VideoLAN has officially announced the availability of VLC Media Player for the fourth-generation Apple TV on the tvOS App Store with platform specific features like content discovery, saved logins and remote playback. The app enables you to play video files and streams in their native formats without conversions. It also integrates with a wide range of devices and services including support for all major video formats and protocols.
The main advantage of the new app is that the login credentials can be stored securely on the Apple TV and can be easily synchronized to and from other iOS devices like iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
The VLC app includes the capability to remotely play multiple files on your TV using drag and drop mechanism. To work with this feature, all you need to do is provide an IP address, which you can fetch from the Remote Playback menu on Apple TV.
You can paste relevant URLs for compatible video streams and control the playback from the remote playback page. You can also delete a video file using Siri Remote touchpad until you face some wiggle effect and selecting the Play/Pause button.
The VLC Media Player for Apple TV app automatically detects video files stored on your local network using Windows Share (SMB), DLNA/UPnP media servers, FTP and PLEX protocols. It is possible to navigate videos with the Siri Remote with the ability to add subtitles from OpenSubtitles.org.
You will be able to store files till the internal storage reaches its maximum limit. In the same way, you can initiate playback of multiple URLs on your TV with support for adaptive streaming protocols like HLS, Smooth, RTSP, HTTP, and FTP.
The first tab of the app is dedicated to discovering services on your local network followed by remote playback, network stream. You can also manage settings using the navigation panel on the top of the app.
VLC for Apple TV app provides support all basic media related operations including the ability to set custom playback speed. The app also integrates with a hatchet.is community service to display images of artists and their biographies in addition to album artwork.
The app provides full support for Right-to-Left languages like Arabic and Hebrew including complex text layouts for Malayalam and Asian languages.
VLC is scheduled to provide Apple TV support for cloud services Dropbox, OneDrive and Box by the end of Q2 2016.
