AnalogTV for TV plays your own videos through a simulated analogue TV: the broadcast signal, tape, the receiver and the CRT, all on the Apple TV's GPU. It plays streams and IPTV playlists, Plex, and files from FTP, SFTP and SMB shares, and it has Teletext pages and test cards built in... even some rudimentary games that we created to initially test the app.

2.0 is the biggest release so far by a long way. It has more changes than any version before it, and the picture engine went from generation 8 to generation 38. A lot of it comes from user feedback, on what the app can do, how faithful the picture is, and how easy it is to use.

The video is my own footage from Vienna, Budapest and Sydney, run through the same picture engine. Each shot starts as I filmed it and wipes across to the app's version.

What's new:

- The picture engine was rebuilt against the published broadcast standards. Every standard is sharper, and PAL no longer shows a fine dot pattern.

- Tape behaves like tape. Each format reaches its own resolution, tape colours are now correct, and paused or mistracking tape shows noise from a modelled FM tape channel. That's the bar across the paused shot.

- SECAM was rebuilt to the ITU standard, including the French looks, with full-strength colour and a real receiver's colour filter, so fine detail no longer flickers with false colour.

- Camera tube looks are truer: the trails behind lights come out brighter. The night tram in the video is a vidicon.

- The A/V Sync setting now works on streams too, so you can fine-tune lip sync on anything you watch.

- White is full white again; a new picture tube was being dimmed slightly.

- Fixes: after fast forward or rewind, a file's sound picks up in step with the picture, and after choosing Snow the menu comes back when you press a button on the remote.

Your My Looks from version 1.x keep the picture you made them with.

It's $9.99 on the App Store and needs tvOS 18 or later. All processing is done on-device, no ads, no data collection, no partial functionality. NDI receive is an optional in-app purchase (the only optional feature). There are separate iPhone/iPad and Mac versions too.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/analogtv-for-tv/id6792310052

Happy to answer questions about how any of it works.

I thought it was supposed to be this monochrome colour that Apple made a big deal out of? Am I missong something? The Apple TV’s we have are serial number A2169

I know everyone is sick of Plex clients. Everyone’s vibe coding them, most of them aren’t great, and none have a great UI. They also don’t solve the biggest problem with Apple TV: there are media types (TrueHD Atmos, DTS:X, DV FEL) that it can’t play correctly. A couple years ago, before AI coding had taken off, I hand-wrote a Plex frontend called Canopy+ that let me browse my library on Apple TV and hand off playback to either the main Plex app or my Shield, via Home Assistant and adb commands to automatically switch inputs and trigger playback. 

It's available on the tvOS App Store (direct link in README): https://github.com/narenh/CanopyPlus-Setup/

I’ve now managed to make the app significantly faster, more stable, and add built-in video playback for Dolby Vision (5, 8, 7 MEL) and Atmos (eAC3) thanks to AetherEngine. I’ve also managed to make setup much easier for both Shield and CoreELEC users, with multiple options for how to make playback handoff happen. Home Assistant is no longer required, although my personal setup needs it because of some CEC weirdness I don’t think others will encounter. When handing off playback Canopy+ will show a message telling you to switch remotes, with a variety of remote control images to choose from. The upshot is your CoreELEC or Shield box becomes playback-only—you literally will never have to interact with the UI ever again.

The final piece is a lightweight backend that lets you integrate other services into Canopy+. Specifically, it piggybacks off of Seerr for authentication, then lets you configure it with your Prowlarr API key (Sonarr and Radarr work through Seerr, so you don’t need to configure anything if you use them), allowing you to grant direct download/streaming privileges to whichever users you’d like (without ever giving them access directly). I mainly built this for my parents, so they can search for any movie in Canopy+ and start watching it immediately, even if I don’t have it in my Plex library. It’s designed to be zero-setup for users: you set the backend URL inside the description field of any Plex collection your users have access to, and when they sign in using Plex, the app automatically finds your backend and binds to the instance using Seerr’s authentication. Canopy+ sends playback events (including chapter transitions!) to the backend, where you can forward them to webhook handlers of your choosing. Full disclosure, the backend is vibe-coded—I’m an iOS engineer and building server stuff isn’t my wheelhouse. 

The main app, though, is almost completely handwritten in native SwiftUI—I obviously used Claude to help track down bugs and write some of the Plex API code since handwriting that stuff is a pain and also pretty error-prone. The UI is all designed by me (a human) specifically to be a delight to look at and use. There are a lot of… opinionated decisions that not everyone’s going to like, and that’s okay. 

I mainly wrote this for myself, but I’ve put a ton of work into it and I really hope that others find it useful. I do think the “play on another device” problem is a big gap that no one has really filled yet. If you do try it out, please leave feedback and issues on GitHub! 

https://github.com/narenh/CanopyPlus-Setup/

Waited too long to buy a 3rd gen and now they're all gone. Besides the shield because that's not available either, what would you apple users recommend? Google, ONN, Roku are basically my options.

Staples is clutch , I went tonight after seeing recent post saying check your local staples and they were super cool about price matching their stock. Makes sense since I never go to staples for anything but looks like they had plenty in stock as well, I don’t think anyone really goes there for this type of stuff. Anyways if you are looking to get one in person check out a staples store and ask them to price match Walmart.

My three 4k Apple TVs are all 1st gen and still work great. I really thought they were 2nd gen which is why I never replaced them with 3rd gen devices. Now I'm kicking myself for that. But I guess I'm no longer replacing on a yearly basis, I'll only be replacing if one dies. The other 4 are older Apple TV HD.

Basically want to get a new streamer for my current tv and was thinking of trying Apple TV. Not wanting to drop $289+ for a new one, so was wondering if getting a 1st generation 4K model for around $30 would be a good start and last me for a while? I know it won’t have the newest updates but does the 1st gen still pack a punch?

Hey everyone,

Strimr is a free, open source Plex and Jellyfin client for Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and Mac.

I started it about a year ago as the client I wanted for myself. The first version went up on the App Store in January, but honestly it was still rough. It's changed a lot since, and this is the first version I'm actually comfortable showing around.

When I started, the official Plex app kept pushing everything except my own library, and most of the good options on Apple TV were paid (like Infuse). Now there's a new one every week, and yes, I'm aware this post doesn't help.

I watch something on it pretty much every night, so I'm usually the first one to hit a bug, and the first one annoyed enough to fix it. A lot of the app exists because I needed it myself.

It started as Plex only, but Jellyfin support landed recently. If you run one, the other or both, you can add Plex and Jellyfin servers side by side and browse everything from a single home screen.

Short version of what it handles (full list on GitHub): most Dolby Vision profiles, HDR10/HDR10+ and Atmos, direct play or server transcoding, and Live TV and DVR on both Plex and Jellyfin. There's still plenty on my list, but the basics are solid now.

Strimr is completely free, with no subscriptions, in-app purchases or paid features.

If you're looking for a good Plex or Jellyfin client for your Apple TV, give it a try, and if something breaks or feels off, let me know here or open an issue on GitHub.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/strimr/id6757491271

TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/nayaffkP

GitHub: https://github.com/wunax/strimr

Prior to the 27.2 update, having the automatic AirPlay option disabled was enough to keep this Live Activity from appearing. Now, it is still disabled but the Live Activity has returned.

Hi everyone,

about two months ago we released Native Player v1, the first player to deliver the height channels of Dolby TrueHD Atmos (and later DTS:X) on Apple TV. Before that, your only option was a lossless 7.1 downmix with the height channels thrown away. Our Atmos path kept the heights, but it was lossy, even at 4 Mbps.

Today we are super excited to release Native Player 2.0, and it fixes exactly that. TrueHD Atmos and DTS:X are now LOSSLESS, heights included! Once again, Native Player is the first and only player to do it on Apple TV.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

You can play Blu-ray remuxes with TrueHD Atmos or DTS:X without losing sound quality and without losing the height channels. The track is decoded losslessly with no re-compression, and the objects are rendered to your speaker layout.

Here is a simple way to put it. Infuse and other players strip the height channels and deliver TrueHD Atmos and DTS:X as lossless 7.1.
Native Player renders it to the layout of your setup (5.1.2, 7.1.4, 9.1.6 and so on), and it stays lossless.

IS THIS AUDIO PASSTHROUGH?

No. Apple TV does not support bitstream passthrough, because tvOS wants to stay in control of the audio (volume leveling, dialogue enhancement and so on). Everything related with Atmos leaves the Apple TV over Dolby MAT.

AUDIO BITRATE

The bitrate depends on the number of channels and the TrueHD/DTS:X format. For example, with a 24-bit, 48 kHz TrueHD track, Infuse delivers lossless 7.1 at around 9.2 Mbps.

In Native Player, 7.1.4 gives you 13.8 Mbps, and 9.1.6 gives you a massive 18.4 Mbps.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

This is our own proprietary technology. We developed it over several years for our other app, Sound Test for Dolby Atmos, which has become the gold standard for testing Dolby Atmos on tvOS. The same technology now powers Native Player. TrueHD Atmos is rendered to the speaker layout you select in the settings, while DTS:X is always rendered in 7.1.4.

AV1 AND DOLBY VISION PROFILE 10

Version 2.0 adds AV1 playback on every Apple TV 4K. The Dolby Vision metadata is carried over untouched, so Profile 10 (10.0, 10.1 and 10.4) plays as real Dolby Vision.

As far as we know, this is the first tvOS app to do that. That means we now support Dolby Vision Profiles 5, 7, 8 and 10 with full Dolby Vision metadata. The only exception is Profile 7 FEL titles, where the enhancement layer is dropped, so the Dolby Vision is not complete. In those cases the app asks whether you want to watch in Dolby Vision or HDR10.

SMB AND WEBDAV

You can now browse and play directly from SMB shares and WebDAV servers. WebDAV self-signed certificates are supported too.

OTHER NEWS

• Sorting for network files and folders

• Search inside network folders

• Multichannel FLAC music files supported

• Major stability and performance improvements

• Fixes for seeking, buffering and resuming from the background

WHAT'S NEXT?

ISO and BDMV files and Plex integration! Plex is already working, and we are working on UI to make it as good as possible. We expect to launch in two weeks. We are also working on Atmos for HomePod and AirPods. After that, we plan to support Jellyfin and Emby.

PRICING

Everything above is free to try. Full-length playback of TrueHD Atmos, DTS:X and Dolby Vision Profile 7 titles is part of Native Player Pro, which costs $5 per year or $25 lifetime at the current early adopter price.

We also want to be transparent. When Plex support launches, the early adopter offer ends and the price goes up for both the yearly and lifetime plans. Existing subscribers keep the early adopter price forever.

SPECIAL THANKS

• The Reddit community. You guys are awesome! A huge thank you for every message, comment and movie report you've shared with us. Your feedback and support have helped us push Native Player forward and make it better with every update.

• Apple Developer Technical Support for helping us achieve full bandwidth over Dolby MAT.

MORE INFO

You can find more information about this project on our subreddit: r/NativePlayer

Find Native Player on App Store

I’ve searched but have not been able to find a fix.

Just bought a 3rd gen ( my 2nd gen just died , and I didn’t want to wait three weeks for the new one) .

ATV connected to Vizio , Vizio connected to Vizio sound bar via hdmi arc. All software is updated , and phone is 18 pro max.

When I connect the iPhone , any music playing from the music app on TV goes quiet, but the scrubber still moves as if it is playing. I also have no sound coming from iPhone microphone through tv . The microphone power button also does not stay in the on position, and will revert back to off .

I can press the emojis and they work, and I can also connect the camera, so the phone itself is connecting to the tv.

This is my first time trying this out.

Is this a software bug? Or am I missing a random setting?

Disappointed because I have wanted a newer Apple TV for this feature and I can’t even get it “ to just work”.

After no luck searching, I walked in today and they had at least 1 Gen 3 128gb 4K (I didn’t ask about total inventory) They also price matched Walmarts $149.

Can anyone recommend a big TV to use my Apple TV device? I’m looking to avoid the super weird and intrusive TVs that have recently been discovered to be listening and feeding your voice clips to advertisers. Ideally a non smart TV that I can just plug my device or PlayStation into. Any thoughts are welcome! Thanks

Updated my Apple TV, homekit cams take a while to load with a loading circle, whereas before it was snappier. Streaming gets cut, which i never had such an issue with before. Did reboot all devices and networks, no difference. Anyone same ? Overall layout feels snappier which is odd that the cam is not. Also, like the slight smaller popup for homekit cam.

So I have the 3rd gen 128gb and the device keeps blinking the white led light it updated and I tried to restore it factory reset with send reports ¿any ideas? and I have tried unplugging it leaving it unplugged for couple mines and nothing changed… any other solutions besides talking or taking the device to Apple or best buy

Basically I want the Apple TV App to stop downloading so many shows that I am not currently watching.

It downloaded almost 20gb separated over four shows that I don’t currently watch, I just added it to my watchlist because I want to watch it later.

My problem is, that I don’t want to disable the automatic downloads in the settings, because for shows that I am actually watching that is very useful and I would like to use it.
I tried to click and hold it, but the only options I have here are to either remove it from my watchlist or mark all episodes as seen. I don’t really want to do either.

Is there no way to stop the other shows from downloading?

The color animations in the Now Playing view in Apple Music are now a lot faster and more aggressive than the previous tvOS version. Anyone else notice this change?

I have two different Apple TVs. Both are still running TVOS 26.6. Both are on automatic updates.

Why might they not be receiving TVOS 27?

We're big fans of using the Apple TV screen saver to show our shared family album.

Since tvOS 27, that experience has been a real bummer. Every few weeks, I find we've been demoted to Aerial because my photo's are stuck "Syncing".

To get it working again, I have to remove my account completely, reenable my connection to iCloud photos and setup the screen saver again. Even then, it only downloads enough photos to run two pages of the Reflections screen saver. Gigabytes free and it can't even show a fraction of what a Temu picture frame would.

Cut to AppleTV 27.2, and there's a new setup flow that requires that 27.2 be installed on a phone/.iPad to continue. Fine. I did that, set it all back up again, and it's right back to being stuck syncing. It's been hours but the screen saver settings won't let me pick anything other than Arial. I can see photos in the actual Photos AppleTV app. My pictures are coming down, it's just the screen saver that's confused.

Anyone else have this problem? I sure would love to see screen savers get some bug-fixing love.