Drag the films in, name the make of the television, plug in the drive. Just Play
prepares it the way that TV will accept — and always says what is about to happen
before it happens.
Free. No account, no internet: everything stays on your computer.
Leave the drive as it is
!Interstellar comes out in 3 parts, watched one after another.
✓Nothing already on the drive is erased.
Prepare
Reformat the drive
✓Interstellar stays whole, one single film.
!Everything on the drive is erased: 14.2 GB.
Reformat and prepare…
Three steps, once only
You never need to know what a codec is.
01
Drag in the films
From any folder on the computer. Just Play looks inside every file — length,
picture, audio, subtitles — and works out what the drive has to hold.
02
Name the TV make
The model is not needed. The question comes once per television, and then it is
remembered.
03
Press Prepare
First a summary of what will happen; when the job is done, the drive is ejected and
you are told it is safe to unplug.
What a television never explains
When a drive “does not play”, Just Play has usually already checked why.
The film is too big
Many televisions only read FAT32 drives, which refuse files over 4 GB. There are two roads:
split the film into parts — without re-encoding, so the picture is untouched — or
reformat the drive. Both are shown, with what each one costs.
The invisible drive
If the drive's format is one the TV cannot read, all it says is “USB problem”. The
warning comes here, beforehand — and nothing is erased without an explicit
confirmation.
The copy that went bad
Every file is read back and checked after it is written. If something does not add
up, it shows up here, not in front of the TV.
The make is enough
No model lists, no codecs to choose.
From the make, Just Play takes the cautious road that works across all of its ranges.
If a drive still will not play, say so from the app: the next run is more careful, and
that television is remembered.
SamsungLGSonyHisenseTCLFire TVI do not know
Offline
No internet
The app talks to no server. It works with Wi-Fi switched off.
No account
Nothing to sign up for
Download, open, use. No email, no licence to activate.
Your files
Originals are never touched
The films on the computer stay exactly as they were. On the drive, erasing starts
only after you have confirmed it — and disks inside the computer are never offered.
macOS cannot write to NTFS drives: when a television would need one, you are told up
front, and larger films come out split into parts.
Opening it on a Mac
The first time, macOS asks you to confirm.
Just Play is not yet signed with an Apple developer certificate, so the first launch
shows a warning that Apple “could not verify” it. It is expected, and it takes one
minute:
Open the .dmg and drag Just Play into Applications.
Open Just Play. When the warning appears, press Done.
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to the line about Just
Play and press Open Anyway, then confirm with your password.
On macOS 14 and earlier it is quicker: Control-click the app, choose Open, then Open
again. After an update the confirmation is asked once more.
A television, a USB drive, and nothing to configure.
