Building tvOS

FFmpegKitNext for tvOS can be built with the recommended Nix wrapper or by calling the direct tvOS build script.

Before building, review tvOS Prerequisites. For the full tvOS option reference, see nix-tvos.sh.

Build With Nix

Use the Nix wrapper for normal builds, CI builds and reproducible host environments.

./nix-tvos.sh --list-profiles
./nix-tvos.sh -p xcode26 -x --spm

The wrapper enters the selected Nix profile and then calls scripts/start-tvos.sh inside that environment.

Use -x or --xcframework to build xcframework bundles. Use --spm with -x to create a local Package.swift next to the generated xcframeworks. Omit both options if you want framework bundles instead.

Build Without Nix

If you maintain Xcode and the host tools yourself, call the direct script from the project root:

./scripts/start-tvos.sh -x --spm

The direct script uses the environment described in tvOS Prerequisites.

Build Options

The same tvOS build options can be passed to both commands. For example:

./nix-tvos.sh -p xcode26 -x --spm --enable-dav1d --enable-libvpx --disable-arm64-simulator
./scripts/start-tvos.sh -x --spm --enable-dav1d --enable-libvpx --disable-arm64-simulator

Use --enable-gpl when enabling GPL-licensed libraries such as x264, x265, xvidcore, libvidstab or rubberband.

The complete option list is documented in nix-tvos.sh.

Build Flow

The tvOS build has two phases:

1. Build FFmpeg, FFmpegKitNext and enabled external libraries for the enabled tvOS and simulator architectures.
2. Package the generated binaries into framework bundles or xcframework bundles, and optionally create a local Swift package manifest.

Build Output

Build outputs are written under prebuilt.

Common output folders are:

prebuilt/bundle-apple-xcframework-tvos-11.0/
prebuilt/bundle-apple-framework-tvos-11.0/
prebuilt/bundle-apple-framework-appletvos-11.0/
prebuilt/bundle-apple-framework-appletvsimulator-11.0/

When --spm is used, Package.swift is created in the generated xcframework folder.