How can I help you to add Android TV support ?

[Seb7o]

Hi everyone !
I'm interested in having a beautiful Android TV client for jellyfin, I want the best for my users ahah. So I wanted to know how can I help you for implementing this ?
I mean, I saw it's in the roadmap so, are there anything started about this, where to start etc.
To add context I'm a backend developper, I have some knowledge about Flutter but from a few years ago now. That's why I need a little help on how to start, if you're interested of course :)

[PartyDonut]

Hi thanks for showing interest and wanting to help out!

The android tv client has hit a bit of a roadblock on my end at the moment. I'm not even entirely sure if it's something that Flutter can handle.

I've managed to get Fladder running on a google tv device and while the interface works kind of. Videoplayback is a stuttery mess with any video above 1080p. This seems to be a common theme with Flutter where the videoplayers don't seem to handle hardware acceleration on android tv devices.

This problem is only exacerbated by the fact that most Android TV devices are vastly underpowered.
So that would probably be the first option trying to find a better video player backend to use on Android TV. At the moment Fladder has both media-kit and fvp both have the same performance issues.

Other options.

1. Handle the UI in Flutter and create a native android (kotlin,compose) wrapper for any videoplayer purposes. This is not the pretiest solution but it would keep the UI development quick by using Flutter for that. This does however come with performance impacts and having to maintain 1.5 code bases.
2. Develop an app that acts as a streaming receiver for Fladder, allowing users to cast content from their phone. This would offer better playback performance and more native functionality than Chromecast, but at the cost of being essentially a slightly improved Chromecast.
3. Re-create the client as a native application using kotlin and compose. While the know how is there it's not something I want to work on at this moment. And probably best to have a look at Findroid as they seem to be working on exactly that.

TLDR: Flutter videoplayback is horrible at the moment for AndroidTV and unless this improves the tv client is probably not going to happen anytime soon. I wil update the roadmap to reflect this.

That all being said if anyone has a different solution I'm all ears 😄.

[Seb7o]

Hi !
Thx for this very detailled answer. I understand. Btw, I really like what you guys acheived with this project, nice work !
If there is a plan or something that in the future make it possible, feel free to reach me back here !