A high-precision, lightweight, standalone utility for casting media playback metadata to Last.fm, ListenBrainz, and Trakt. Built for power users who demand reliability, security, and zero bloat. Includes an HD-skinnable GUI with a matrix visualizer, live track marquee, and unobtrusive system tray integration.
Built in Tkinter, so it will tax your CPU if you turn a few thousand lines of Matrix rain on all at once by typing 'Matrix density [n]', but this prototype also allows you to run completely graphicless and lightweight with the typing of two simple terminal commands 'lamp off' and 'simple'. It is essentially a wrapper for Tcl/Tk, and while it is remarkably robust for standard event-driven GUIs, it hits a wall when you force it into high-frequency, continuous rendering tasks, especially with visualizers.
For the future and once all features are prototyped and complete in this Python version, we will be refactoring to a headless Rust core on Tokio with an optional EGUI overlay.
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- Triple-Stream Sync Engine: Simultaneously broadcasts your music and video consumption to Last.fm, ListenBrainz, and Trakt through a unified, heavily optimized background queue.
- MPC-HC Precision: Directly interfaces with your MPC-HC web server for perfect, sub-second metadata accuracy. This does not use WSMT, opting for full MPC integration and accurate video/movie file parsing.
- Universal SMTC Fallback: When your player is not MPC, Lotus pivots to the native Windows System Media Transport Controls. It automatically scrobbles from browsers, Spotify, foobar2000, and any other media source without additional plugins or configuration.
- Automated Cache Resilience: If your internet connection drops, Lotus caches all playback data locally in a secure SQLite database and automatically syncs it once the connection is restored.
- Dynamic Visualizer & System Tray: The UI features a real-time, Pillow-rendered matrix visualizer that reacts to playback state and theme shifts. The application can be minimized to the system tray for a completely invisible background footprint.
- Low-Impact Design: Operates as a transparent background process with zero registry footprint, no startup folders, and minimal CPU/RAM overhead.
Lotus is engineered for security through strict isolation, local-only processing, and credential obfuscation.
- Local Configuration Obfuscation in V1: API keys and session tokens are obfuscated in the local mpcscrobbler_config.ini file using a cipher to prevent casual exposure and credential scraping, but it does not protect against local threat actors. (Just be careful!)
- Local-Only Interception: All communication with your local media player is strictly restricted to the 127.0.0.1 loopback interface. No external network traffic ever touches your media player's internal interface.
- Zero-Exposed Ports: The application does not broadcast to your local network. It binds exclusively to the loopback address; no malicious scripts or local-network actors can hijack your session or poll your playback status.
- Encrypted Transmission: Every payload sent to external APIs is processed via TLS/HTTPS. Your encrypted tokens remain secure in transit.
- Zero Registry Footprint: Lotus is fully portable. It does not write to the Windows Registry, install background services, or hide processes in your startup folder. It lives only in the directory where you place it and enforces a one-running-instance rule.
- Open MPC-HC -> View -> Options -> Player -> Web Interface.
- Enable "Listen on port 13579" and check "Allow access from localhost only".
- Run
lotus.exe. - Use the provided UI tools to securely link your accounts via browser handshakes (Last.fm, ListenBrainz, and the Trakt PIN-override matrix).
- Click [ COMM_SAVE ] to generate your obfuscated configuration locally.
- The background monitor starts immediately. It will detect your media playback automatically.
- If you switch to a browser or other media player, Lotus seamlessly pivots to OS-level tracking.
- Close the window to minimize Lotus directly to your system tray.
To verify the integrity of the Lotus.7z of a downloaded Release, open a Powershell terminal in the same directory that it saved to and then run the first line below of the following code:
Get-FileHash -Path "Lotus.7z" -Algorithm SHA256
Get-FileHash -Path "lotus.exe" -Algorithm SHA256Verify the .exe in the extracted Lotus folder through the Powershell terminal with the second line above:
1E7EC6034BF183312A4C6D67D64A28D38B9B295444DF8D7EBDBA3F7025517B24
89029E2F288E2C9B8AFBC4DE459A92731C097B7CED3553ECC225838AA25D45F8
Building lotus.exe locally requires an exact file structure. If the source file, icon, or assets are missing from the root, the compilation will fail.
Install the required dependencies defined in the 1.1.0 architecture:
pip install pyinstaller
pip install -r requirements.txtYou must have lotus.py, icon.ico, the template mpcscrobbler_config.ini, and the assets/ folder in the same root directory before running the build command:
Lotus_1.1.0_Source/
├── lotus.py
├── icon.ico
├── requirements.txt
├── mpcscrobbler_config.ini
└── assets/
└── MPCLotus.png
Open your terminal in the root directory and execute:
pyinstaller --clean --noconsole --onefile --icon=icon.ico --add-data "icon.ico;." --add-data "assets;assets" lotus.pyThe resulting lotus.exe will be generated inside the newly created /dist folder.
- Modular Assets: Place any
.pngfile in theassetsfolder to customize the interface. For best results, use HD dimensions. - Dynamic Scaling: Assets are rendered to match your display resolution automatically.
- Theme Shuffle: Cycle through skins in-app via the UI.
- Security Hardening (Done, not pushed): Officially deprecated the legacy XOR-based obfuscation used in the current release. The application now employs Fernet symmetric encryption for all JSON payloads and has migrated credential management from plaintext files to the Windows Credential Manager.
- Four-Core Modular Design (Done, not pushed): The application has been rebuilt into four dedicated modules. API/telemetry, encrypted data handling, state observer, and rendering. This decoupling allows for individual component maintenance without risking pipeline instability.
- Auto-Update Mechanism: (Done, not pushed) Implementation of a silent background service to ensure security patches and architectural fixes are delivered without user intervention.
- Homelab mode: (Done, not pushed) An opt-in toggle allowing users to cache a ~1.5GB dataset of movies, series, anime, and music metadata. This enables high-speed, local-only resolution by downloading snapshots directly from TMDB, AniDB, and Discogs. This provides instant scrobbling and search performance, functioning entirely without external network dependencies.
- Multi-Format Caching: (Done, not pushed) Expansion of local storage schemas to support high-volume offline session logging, preventing data loss during network interruptions.
- Atproto integration: (Done, not pushed) Native api support for the Authenticated Transfer Protocol (AT Protocol), allowing users to broadcast playback events directly to Bluesky feeds and other federated services.
- Performance-First Core: (Building) The telemetry and network dispatchers are being rewritten in Rust. This transition eliminates the performance limitations of the Python Global Interpreter Lock (GIL), enabling high-frequency polling with near-zero CPU overhead. This will be a distributed fork away from Python.
- Database Hardening: (Building) The rust version will use SQLCipher. This layers AES-256 page-level encryption over our existing Fernet-encrypted data, ensuring total file-level security.
Lotus was developed to provide a reliable, aesthetically pleasing telemetry solution for Media Player Classic, specifically optimized for high-resolution displays like homelab television setups. It transforms a passive listening or viewing session into a curated data feed, ensuring your playback history is captured with precision while you focus entirely on the enjoyment of your media.
Lotus requires Windows 10 or Windows 11. The application relies on the Windows SDK to hook into the System Media Transport Controls for OS-level playback tracking. Older operating systems like Windows 7 and Windows 8 lack this native architecture; they will fail to execute the telemetry fallback. The graphical interface utilizes Desktop Window Manager injection for native dark mode rendering. Do not attempt to run this software on legacy systems.
Lotus is currently built specifically for the Windows environment, leveraging native Windows APIs for universal media tracking. I made an attempt to have the Windows version as secure as possible before V1.1.0 hit GitHub. If you plan to release Linux and Apple versions, I ask that you please keep code contributions security-forward. Porting to Linux or macOS requires replacing the Windows-specific System Media Transport Controls (SMTC) module with platform-native alternatives (e.g., MPRIS for Linux). If you are a developer interested in contributing a security-focused tracking module for these platforms, pull requests are welcome.
- Requirements: Python 3.11+ only if compiling from source.
- Disclaimer: Background assets are fan-created artwork and belong to their respective copyright holders. This software is provided for personal, non-commercial use. Any skinning or theming is fully up to the end-user; Kahlua is not responsible for the skins and themes used by end-users, futhermore the only skin provided is the one that fits the matrix rain theme, you'll have to drop your own skins in.
- Inquiries & Security: cannibox.bsky@gmail.com
- Donations: https://ko-fi.com/k4hlu4
- Alternative Donations: If you have alternative donations other than fiat currency, feel free to send an email beforehand.
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