TVH Client for Android/Google TV

Jane · 2026-02-04T12:23:53+00:00

Hi everyone, I’m curious whether there are people here who would actually use or be interested in a dedicated TVH client with a proper UI for Android TV / G...

DeltaMikeCharlie

Have you tried Kodi?

https://kodi.tv/about/
https://kodi.tv/download/android/

It's not a 'dedicated TVH client' but it can connect to TVH and has an interface designed for navigating on large screens at a distance.

Jane

Thank you for the recommendation — I know Kodi very well and it’s a great media center.
However, running a system inside a system just for a single service feels quite unpleasant to me.

Personally, I’m using Vero 4K for TVHeadend and a Google TV Streamer for everything else. But since the best days of Vero seem to be behind it, the idea came up to get rid of one set-top box and find a native solution for Google TV — ideally with native HTSP protocol support.

Because I’m a developer, I went ahead and created a small proof of concept that fully meets my needs. If there are more people thinking about the same thing, I’d be happy to share it and potentially polish it further — maybe even publish it on Google Play so it’s available to everyone.

Of course, that would involve proper testing and validation, so I wanted to ask first:
Would this kind of application be interesting for other users as well?

DeltaMikeCharlie

Jane ideally with native HTSP protocol support.

The native HTSP protocol is not as full-featured as the JSON API, however, you can get access to the entire JSON API using the HTSP api method.

https://docs.tvheadend.org/documentation/development/htsp/client-to-server-rpc-methods#api
https://docs.tvheadend.org/documentation/development/htsp/http-proxy-examples
https://docs.tvheadend.org/documentation/development/json-api

Alternately, you could just use the JSON API directly via HTTP instead and bypass HTSP altogether. You can establish a websocket connection to TVH that will also send you asynchronous object updates just like HTSP does.

Jane I’d be happy to share it and potentially polish it further — maybe even publish it on Google Play so it’s available to everyone.

My opinion is that you should at least share a few screenshots and/or make your work available to the community, even if it is clearly as a development/alpha/beta version for now. If you get more interest, then maybe publish it on Google Play.

Also see if there is any overlap with your plans and the following:
http://tvhclient.com/
https://tvheadend.org/d/8903-introducing-tvhplayer-a-free-cross-platform-client-for-tvheadend
mfat/tvhplayer

Jane

Everything is already available on GitHub, including screenshots, source code, and current development versions.
You can check it out here: Preclikos/tvhstream

Feel free to try it, explore the code, and share any feedback or suggestions

Chris G

I recently moved to Android, so I stared your project.
Currently running Kodi.

This seems to work well, but It's unusable without purchasing (and I prefer the Kodi UI) : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.cyberdream.dreamepg.tvh.tv.player&hl=en_GB

daonguyen minhnhat

I also need an application like the one you mentioned, one that's easy to use for older adults, not one with too many steps like Kodi.

Jane

daonguyen minhnhat
You can check the GitHub here: Preclikos/tvhstream
— there is an automated APK build available.

If you’re interested, I can also add you to the closed testing on Google Play. Unfortunately, apps can’t just be published freely — Google requires at least 12 testers over a 14-day period before a specific version can be released publicly, or at least before attempting to do so.

If anything is missing for you (for me it’s enough that it simply plays the current channel), feel free to open an issue on GitHub and I’ll try to implement it. Right now I’m focusing on stabilizing the app and improving internal things for better performance.

Kiril St.

@Jane Wow, finally one working app! Just tested latest apk ,and for now i dont see any bugs. I have some questions: can you add option in login screen for choosing streaming profiles( like in kodi), and in future release, if we long press ok button, to show channel list? Because now i have to stop current channel and select another.
Many thanks for good work!

Jane

Kiril St.
Thanks a lot for testing and for the kind words, really appreciate it 🙂

Regarding streaming profiles on the login screen — I need to take a closer look at how profiles work outside of HTSP. So far I’ve only worked with HTSP, but if other providers handle profiles in a similar way, it shouldn’t be a big problem to add. I’ll definitely investigate.

About showing the channel list with a long press on OK while playing — that actually makes perfect sense. I like that idea a lot and it would make switching channels much smoother. I’ll put it on the list and look into it together with the profiles.

Right now I’m mainly fixing focus issues between the main screens. Navigation sometimes jumps between channels unexpectedly, and the left-side menu focus is also not behaving correctly, especially when returning from the player. Once that’s stable, I’ll move on to these feature requests 🙂

Thanks again for the feedback and support!

Kiril St.

Htsp protocol support transcoding profile. In my case, I use low bitrate stream profile with gpu acceleration, and that works fine in kodi (I only use htsp port), so take a look.

Ant

I've literally today been wondering if there's a decent android app for accessing TVH with an EPG.

I'd be very interested in testing the app.

I used TVH for many years but stopped a few years ago for various reasons (mainly availability of on demand/streaming services). Still have a lot of hardware (SAT>IP box, DVB-S2 tuners, DVB-T2/C tuners) and plan to build a small DVB-T2 server to use with some TVs without access to aerials but with Android/Google TV boxes.