titles and descriptions where Silo has them. It doesn’t change a movie’s spoken audio; use Spoken language for that.

Set playback quality

Resolution and Maximum bitrate set the quality Silo plays at:

Resolution sets the largest picture size. With Auto, the default, Silo plays the original file whenever your device can play it and your connection is fast enough, and converts it only when it can’t. A size such as 1080p plays files up to 1080p as they are, however fast your connection is, and converts larger files down to 1080p.
Maximum bitrate caps how much data playback uses, from 200 Mbps down to 1.5 Mbps. Silo converts a file above it to fit. The default is No limit.

In the web app, they’re under Quality in Settings > Playback, where Resolution is called Preferred quality. On iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Mac, open Settings > Playback and look under Quality. On Android phones, tablets, and TVs, look under Streaming in Settings > Playback.

Choosing a quality in the player doesn’t change these settings. See Controls while you watch.

Quality on mobile data

On iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets, Cellular Quality in Settings > Playback replaces both settings while you’re on mobile data or a network the device treats as metered, such as a phone hotspot, Low Data Mode on iPhone, or a Wi-Fi network marked as metered on Android. It’s one list, from Auto to 480p. The default, 720p, plays up to 720p at 2 Mbps. If your connection changes during playback, the app switches to the other setting.

The web app does the same when the browser reports a cellular connection or has Data Saver on. To change it for one browser, open that browser in Settings > Your Devices and set Cellular quality and Cellular maximum bitrate under Picture.

Lower quality when buffering

Lower quality when buffering sits with Resolution and Maximum bitrate. It decides what Silo does on Auto when playback keeps stopping to buffer:

Automatically, the default, lowers the quality at once and offers Restore quality.
Ask first asks before lowering.
Never leaves the quality as it is.

Silo always asks before lowering a quality you picked in the player. See If playback keeps buffering for what appears while you watch.

Once Silo lowers the quality, it plays Auto under that lower speed on this device and network for 24 hours after playback last buffered. A line such as “Limited to 12 Mbps after buffering on Oct 17” then appears under the setting. Select Reset to clear the limit; your measured connection speed stays. Restore quality in the player and a Test speed result faster than the limit also clear it. With Never, Silo ignores the limit and hides the line. Maximum bitrate still applies on top of the limit.

Test your connection speed

The Connection group in Settings > Playback shows Connection speed, the latest speed measured for this device on this network. A line under it, such as “Auto plays videos up to 35 Mbps without converting them”, gives the highest bitrate Auto plays as it is at that speed.

Select Test speed to measure again. The test takes up to 10 seconds, and nothing can be playing while it runs. If the server is busy with other tests, Silo says how long to wait. The apps also run a short test on their own when the server has no recent speed for the device and network. A speed that starts with “Faster than” is the least the connection has managed, from a short test or from playback, rather than a full measurement.

Speed tests don’t run on mobile data or a metered network. There the group says that tests are skipped, and Test speed is hidden.

Change one device

Open Settings > Your Devices and choose the device. The one you’re using says This device.
Change any setting it lists, such as quality, subtitle language, playing the next episode, HDR, or the audio sync offset. Each setting says where its value comes from: Changed here, From your profile, or App default. Show title art says Server default instead of App default, because your server’s administrator can change its default. A changed setting shows Use your setting; select it to go back to your profile’s value. Use profile settings removes every change on the device.
Play something on that device to hear or see the result.

A browser only lists the settings the web player uses. HDR, Dolby Vision, playback speed, and the sync offsets appear only for devices running the Silo apps.

In the mobile and TV apps, most settings on the Playback page apply to that device only. Skip Back and Skip Forward follow your profile to every device. To go back to your profile’s value for a setting your profile also has, choose Use Profile Setting at the top of its list (Use profile setting on Android). On Android, a switch for one of these settings shows a Use Profile Setting row under it once the device has its own value. Use Profile Settings at the bottom of the page removes every change on the device.

A setting changed on a device wins over your profile’s value on that device, except Show title art while Apply to all devices is on. In the web app, Use server default appears under Show title art on Settings > Title Pages once you’ve chosen your own setting. It returns this browser to your server’s default; other devices keep their own choice. If a single title plays differently from others, look at the audio and subtitle tracks chosen for it during playback before you change the whole profile.

To tell apart devices that show the same name, such as two TVs that both say “Apple TV”, choose one, select Rename, type a name such as “Living Room”, and select Save. The device keeps that name when it’s used again, and its heading shows “Reports itself as Apple TV” under the new name. To go back to the reported name, select Rename, clear the name, and select Save. Names belong to your profile, so a TV that two profiles use can have a different name in each.

Forget removes a device’s saved settings and its name, and hides it until it’s used again. It doesn’t sign the device out; for a lost device, see Accounts and signed-in devices.