Streamverse

This project is a full-stack streaming application—a “Streamverse”—that allows users to browse and watch movies and TV shows, manage subscriptions and user profiles, and receive personalized recommendations. The application is built using a three-tier architecture that separates concerns into a Frontend (client), a Backend (API server), and a Database Layer.

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Table of Contents

• Project Overview
• Architecture Overview
  • Client Layer (React Frontend)
  • Application Layer (Express Backend)
  • Database Layer (Oracle Database)
  • Security & Validation
• How It Works
• Project Structure
• Summary
• Installation & Setup

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Project Overview

This project is a full-stack streaming application that mimics the core functionalities of Netflix. Key features include:

• User Authentication: Signup and login with secure password hashing (bcrypt) and JWT-based token authentication.
• Profile Management: Users can create and manage multiple profiles, each with its own watch history.
• Content Browsing & Search: Browse movies and TV shows by genre or perform dynamic searches based on title, genre, cast, year, or language.
• Personalized Recommendations: A recommendation engine powered by cosine similarity (using TF-IDF vectors) provides “more like this” suggestions.
• Subscription Management: Users can choose from multiple subscription plans that control the number of profiles and features available.
• External Data Integration: Data is periodically fetched from The Movie Database (TMDb) to update movies, TV shows, genres, and cast/crew information.

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Architecture Overview

The application is structured into three distinct layers:

Client Layer (React Frontend)

• Framework: Built using Create React App.
• UI Components: Organized into reusable components such as Header, Card, Accordion, and Player.
• State Management: Uses React hooks and the Context API (e.g., AuthContext) to manage global state (authentication, user data, subscription details).
• Routing: Utilizes React Router to navigate between pages (Home, Browse, Profile, Subscription History, etc.).
• Styling: Global styles are defined using styled-components and Normalize.css.

Application Layer (Express Backend)

• RESTful API: Built with Node.js and Express. The API provides endpoints for user management, profile operations, content browsing, search, and subscription management.
• Controllers: Organized into modules (e.g., users-controller.js, profile-controller.js, browse-controller.js, subscription-controller.js) that implement the business logic.
• Routing: API routes are defined in separate files in the /routes directory.
• Middleware: Custom middleware (e.g., check-auth.js) enforces JWT-based authentication for protected routes.
• Services:
  • Database Service: A dedicated module (database.js) manages Oracle DB connections using connection pooling.
  • Recommendation Engine: The cosine_similarity.js service tokenizes content descriptions, creates TF-IDF vectors, and computes cosine similarity scores to generate content recommendations.
  • TMDb Integration: The tmdb.js module integrates with The Movie Database API to fetch movies, TV shows, genres, and credits, and then stores this data in the Oracle database.

Database Layer (Oracle Database)

• Persistence: The Oracle database stores all persistent data such as user accounts, profiles, movies, TV shows, genres, watch history, watchlists, subscriptions, and similarity scores.
• Stored Procedures & PL/SQL Blocks: Critical operations such as inserting similarity data or updating subscriptions are encapsulated in PL/SQL blocks for atomicity and proper error handling.
• Connection Pooling: The backend database service uses connection pooling to ensure high performance and efficient resource usage.

Security & Validation

• JWT Authentication: After login, a JSON Web Token is issued and used for accessing protected API endpoints.
• Password Hashing: Passwords are securely hashed using bcrypt before they are stored in the database.
• Input Validation: The Express backend employs express-validator to validate and sanitize user inputs.

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How It Works

1. User Onboarding:

   • Sign Up / Login: Users register or log in via the frontend. On successful login, the server issues a JWT token.
   • Profile Management: Authenticated users can create and manage multiple profiles.

2. Content Discovery & Interaction:

   • Browsing & Search: Users can browse by genre or use dynamic search features. The backend constructs dynamic SQL queries to return matching results.
   • Recommendations: The recommendation engine leverages cosine similarity (based on TF-IDF vectors computed on content descriptions) along with watch history and genre preferences to suggest similar content.
   • Watchlist & Rating: Users can add titles to their watchlists and rate content. The backend updates watch history and aggregates ratings and view counts.

3. Subscription Management:

   • Subscription Plans: Multiple subscription plans (e.g., Basic, Standard, Premium) are available that control the number of profiles and features.
   • Billing & History: Subscription details, including billing amounts and expiration dates, are managed using stored procedures and updated via the API.

4. Data Integration:

   • TMDb API: A dedicated service fetches updated information from TMDb (movies, TV shows, genres, and credits) and synchronizes the data with the Oracle database.

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Project Structure

/backend
├── app.js                   # Main Express application
├── controllers/
│      ├── users-controller.js
│      ├── profile-controller.js
│      ├── browse-controller.js
│      └── subscription-controller.js
├── middleware/
│      └── check-auth.js      # JWT authentication middleware
├── models/
│      └── http-error.js      # Custom HTTP error class
├── routes/
│      ├── users-routes.js
│      ├── profile-routes.js
│      ├── browse-routes.js
│      └── subscription-routes.js
└── services/
├── database.js       # OracleDB connection & execution helpers
├── cosine_similarity.js  # TF-IDF and cosine similarity based recommendation engine
└── tmdb.js           # TMDb API integration

/frontend
├── public/                  # Static assets (HTML, manifest, robots.txt, images)
├── src/
├── components/       # Reusable UI components (e.g., Header, Card, Accordion)
├── context/          # React context (e.g., AuthContext)
├── constants/        # Route definitions and other constants
├── pages/            # Application pages (Home, Browse, Profiles, etc.)
├── utils/            # Helper functions
├── App.js            # Main React application component
├── index.js          # Entry point for React app
├── global-styles.js  # Global styled-components styles
└── … (other configuration files)

Installation & Setup

1. Clone the Repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/your-repo.git
   cd your-repo
   

   2. Backend Setup: • Navigate to the backend directory and install dependencies:

cd backend
npm install

• Configure your OracleDB connection details in database.js. • Create a .env file (if not already provided) for secret keys and other sensitive configuration (e.g., JWT secret, TMDb API key). • Run any required SQL scripts to initialize your database schema and stored procedures.

3. Frontend Setup: • Navigate to the frontend directory and install dependencies:

cd ../frontend
npm install

How to Run

Running the Backend

1. Start the Oracle Database Ensure that your OracleDB is running and that the connection details in backend/services/database.js are correct. 2. Run the Express Server:

cd backend
npm start

Running the Frontend

1. Start the React Application:

cd frontend
npm start

Testing the Application

• Frontend:

Use the browser to navigate through the application pages (Home, Browse, Profile, etc.).

• Backend:

You can use tools like Postman or curl to test API endpoints (e.g., user login, profile creation, content search).