You can now turn your Jellyfin library into a 1990s video rental store you can actually walk around

Published Aug 10, 2026, 3:46 PM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Summary Halcyon Video turns your Jellyfin library into a walkable, 1990s-style 3D video rental store. You can browse aisles, flip cases, and watch a clerk bag your pick; it's a store, not a menu skin. You can customize the era, the lighting, the layout, and even the movie format. Look, I like the convenience streaming offers as much as the next person, but there's still a part of me that misses the video store rental era, and thankfully, I'm not alone. Reddit user halcyon-video has created a 3D video store for your Jellyfin media server that turns your entire media library into a walkable 1990s video rental store. Halcyon Video is obviously a bit silly, but it's painfully nostalgic and also pretty impressive at the same time. "Every movie you own is a case on a shelf. Browse the aisles under warm fluorescents, pull Back to the Future off the wall, flip it over and read the back of the box, carry it to the counter, and watch the clerk drop it in a bag that crinkles around it. Then take it home to the living room and put it in the VCR," reads the app's description on GitHub. Its creator emphasizes that Halcyon Video "is not a menu with a skin on it. It's a store." I haven't tried the app with my Jellyfin library, but I did walk through a short demo that features placeholder movies and TV shows. The entire experience felt a bit odd at first with the way that it snaps between store shelves, but at the same time, I also remember browsing Blockbuster like this — with my eyes darting between movie covers laid out on endcaps, hoping to find that one gem that everyone in my family actually wants to watch. I later discovered that you can walk around the store freely in first-person, Doom-style; you just need to hold down the F key on your keyboard. Halcyon Video isn't practical, but it's definitely nostalgic It's almost like Blockbuster never died You can even change your virtual video store's era, lighting, floor plan, and media format, allowing you to tweak the experience to suit your specific era of nostalgia. Of course, there are no Blockbuster signs anywhere, but it's clear Halcyon video is trying to replicate the once-dominant video store brand given the blue branding that's everywhere. Sure, there might have been a bit of analysis paralysis as you walked up and down the aisles of Blockbuster looking for that perfect Friday night movie, but it never came close to the indecision I feel when browsing endless Netflix thumbnails. With that in mind, this is something I can actually see myself using occasionally, especially if I'm trying to find something to watch with a bigger group of people. If you want to try Halcyon Video for yourself, you can find the app on GitHub.