DreamPlayer

A cross-platform video player for Android, iOS/iPad, and Android TV — built for true Dolby Vision, HDR10/HDR10+, and lossless audio playback.

DreamPlayer is live on the App Store — approved and available on iPhone and iPad.

Download DreamPlayer on the App Store →

• Free, no ads, no account required
• Requires iOS / iPadOS 17.0 or later
• Play your own files: local storage, Files-app folders, WebDAV, FTP/SFTP, Jellyfin, DLNA, and Files-app "Open with" hand-offs from SMB/NAS shares
• Full Dolby Vision / HDR10 / HDR10+ / HLG support on capable iPad and iPhone panels, plus lossless audio (DTS-HD, TrueHD, E-AC3, FLAC)
• Android builds remain free on the Releases page

Each thumbnail is linked — click any image to open it full size.

Library in landscape — poster grid, per-title artwork, year · type · source badges

Library	Details — backdrop, cast, stills, trailers	Player — Dolby Vision P7 · TrueHD 7.1 · 4K	Settings

Library — per-source SMB / NAS badges	Details — Download to device	Player — Dolby Vision P7 · TrueHD 7.1 · Spatial	Settings

• Plays Dolby Vision Profiles P4 / P5 / P7 / P8 / P9 at 4K 60fps with zero dropped frames — chip shows DV P8, DV P7, etc.
• Full HDR10 / HDR10+ / HLG passthrough to the display panel
• Live on-screen chips showing the active HDR format (profile-aware), video codec, audio codec, and resolution
• Graceful fallback on non-DV devices (P7/P8 as HDR10, P5 shows clean error)

• All major codecs: DTS, DTS-HD, TrueHD, E-AC3, AC3, AAC, FLAC and more
• Mid-playback audio track switching with full track names and channel info
• Default track on open — the player picks the file's DEFAULT-flagged audio track (not merely the first entry in the list); resume keeps your last pick per video, per engine (Watch from beginning returns to the default)
• Optional Media3 audio passthrough over HDMI for Dolby Atmos / DTS:X on compatible soundbars
• Spatial audio (Android 13+) — the same phone Spatial-audio setting drives both Media3 and MPV; the teal chip shows when the system Spatializer can virtualize the current multichannel PCM output on wired, USB, and Bluetooth routes
• Bass Boost — Off/Low/Medium/High session-level DSP that restores the low-end HRTF virtualization thins out (appears while Spatial audio is engaged)
• Volume Boost + Night Mode — up to 3× loudness lift and dynamic-range compression (Android)

• Embedded + sideloaded — every subtitle file next to the video auto-attaches
• Network-share sidecars — .srt/.ass/.vtt/.sub/.ttml/.smi/.mpl2 files in the same SMB / WebDAV / FTP folder as the video are auto-discovered and attached as external tracks. The best filename match is auto-selected (Show.S01E01.eng.srt matches Show.S01E01.mkv). Works on Android for every network source — local files, SMB shares, WebDAV servers, FTP/SFTP servers, Jellyfin libraries, and "Open with" hand-offs. iOS supports the same behaviour for local files (via AetherPlayerView); server-side external sub discovery for WebDAV/FTP on iOS is on the roadmap.
• Priority: sidecar > server external > embedded. The first sidecar match is flagged as the default track; the rest are reachable from the CC button. When a folder has zero matches, the player falls back to the container's embedded track automatically.
• Fallback-engine subs — the libmpv fallback engine has the same priority rule. External subs are added with sub-add (non-defaults) and setSubtitleTrack (default), so mpv's track-list mirrors the Media3 path and the CC sheet shows every track by real filename.
• Supports SRT, SSA/ASS, WebVTT, TTML, SAMI, MicroDVD, MPL2, SubViewer
• Full track picker with Off option; subtitles are anchored to the video, not the screen
• Appearance settings — size, color, background, outline, and sync delay with live preview (in the player's ⋮ menu; delay live on Android via DelayingParser + reopen)
• OpenSubtitles — search/download from CC (5/day anon, 20/day free login); Nova-based language catalog (full names, 3-letter eng/fre/pob/zho, zh-CN/zh-TW) for reading + download prefs + text encoding (CP1250…CP949)

• SMB / NAS — in-app SMB browser on Android; CX Explorer "Open with" handoff; cold starts fill the ring buffer before the first read and skip Matroska end-of-file cue seeks so large MKVs open fast
• WebDAV — browse and stream from WebDAV servers on both platforms
• Jellyfin / Emby — browse libraries, direct-play with auto-discovery
• FTP / SFTP — browse and stream from FTP servers and SSH/SFTP file hosts
• DLNA / UPnP — discover and play from media servers on your LAN
• Files app "Open with" on iPad with bookmarked folders
• Encrypted credentials (Android Keystore / iOS Keychain)

• Continue watching — resume any partially-watched video with progress bars
• User-added folders — add a TV show or movie folder, get a TMDB poster and episode list; deep recursive scan (up to 5 levels) expands mixed containers so loose files aren't hidden behind parent cards
• Movie-part folders stay separate — Das Finale 01–04 each get their own card with the correct per-part TMDB match
• Manual grouping — select cards (long-press) → Group → one grouped card with the name you choose; TV series still auto-group by name
• Bookmark network folders to Home — pin SMB and WebDAV folders straight from their browsers, with a colored source badge (Jellyfin/FTP/DLNA are browse-only via + menu)
• Season auto-expand — bookmarking a show expands each season into its own card (House Season02, House Season03); group manually if you want one card
• Download to device — download network videos for offline playback (SMB, WebDAV, HTTP, Jellyfin, UPnP)
• Downloaded files in home grid — completed downloads appear with a checkmark badge, tap to play
• SIMKL watched sync — free unlimited watch-history sync (simkl.com); auto-pushes finished videos and syncs watched state across devices
• File browser — browse device storage and play any video without importing

• English, Spanish, Chinese Simplified, Russian — 504 translated strings across all 13 screens
• Auto-detect device language on launch; optional Settings → General → Language override
• Technical terms (codec names, HDR, Dolby Vision, etc.) stay English by design

• Every video opens a details screen with poster, backdrop, synopsis, rating, genres, runtime, and cast
• Metadata auto-fetches in the background — rows show poster thumbnails before you tap
• TV episodes labeled with Season/Episode info
• "Fix match" to correct a wrong auto-match
• Grouped screens get the full header — backdrop hero, overview, rating, genres, cast, trailers, then the poster cards
• Player top bar shows the TMDB title (falls back to the file name)

• Play/pause, seek, ±10s, fullscreen, auto-hiding UI
• Swipe gestures — swipe left side for brightness, right side for system volume (phones/tablets, togglable in Settings)
• Aspect ratio picker: Fit, Crop, Stretch, 16:9, 4:3 (persists per video)
• Chapters — MKV chapter ticks in the overflow menu, current chapter highlighted, tap to seek
• Playback speed 0.25×–2× with refresh-rate matching on Android
• Pinch-to-zoom, horizontal-swipe seek, double-tap-to-seek ±10 s
• Touch lock — locks gestures during playback; tap once to reveal the unlock button
• Watched marks — videos auto-mark as watched at the end; toggle manually per row
• Auto-play next episode within the same folder — local/SMB + Jellyfin via ParentId sibling walk (togglable)
• Resumes playback from where you left off, even after app close or screen lock
• Picture-in-Picture — system-drawn transport controls (rewind, play-pause, forward) work for BOTH engines, including the libmpv engine
• Two play engines — your choice — every video's details screen shows Play (Media3) and Play with MPV (libmpv, Android). mpv runs hardware-first (hwdec=auto-safe) with its own FFmpeg software fallback and decodes lossless codecs to PCM through Android AudioTrack; Media3 retains optional HDMI bitstream passthrough. Video renders into a native SurfaceView (not a Flutter texture). Media3 remains the DV/HDR engine; the MPV path can optionally tone-map HDR → SDR (Settings → Player → HDR tone-map) when a libplacebo-enabled libmpv is present.
• Anime4K for MPV (Android, opt-in) — enable the Anime4K toggle in the MPV picture panel, then choose Mode A, B, C, A+A, B+B, or C+A. The selected preset takes effect immediately and an Upscaled chip is shown while active. It is limited to SDR MPV playback; HDR/DV and PiP are disabled. The bundled Anime4K v4.0.1 fast presets use legacy vo=gpu because they do not compile with vo=gpu-next/libplacebo, so libplacebo tone mapping is unavailable while enabled. The panel warns about extra GPU load, heat, battery use, and stutter.
• Optional TheTVDB metadata — configure a TheTVDB v4 API key in Settings → Metadata. DreamPlayer keeps TMDB as the primary source, can use TheTVDB as a fallback, and lets you choose it explicitly in Fix Match/Group Poster. Provider IDs and artwork are cached independently; SIMKL matching remains TMDB-only.

The TMDb details screen offers Play with MPV alongside the primary Play (Media3). The libmpv engine (media_kit + bundled libmpv) starts up front — no Media3 platform view — runs hardware-first (hwdec=auto-safe over MediaCodec) and falls back to its bundled FFmpeg software decode when the hardware can't handle a stream, so anything the native engine's hardware/software path can't open (12-bit HEVC 4:4:4, a corrupt container, an unknown codec) plays through FFmpeg. It drives the same transport, seekbar, gestures, PiP, resume, chapter list, and CC sheet as Media3, and it decodes audio through the bundled FFmpeg path before playback. It configures Android AudioTrack output and keeps the source channels when possible, so the same phone Spatial-audio setting used by Media3 can virtualize 5.1/7.1 PCM from DTS/DTS-HD, TrueHD, E-AC3, AC3, FLAC, AAC, and similar tracks. The player observes MPV's actual output format and updates the Spatial chip when the system setting or audio route changes. MPV's audio-spdif is intentionally not enabled, so encoded bitstream passthrough is not presented as platform spatial audio. Sidecar subtitles are added explicitly (external > embedded priority, same rule as the main path). Audio follows the same rules as Media3: the container's default track on open, your last pick on resume.

Video output is a real SurfaceView (MpvSurfaceView), not media_kit's Flutter Texture — textures stutter and have no HDR path. media_kit is kept for Player control only; media_kit_video is not a dependency. A libplacebo/gpu-next-enabled libmpv.so can be dropped under android/app/src/main/jniLibs/ (Gradle pickFirsts overrides media_kit's stock binary) so HDR tone-map → SDR works for files you do not want in native HDR.

Anime4K (Android MPV only) is exposed in the same in-player tune panel as Picture. Enable Anime4K first; the default Mode A chain is applied, then select Mode A, B, C, A+A, B+B, or C+A to replace the chain immediately. An Upscaled chip appears while the chain is active. The bundled fast presets are pinned to Anime4K v4.0.1; Clamp_Highlights and the heavier HQ variants are not included. Only SDR MPV video is eligible, and the feature is unavailable for HDR/Dolby Vision and PiP. The current Anime4K shaders do not compile against the vo=gpu-next/libplacebo hook interface, so Anime4K temporarily uses legacy vo=gpu with OpenGL. That means libplacebo tone mapping is not available while the feature is enabled, and zero-copy hardware decode may switch to mediacodec-copy. The setting is session-only; the panel warns that per-frame GPU work increases heat, battery use, and stutter risk.

On a terminal Media3 error, the error surface offers Try with MPV instead of a dead end. Media3 never auto-switches — the engine choice is always the user's (up front, or on the error surface).

It is not the DV/HDR primary engine by design: Media3 still owns hardware Dolby Vision / HDR10+ passthrough to the panel. On a stock (no-libplacebo) libmpv build the MPV path stays SDR (tone-map setting no-ops safely); with the custom libmpv the HDR tone-map mode can convert to SDR intentionally. iOS does not run mpv; AetherEngine covers its own failures.

For SMB sources the mpv engine gets the file over a tiny loopback HTTP/1.1 server (SmbHttpProxy.kt, bound to 127.0.0.1, byte-range aware) — jcifs-ng only talks to Media3-native DataSources, and libmpv can't read smb://.

TMDB remains the default metadata source. Settings → Metadata also accepts an optional TheTVDB v4 API key and subscriber PIN. When enabled, TheTVDB is tried only after TMDB fails to produce a confident automatic match; Fix Match and Group Poster also let you choose TMDB or TheTVDB explicitly. TheTVDB results reuse the existing title, artwork, cast, season, and episode models, while provider-qualified IDs prevent collisions in the cache. The API key and optional PIN are stored in Android Keystore-backed storage or the iOS Keychain; legacy values are migrated at startup, and Android excludes the legacy Dart preferences file from backup. SIMKL synchronization continues to use TMDB IDs only.

TheTVDB artwork and episode data remain subject to TheTVDB's API terms and attribution requirements. See TheTVDB for details. This product uses the TheTVDB API but is not endorsed by TheTVDB. TheTVDB is currently the supported external provider; adult-content providers such as AVDB are intentionally not enabled.

• Full 10-foot UI with D-pad navigation and custom focus highlights
• Leanback launcher banner
• Dolby Vision + HDR10 passthrough to the TV panel
• Audio passthrough for Atmos/DTS:X over HDMI
• Tested on Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (Fire OS 7.1)

DreamPlayer is a video player app, but the actual video engine depends on your platform. Different platforms need different engines to do what we promise: Dolby Vision + HDR10 passthrough to the panel, lossless audio decoding, and a stable 4K 60 fps picture on a phone.

We tried mpv earlier as the primary path. It is not the right choice for the primary DV/HDR path on Android, and we deliberately do not pretend otherwise. The two blockers for mpv-as-primary:

1. Dolby Vision RPU parsing fails on the stock mpv/FFmpeg pairing we first tested. Result: pink/green output. (mpv PR #16818 was the upstream fix attempt; it never landed for our original FFmpeg version.)
2. Flutter textures have no HDR path (media-kit issue #615) — so the old texture-based mpv path tone-mapped to SDR before the panel ever saw the frame. We fixed the renderer (mpv now uses a native SurfaceView) but Media3 remains the engine that does hardware DV/HDR passthrough.

So mpv is not the primary engine. The exit interview was: keep Media3 + native SurfaceView for the DV/HDR fast path; ship native FFmpeg audio for the lossless codecs; that's the same engine stack Nova Video Player uses (ExoPlayer + FFmpeg audio) and the same one Just Player uses (stock DefaultRenderersFactory + nextlib media3ext).

But mpv is a great second engine, and the choice is yours:

• The main Media3 engine + hardware decoders remain the default play path.
• Play with MPV (details screen) starts libmpv up front — hardware-first (hwdec=auto-safe) with its own FFmpeg software fallback — for anything you want routed through mpv's decoder coverage. Video goes to a real SurfaceView; the ⓘ info sheet shows Engine · libmpv while it's active.
• On a terminal Media3 error the error surface offers Try with MPV instead of auto-switching — the engine choice is always explicit.

Documented in AGENTS.md → Player engine choice and Playback research notes.

• libVLC — works for SD content, but VLC's Android player renders into a Surface it doesn't own. To get real HDR passthrough you'd need VLC's mediacodec-hardware decoder chain, which still doesn't handle the DOVI RPU correctly on most devices. The VLC-for-Android fork that does (libVLC ≥ 4.0 with the dovi plugin) is a 100 MB binary, ships its own player UI, and is licensed LGPL-2.1 (the App Store constraint would force us to relink it).
• "ffmpeg-kant" / other FFmpeg wrappers — pure-software decode on a phone. 4K HDR HEVC at 60 fps stutters on every Snapdragon 678 / 7 gen 1 / 8 gen 2 device we've tested. No native hardware path.

DreamPlayer surfaces the system Spatializer (Android 13+, AudioManager.getSpatializer()) as a teal "Spatial" chip in the player top bar. When the chip is on, your phone is virtualizing the surround mix for your output device (stereo headphones, phone speaker, or a USB DAC). The Spatializer is implemented by the OEM, so the quality / available modes vary by device. The chip turns on only when the system reports:

1. The Spatializer is available on this device.
2. The current routing (headphones, USB, etc.) supports spatialization.
3. The current output is decoded multichannel PCM (typically 5.1/7.1); the source codec itself is not the deciding factor.

Both Media3 and MPV use the same Android phone setting. MPV decodes DTS/DTS-HD, TrueHD, E-AC3, AC3, FLAC, AAC, and similar tracks to PCM through AudioTrack; the Spatial chip is shown only when that output remains eligible for the active route. Stereo/downmixed output and encoded bitstream passthrough are not platform-spatialized.

To enable spatial audio in DreamPlayer:

1. Connect headphones or a USB DAC. Phone speakers don't get spatialized on most devices.
2. Open the file you want to play. A multichannel track is required — a stereo .aac won't engage the Spatializer.
3. Enable system spatial audio:
   • OnePlus / OPPO — Settings → Sound & vibration → Spatial Audio → enable, then choose "Music & Video". On ColorOS 13+ this is under Settings → Sound & vibration → Dolby Atmos / OPlus Audio.
   • Samsung (One UI 6+) — Settings → Sounds and vibration → Sound quality and effects → Dolby Atmos for games / movies, and "Adapt Sound" / "Dolby Atmos for headphones" if you're on the built-in speakers. The Spatializer only reports available when "Dolby Atmos" is on.
   • Xiaomi (MIUI 14+) — Settings → Sound & vibration → Sound effects → Immersive Sound / Dolby Atmos. On some MIUI builds the option is under "Audio tuner" → "Apply sound effects to media".
   • Pixel (Android 14+) — Settings → Sound & vibration → Spatial audio. The Pixel implementation is limited; some Pixels only spatialize on specific Bluetooth codecs (LDAC / aptX Adaptive).
   • Nothing OS / Motorola / ASUS ZenUI — most ship with the Spatializer disabled. Install Dirac Audio / Dolby Access / your OEM's audio app and enable spatialization from there; the system Spatializer reports available once the OEM app is active.
4. Look for the "Spatial" chip in the player top bar. When the Spatializer is on for the current track the chip turns teal. Tap the ⓘ button next to the title — the "Spatial audio" row reads "On" with the routing info.

The chip is Android-only today. On iOS, Apple spatializes multichannel soundtracks on the native AVPlayer path and the system controls it from Control Center → AirPlay / Head-tracking — DreamPlayer does not surface a state for it yet.

DreamPlayer is approved and live on the App Store for iPhone and iPad (requires iOS / iPadOS 17.0+).

Download on the App Store →

Prebuilt Android binaries are on the Releases page.

• Android — universal APK + per-architecture APKs (arm64, armv7, x86_64)

No .ipa is published on GitHub Releases. Apple only allows iOS distribution via the App Store, TestFlight, or Ad Hoc (DPLA 7.6 / 3.2(g)). Signed iOS builds are produced by the separate ios.yml workflow, uploaded to TestFlight, and released publicly on the App Store.

flutter pub get
flutter run                    # run on a connected device
flutter test                   # run tests
flutter analyze                # static analysis

For TMDB metadata, copy .env.example to .env and add your API key:

flutter run --dart-define-from-file=.env

Copyright (C) 2026 Mangesh Ghodke. Released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

If DreamPlayer is useful to you, consider supporting the project:

• Razorpay — UPI, cards, or netbanking (India)
• GitHub Sponsors — recurring support

Both are also in the app under Settings → Support.