EmuTV
EmuTV is a controller-only, big-screen ("10-foot") front end for the couch. Instead of the mouse-and-keyboard library, it gives you a TV-style interface you drive entirely with a gamepad — browse your consoles and games, launch them, and manage save states without leaving the sofa.
EmuTV is themed: it renders themes built for EmulationStation Desktop Edition (ES-DE), so you can make it look however you like by dropping in or downloading themes.
From the library, hold the L3 + R3 + L2 + R2 chord (both stick clicks + both triggers) for about a second and a half. The same chord, held while a game is running, quits the game and returns you to EmuTV.
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| D-pad / Left stick | Navigate |
| A | Open / Play |
| B | Back |
| Y | Theme browser |
| Start | Save states (while browsing a console's games) |
| L1 / R1 | Page up / down (fast scroll) |
| L3 + R3 + L2 + R2 (held) | Quit the running game back to EmuTV |
On a desktop you can also use the keyboard: arrow keys to navigate, Enter to select, Esc to go back, T for the theme browser, F6 to import a theme, F7 to cycle themes.
The Theme browser and Save states buttons are rebindable in Preferences → EmuTV.
EmuTV reads ES-DE-format themes. There are two ways to add them:
- Download in-app — press Y in EmuTV to open the theme browser. It lists themes from the official ES-DE themes list alongside any you've already installed, with previews. Select one to download and apply it.
- Drop one in — place an ES-DE theme folder in your EmuTV themes directory (see Where themes live) and it appears in the browser.
EmuTV ships with a built-in EmuTV Default theme — a dark console-icon carousel with a retro TV preview and save-state browsing.
Important
Not every ES-DE theme is fully supported yet. ES-DE has a large and still-evolving theme spec, and EmuTV's renderer doesn't cover 100% of it — some themes may render with missing or imperfect elements (for example, video previews are inconsistent across themes right now). Coverage improves with each release. If a theme doesn't look right, switch back to EmuTV Default, which always works.
Press Start while browsing a console's games to open the save-state browser — a carousel of your existing states for that game. Move with ◀ ▶, press A to load, B to close.
Mid-game you can also save and load straight from the gamepad, anywhere — hold L3 then press R2 to save, or L2 to load your latest state. Those combos are configurable per console in Preferences → Controls.
Preferences → EmuTV lets you rebind EmuTV's controls — the Theme browser (default Y) and Save states (default Start) buttons — and review the full controller-combo reference for both EmuTV and in-game.
| Mode | Themes folder |
|---|---|
| Normal | [DataRoot]/EmuTvThemes/ |
| Portable |
PortableData/EmuTvThemes/ next to the .exe |
Drop ES-DE theme folders here, or let the in-app browser download them for you. Each theme is a folder containing capabilities.xml, theme.xml, and its assets — exactly the layout ES-DE uses, so themes made for ES-DE work as-is.