Swiftfin tvOS - Status Update

[JPKribs]

Last Updated | 2024-12-12

Currently, Swiftfin for tvOS is not yet ready for TestFlight. Some delays are due to shared components between iOS/iPadOS and tvOS (such as the Video Player Manager), while others stem from challenges unique to tvOS. Developing for tvOS tends to introduce quirks that make progress slower, such as more limited support for SwiftUI on tvOS, cursor focus management, and a more complex process to test builds on real hardware than with iOS.

That said, we are actively working to get the next version of Swiftfin for tvOS ready for testing. Below is an outline of our progress, detailing both what has been achieved and what remains to be done.

---

Nice to Have / Not Required for 1.X

• General View Polish (Error Handling, Stateful ViewModels, etc.)
• Reactive Home Screen Issue #784 & Issue #1155
• Library Scrolling Focus Loss (Focus jumps to the top of the screen on page loads)

---

Not Started

• Episode Selector (Season View)
• Finish Item View (Error Handling, Stateful ViewModels, etc.)

---

In-Progress

• Video Player Manager Refactor | PR #1203

• Video Player UI | Relies on PR #1203

• Sign-In Flow (Delete Single Users, login pins, etc.) | PR #1359

---

Developed

These Pull Requests will be included in the next tvOS Build:

• Navigation and Item Overhaul #492
• Revamp Device Profile Builder #519
• New Year, New Video Player + Other Goodies #593
• Refactor PosterButton and libraries, good UICollectionViews, proper orientation handling, and more #905
• [tvOS][QOL] Supports back button click when in the native player. #947
• [tvOS][Bug] Fixes season selector only showing a single season. #950
• tvOS - Remove last CollectionView #1036
• User/Server Sign In Redesign #1045
• tvOS Library Paging #1057
• tvOS - Show and interact with the video menu #1066
• [tvOS] TV Shows Icon Doesn't Highlight #1074
• tvOS 17 as minimum #1076
• Add ability to hide "Recently Added" section at home screen #1087
• [tvOS] Change password to be a SecureField and autosubmit on password comple… #1090
• VLCKit Hard Versioning #1136
• Update tvOS onChange #1141
• Fix Trailing Slash Server URL #1145
• [iOS & tvOS] App-Wide Bitrate Limit #1147
• [iOS & tvOS] Customizable Device Profiles #1169
• Fix Video Player Tracks #1176
• [iOS & tvOS] Fix Opus Playback Issues on Native Player #1226
• [iOS & tvOS] Add 'Enable Rewatching' and ' Max days' to Next Up #1258
• [tvOS] ItemView Button Cleanup #1296
• [tvOS] Media Item Menu - Refresh / Delete Items #1348

---

Likely Resolutions

The Pull Requests included in this next tvOS build likely resolve the following Issues:

• Videos with DTS won't Play #496
• MKVs won’t play more than a few seconds.  #502
• Can't pick audio and/or subtitles #577
• live TV can't play or can play but no sound #503
• No Audio From Live TV #658
• Live TV is transcoded for no reson(?) #668
• Transcoding when it shouldn't be #669
• TRUEHD7.1 track has no sound #676
• HEVC content is unable to be played back (correctly) via the Native Player #691
• Not Able to Seek #703
• Transcoding not working with Swiftfin, even though it is fine on other devices #715
• Multi Channel Audio through Standard Video Player does not work #723
• Does not report new state event on tvOS #770
• TVOS Files with external subtitles will not play #780
• 4K HDR HEVC file stuttering on multiple devices #782
• Video player doesn't work on Apple TV HD #790
• VP9 video doesn't play in experimental native player #803
• Swiftfin not playing content in HDR on Apple TV 4K 3rd Generation #811
• Native player doesn’t work #851
• Swiftfin doesn't appear to close playing sessions properly #923
• AppleTV Swiftfin Client Not Properly Reporting Playback Progress #928
• Apple TV - Fully-compatible video stutters and drops keyframes #929
• Apple TV 4K #937
• Duplicate Streams, Same Device, Same Content #943
• Issues playing content, specific to Apple TV HD. #972
• Video doen't play in default video player in swiftfin #976
• Apple TV not playing audio correctly #1016
• OPUS audio not playing on Apple TV #1150
• AppleTV 4th Gen - Jellyfin/Swiftfin Not Transcoding Properly #1214
• Unable to delete server on tvOS #1221

---

Disclaimer

Please note that we have no firm release date and won’t commit to one. Swiftfin development is volunteer-driven by individuals who have other commitments. Updates will be posted here as available. We ask that you please be respectful of those dedicating their free time to make Swiftfin a reality.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments, and I'll answer as best I can!

---

Edits

• 2024-11-04: Added all tvOS PR's currently merged into Main

• 2024-11-12: Added episode card changes

• 2024-12-08: Reorder for readability and adding new tvOS items

• 2024-12-11: Clarity on the PRs included and the issues potentially resolved

• 2024-12-12: Move Sign-In Flow from 'Not Started' to 'In-Progress'

[tehabe]

So this is the reason why I still see Swiftfin 1.0.1 on tvOS? I really hoped when I saw the change log for Swiftfin 1.2 it would also be available on tvOS.

[JPKribs]

That is correct. TVOS and iOS have shared components but all UI elements are essentially separate apps. As we have progress to the tvOS version of Swiftfin, I will make updates to this discussion to keep everyone in the loop.

[gpl007]

Hi Team, for the past couple of months (not sure exactly) I have been unable to connect to my server through Swiftfin on tvOS. It comes up as a local server, but when I select it the Connect button flickers for a split second and goes back to Connect. This happens over and over. I've tried restarting the app, restarting the server, and re-installing the app. Any ideas?

I was going to open an issue but I just had a feeling that it was worth asking first as it may be something I don't realise.

[JPKribs]

Let's open this up as an issue so we don't ping everyone. People who are subscribed to this discussion will get notified on posts like this but this isn't directly related to the next tvOS release.

[justdanyul]

Firstly, I just want to thank you for all the hard work here, I think we are alot of TVOS users that are quite existed about the prospect of this update.

With that said, I really would plead for you to bump the prioritisation of "Reactive Home Screen". As my understanding is, the "Up next" bug is going to be

As somebody that watches a lot of series, I'd go so far to say that not having to manually browse for the next episode of a TV series, every time I want to continue watching, represents the biggest quality of life improvement I can think of in the currently client (which otherwise works fairly well for me).

[JPKribs]

The feature is important to us, and we’ll include it in the next release if timing allows. However, our focus is getting the many improvements we’ve already completed into tvOS as quickly as we can. It’s on our radar, and we want to see it done, but we won’t hold up the release if it’s not ready in time.

That's all I mean by our "Nice to Have" section.

[Citrus0299]

There is also always Infuse as the alternative for the whole Apple ecosystem which is feature complete with jellyfin including the latest skip intro feature while also supporting dolby vision and atmos. The latter won't be properly supported by this app for a long time or probably never.

[chickdan]

I know I've been saying "I want to help out" and haven't pulled through, mostly because my 2018 MBP was crapping out and I was waiting for the M4 release. I have a new MBP now so I'd like to [finally] jump in! Since tvOS has been one of the biggest asks from the community I want to focus there, could I get a bit of an explanation (or be pointed to previous discussions) of what needs to be done for the items in the Not Started section?

[LePips]

I think actually the most impactful changes would be to fix/finish the user sign in/selection views, which can supersede #1113. I haven't been in that area for a bit to see what's missing, but it should have mostly matching functionality of the iOS by the end.

[chickdan]

Sounds good, I'll take a look at the iOS sign-in and work on getting tvOS up to date.

[chickdan]

It looks like PIN codes were removed from the server side and web earlier in the year, how do you feel about that being removed from Swiftfin?

[LePips]

Those are pin codes to log in and potentially get an auth token. The way I've implemented it is solely for local device access, users still require going through full user server authentication.

Although, I'm less worried about tvOS immediately receiving that feature, if that slows down development.

[JPKribs]

@chickdan just as a heads up I touched the sign-in flow just a little bit on the iOS side: #1357. The only impact should be localizations!

[jester-xbmc]

I don't want to "inject" too much noise here, so, sorry for "moaning" about this, but please don't forget about the letter picker, if one uses the current tvOS version and one has a lot of entries under movies, it is impossible to navigating quickly (yes I know about search, but thats not "navigating quickly") with the letter picker
These are of course just my 2 cents, but polling several users (and their WAF "wife acceptance factor") its a large hurdle moving to Jellyfin permanently for them.

Thanks again to the devs for your work !

[JPKribs]

I have a functioning version of this done but there's a wider discussion that needs to take place:

#1177

For libraries in 'Media', the filter logic already exists from the iOS side. For the Home Screen "Movies" and "TV Shows" that doesn't exist. I haven't dug into it too much but I think our ability to filter on 'Item Type' is significantly limited compared to a Library.

So, I'd love to say it's in the work but there's some more structural thinking we need to do first. You can follow from the PR I listed above.

[jester-xbmc]

Indeed I have been looking at the PR.

To be honest, releasing an update, even one with "just" the media part and current updates would help, I understand that you might want to hold off and polish the tvOS version a bit more, but it's a double edged sword, releasing, even calling it an alpha/beta, as you did with the current version, also gives feedback and finds bugs etc.
Anyway, its the age old debate between releasing more often or holding off until it is more polished...

Thanks for your work, wish I could help, but I'm afraid i'm not an Apple dev and I try to stick in my lane...

[holow29]

Many of the playback issues mentioned in the "Solve these issues" section were solved with the device profile builder refactor in #519. (And then IIRC the opus ones subsequently when you did the refactor of device profiles.) Which is to say that not all those open issues need work, but they haven't been closed because they still occur in the latest released build - which is outdated.

[JPKribs]

That is correct. "This Should Improve/Solve These Issues" was the title I chose as I believe many of these issues are resolved by #519 but we'll want to validate as that change makes its way into tvOS. My guess is that ~95% of these will be resolved by that original refactor but we want to make sure we don't close out anything related to these until #519 is available on both platforms.

[holow29]

Ah I understood it to mean "This should [be] improve[d]" instead of "This should improve [based on already-committed changes]." Gotcha!

[JPKribs]

Ah! That's on me, I worded that poorly. I've updated my verbiage to more accurately describe what I meant!

[movh]

is there any rough timeline or release date for the coming tvos version? really can't wait for it!

[bahace]

Or can we get an invite to TestFlight version for Apple TV if there is one?

[nokaka]

New ios versions are also expected. I even visit github often.

[JPKribs]

Just due to the nature of being a volunteer driven project, it's always difficult to give estimates. Especially with the holiday, it's hard to lock down that person X will be able to get done with Y since there are a lot of other obligations this time of year.

This being said, I can give you a rough roadmap of where what needs to be done to get this ready. From there, following individual tasks should help with estimating the 'progress' we have towards release.

Please note, everything being worked on is being done by volunteers. Please direct any questions about our tvOS release to this discussion as reaching out / pinging developers directly only adds additional overhead to their existing work.

1. Video Player Manager Refactor #1203 is our big highlight feature. This is a very large enhancement and touches a lot of places in Swiftfin. Implementing this correctly takes time and testing to make sure we aren't introducing any unforeseen issues that hamper playback.

2. Once the playback manager is complete, the tvOS player UI needs to be updated. This was done for iOS here but unfortunately at that time, there were iOS UI components that Apple just did not provide for tvOS. As a result, the tvOS player UI is incomplete. Swiftfin now targets a later version of tvOS which introduces some of those UI elements and allows us to complete this. That being said, the VideoPlayerManager changes will require player changes, so it's more prudent for us to wait for that to resolve rather than having to change the player UI twice.

3. Sign-in flow needs to be completed prior to release and we're discussing this here: Swiftfin tvOS - Status Update #1294 (comment).

4. Views and State management can be worked on prior to the VideoPlayerManager. I have this on my list of items I want to work on after I wrap up iOS/iPadOS Admin Functionality where we need to ensure that all tvOS UI have proper handling for all fringe cases.

Once we have these 4 wrapped up, we should be in the area to look at releasing a TestFlight for this version but, depending on timing of the other items, we may hold off if there are any other tvOS features close to completion when the 4 big items wrap up.

But please remember, this is a rough estimate and these items are subject to change.