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What is OMSS?

OMSS (Open Media Streaming Specification) is an open standard that defines a unified API for streaming media backends. It enables any frontend to work seamlessly with any OMSS-compliant backend through standardized endpoints, schemas, and data formats. The specification was born out of a real problem: streaming backends that scrape third-party providers return wildly inconsistent data — missing quality information, unlabeled audio tracks, ephemeral signed URLs, CORS-restricted sources, and incomplete metadata. OMSS standardizes the output of these backends, not how they scrape.

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Design Philosophy

OMSS is built around four guiding principles:

Source-focused

OMSS standardizes streaming sources, not media metadata (ratings, descriptions, posters). Use the TMDB API for metadata.

Pragmatic

OMSS is designed for real-world backends that work with incomplete, scraped data.

Progressive Disclosure

Required fields are minimal; optional fields unlock enhanced functionality.

HTTP-First

OMSS uses HTTP status codes, headers, and semantics correctly and meaningfully.

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Scope

OMSS covers:
  • API endpoint definitions for source retrieval
  • Standardized source and subtitle schemas
  • Error handling patterns
OMSS does not cover:
  • Access control or authentication
  • Media metadata (ratings, descriptions, posters) — use the TMDB API directly
  • Search functionality — use the TMDB API
  • Provider-specific scraping logic
  • Video player implementation

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TMDB as the Primary Identifier

OMSS uses TMDB (The Movie Database) as the universal identifier for all media content. The frontend is responsible for fetching media metadata from TMDB; the OMSS backend is solely responsible for returning streaming sources and subtitles for a given TMDB ID. This keeps responsibilities cleanly separated and avoids the maintenance burden of supporting multiple unstable third-party identifier APIs.
Last modified on July 26, 2026