Spelunkr
A pseudo-live cable television network built from public-domain film and video materials in the Internet Archive. It provides around-the-clock synchronized playback across 24 themed channels, using a deterministic scheduling algorithm to ensure that all viewers worldwide watch the same content simultaneously.
Timeline (last 90 days)
Spelunkr is a simulated live cable television network built with Claude Code that mines footage from the Internet Archive and organizes it into 24 themed channels for around-the-clock uninterrupted playback.
Spelunkr's library contains approximately 2,700 hours of video, with 24 channels playing around the clock.
Spelunkr replicates the core experience of traditional television, where all viewers worldwide see exactly the same footage at the same moment.
Spelunkr has established CH 12: HAPPY TREES, a channel dedicated to Bob Ross's The Joy of Painting.
Spelunkr's channel scheduling uses three methods: sorted by year (8 channels), randomly shuffled (12 channels), and block rotation (4 channels).
Spelunkr streams video directly from the Internet Archive using plain HTML video elements, with no iframes, no proxy, no re-encoding, and no copying.
Spelunkr itself only serves approximately 110 KB of gzip-compressed JavaScript pages, a JSON schedule, and approximately 200 pieces of sign-off music.
Spelunkr achieves globally synchronized playback by calculating the current moment from the schedule's start time; the browser calibrates its clock using the HTTP Date response header and only corrects when the offset exceeds 2 seconds.
Spelunkr's deterministic scheduling approach pushes synchronization computation to the client side, requiring the server only to statically host the schedule JSON, greatly reducing infrastructure complexity and bandwidth costs compared to traditional HLS/DASH streaming origin servers.
Spelunkr's codebase is approximately 87,000 lines, comprising 24,000 lines of application code, 13,000 lines of CSS, 28,000 lines of utility scripts, 16,000 lines of tests, and 5,000 lines of SQL, with 670 commits accumulated over 8 months.
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All Facts (16)
Spelunkr is a simulated live cable television network built with Claude Code that mines footage from the Internet Archive and organizes it into 24 themed channels for around-the-clock uninterrupted playback.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr's library contains approximately 2,700 hours of video, with 24 channels playing around the clock.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr replicates the core experience of traditional television, where all viewers worldwide see exactly the same footage at the same moment.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr has established CH 12: HAPPY TREES, a channel dedicated to Bob Ross's The Joy of Painting.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr's channel scheduling uses three methods: sorted by year (8 channels), randomly shuffled (12 channels), and block rotation (4 channels).
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr streams video directly from the Internet Archive using plain HTML video elements, with no iframes, no proxy, no re-encoding, and no copying.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr itself only serves approximately 110 KB of gzip-compressed JavaScript pages, a JSON schedule, and approximately 200 pieces of sign-off music.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr achieves globally synchronized playback by calculating the current moment from the schedule's start time; the browser calibrates its clock using the HTTP Date response header and only corrects when the offset exceeds 2 seconds.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr's deterministic scheduling approach pushes synchronization computation to the client side, requiring the server only to statically host the schedule JSON, greatly reducing infrastructure complexity and bandwidth costs compared to traditional HLS/DASH streaming origin servers.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr's codebase is approximately 87,000 lines, comprising 24,000 lines of application code, 13,000 lines of CSS, 28,000 lines of utility scripts, 16,000 lines of tests, and 5,000 lines of SQL, with 670 commits accumulated over 8 months.
50%UnverifiedThe developer stated that Spelunkr was the first idea he built with Claude, involving approximately 30 days of total work intermittently over 8 months, completed almost entirely with the help of Claude Code.
50%UnverifiedIn the Spelunkr project, Claude is responsible for checking whether footage is legally available, generating descriptions, relevant facts, and schedules, which are then reviewed and approved by the developer.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr offers limited DVR functionality, allowing users to pause, rewind 15 seconds, or scrub within the current segment, and displays how far behind the live broadcast the viewer is.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr's comments are tied to an Archive identifier plus a specific second within a segment, so that whenever and on whichever channel that moment is played, the comments resurface at that second.
50%UnverifiedSpelunkr's emoji reactions can be sent without an account, while comments require logging in (logging in also adds the user to Discord for content moderation purposes).
50%UnverifiedThe developer has enough ideas stockpiled for approximately 50 more channels and is currently rushing to build a horror-host B-movie channel in time for Halloween.
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