Headent Client — Android and AndroidTV client for Tvheadend

MikrotikExe · 2026-06-25T18:32:38+00:00

Headent Client — a native Android / Android TV client for Tvheadend (looking for testers) Hi everyone, I would like to share a project I have been buildi...

MikrotikExe

Markus Bonet Thanks again for the detailed testing — build 29 addresses all three points you raised:

1. OSD for a running programme
The MENU key now opens the on-screen controls during playback, and there are dedicated remote keys for audio and subtitle switching (previously the captions key wrongly opened the EPG). If your remote's audio/subtitle button still doesn't respond, see the note at the bottom.

2. Page up / down
Channel up/down is mapped to the Page Up / Page Down keycodes in build 29. If your MagentaOne remote sends different codes, the diagnostics tool below will show us exactly what.

3. Resolution / refresh rate switching (AFR)
New in 29: Automatic Refresh Rate. The display now switches to match the stream frame rate (e.g. 50 Hz for 25 fps broadcasts), so motion looks smooth without judder. It's on by default and can be adjusted in Settings → Player (Android TV also has an optional short pause after the switch). This should also help with any slight audio lag you might notice after zapping.

If left/right (or any) buttons don't work:
Please enable Settings → Remote control → Key diagnostics. Then press the button that doesn't work — the player will briefly show its keycode on screen. Send the keycode(s) that don't respond to support@headentclient.com and we'll add them as alternative mappings for your box.

The deinterlacing praise is much appreciated — thanks!

MikrotikExe

Chris G Thanks a lot for the detailed report, Chris — really useful.

Crashes with large channel/EPG servers: I'll look into this. My suspicion matches yours — the first-run load and parsing of a large EPG could be the cause, and once it's cached the pressure is gone, which would fit why it stopped on day two. For a future build I'm considering adding a crash log that writes the error to a file you could send us, which would help pinpoint it instead of guessing.

Landscape keyboard: that half-width keyboard is Gboard's own landscape layout, not something the app controls, so it's not really on our side.

Deinterlacing "intermittent": in Settings → Player, try changing Deinterlacing from Automatic to a specific method — Bob, Yadif, Yadif (2x) or X — and see which one clears the combing on those channels. Automatic relies on the stream flagging itself as interlaced, which some broadcasts do unreliably, so forcing a method usually helps.

Your requests — noted for consideration in a future build:

Remember the last selected channel group instead of defaulting to "All"
Sort channels by name (not number) and an option to hide the number entirely
A recently-played list (last channels played), plus a toggle to show/hide Favourites and the recently-played row

Thanks again for taking the time — this kind of feedback is exactly what helps.

MikrotikExe

Chris G One more thing on the deinterlacing, Chris: before forcing a method, make sure you're on build 29 and give the app a fresh try on Automatic first. Build 29 adds Automatic Refresh Rate (AFR), which on a 60 Hz display often clears the combing on its own — the panel switches to match 50 Hz broadcasts, so the deinterlacer finally runs at the correct timing. If the combing is already gone on Automatic, you may not need to change anything. Only if it still shows up on some channels, then try Bob / Yadif / Yadif (2x) / X and see which one clears it.

MikrotikExe

Big update: a new Modern interface next to the Classic one — plus smoother playback, background radio and more

Headent Client just got its largest update so far. The app now ships with two interfaces you can switch anytime in Settings → General: the familiar Classic layout and a fully redesigned Modern one. Both come in light and dark, on phone and Android TV, and everything — live TV, the EPG, recordings, radio and the archive — works in both.

You can try both looks right in your browser on the tour page, which has a live switcher for TV / Phone, Modern / Classic and Dark / Light:
→ Open the interactive tour

Classic vs Modern

Android TV — home
Home — Classic Home — Modern

Android TV — full guide (grid EPG)
Guide — Classic Guide — Modern

Android TV — player
Player — Classic Player — Modern

Phone — channel list
Phone — Classic Phone — Modern

The Modern layout also adds a proper phone home screen (a live "now" card and a rail of your favourite channels) that the Classic layout doesn't have.

What's new (recent builds)

Two interfaces — Classic and Modern, chosen in Settings; both fully functional.
Automatic refresh rate (AFR) — the display switches to match the stream (e.g. 50 Hz for 25 fps), so motion, pans and sports are smooth without judder. Android TV (with an optional pause after the switch) and phones via the system frame-rate API. On by default, toggle in Settings → Player.
Better audio sync — on passthrough to a TV/AV receiver, sound could lag behind the picture; the player now compensates automatically and re-syncs shortly after each channel change, with a manual fine-tune if needed.
Background radio (mini player) — radio keeps playing while you browse channels, EPG or the archive: a bar above the tabs on phones, a media notification that survives a locked screen, and a dedicated panel on the Android TV home screen. Also fixed on digest-authentication servers.
Continue watching — the home screen offers a rail of what you were watching, and resuming a recording now continues from the last position instead of restarting.
Remote & playback — added/corrected remote keys (dedicated audio & subtitle buttons, MENU opens the on-screen controls), Picture-in-Picture respects its setting with a manual PiP button, and D-pad subtitle selection no longer switches the audio track by mistake.
Player follows the light theme — the on-screen controls (channel surf bar) now match the light theme too; dark mode looks exactly as before.
Crash diagnostics — if something goes wrong, a log is saved and you can review and send it straight from Settings → About → Diagnostics (pre-filled with device, Android version, app version and date).

Under the hood

HTSP for streaming, the Tvheadend HTTP interface for picons.
Authentication works with both plain and digest (MD5 / SHA-256 / SHA-512-256).
Playback powered by libVLC, with deinterlacing and audio-output options.
The interface is available in 31 languages.

Try it / join testing

The app is in active development and currently in closed testing — I'm growing the tester group and would welcome more people running different servers and devices (phones, Android TV boxes, various Android versions). If you'd like in, you can sign up here:
→ Sign up for testing

Website: headentclient.com
Source & releases: github.com/MikrotikExe/headentclient

What's next

Development continues at a steady pace: more polish on the Modern interface, further playback and passthrough refinements, and improvements driven by tester feedback. Feedback and bug reports here or on GitHub are very welcome — thanks to everyone testing so far.

Chris G

OK I will try updating, and thanks for listening to my suggestions.

I discovered I already have some logs on my phone... The issue is, I don't know how to get them back up! I noticed a notification, when I tapped it, it opened up a list of all the crashes. When I clicked on them, they showed me the crash reports. From memory, the very first crash was something to do with a null pointer (the app crashed on first launch). The rest of the crashes were all identical. Something about java.lang... and 70mb?

If you have any idea how I can bring up that UI again, I'll post the exact reports. Perhaps you know of a way to make an app crash on purpose, so that I get the notification again?

Chris G

Noticed a minor bug.
Only one of these channels should show recording:

MikrotikExe

Chris G Thanks for reporting this. Confirmed and fixed.

The recording indicator was being matched to channels by name instead of the unique channel ID. On line-ups like Sky UK there are several distinct channels that share the same name and number (e.g. the regional "ITV1 HD" variants on 103), so whenever one of them was recording, the red dot showed up on all of them.

It now matches recordings by the channel's unique ID — the same way the Kodi Tvheadend PVR client does it — so only the channel that is actually recording shows the indicator. This applies to the channel list, the in-player list/OSD and the EPG guide.

The fix will be in the next build (build 31). I'll post here once it's up in the testing track.

Chris G

MikrotikExe

Thanks. I figured that was the issue.

Did you see my previous comment?

MikrotikExe

Chris G Good news — you don't need to crash the app on purpose. HeadentClient keeps its own crash log on the device, so the reports are already saved.

To get them:

Open HeadentClient
Settings → Information → Diagnostics
You'll see the captured crash log there. Tap "Send" — it opens a pre-filled email to support@headentclient.com. Just send it and I'll have the exact reports.

The notification with the list of crashes that you tapped is Android's own system crash reporter, not part of HeadentClient, so I can't reliably bring that one back — but you don't need it, the in-app Diagnostics has what I need.

Two notes:

The app only records crashes from the build that has this diagnostics feature (build 29 and newer). If some of those crashes happened on an older build, they may not be in the in-app log — in that case just paste whatever the system screen still shows.
The identical "java.lang... 70 MB" ones look like out-of-memory errors, most likely tied to the large EPG on your server. The log will show exactly where it runs out of memory. The first crash (the null pointer on first launch) is a separate issue — I'd like that one too if it's still there.

Thanks again for digging into this.

Chris G

MikrotikExe
I see the section but it is empty. Probably because it was on a previous version?

I just deleted the server and re-added it. Sure enough it keeps crashing again. Here's the log:

HeadentClient diagnostic log
app=1.0.0 (30)
device=Xiaomi 24117RN76E
android=16 (API 36)
tv=false

[2026-07-05 23:26:53] FATAL @ thread=DefaultDispatcher-worker-14
  java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Failed to allocate a 96294456 byte allocation with 25165824 free bytes and 76MB until OOM, target footprint 213533120, growth limit 268435456
    at java.lang.StringFactory.newStringFromChars(StringFactory.java:124)
    at J1.h.toString(SourceFile:20)
    at T2.d.c(SourceFile:28)
    at sk.tvhclient.shared.storage.EpgCacheCodec.encode(SourceFile:31)
    at u3.E3.invokeSuspend(SourceFile:40)
    at f2.a.resumeWith(SourceFile:9)
    at A2.P.run(SourceFile:110)
    at F2.g.run(SourceFile:26)
    at H2.j.run(SourceFile:3)
    at H2.a.run(SourceFile:94)

[2026-07-05 23:28:23] FATAL @ thread=DefaultDispatcher-worker-14
  java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Failed to allocate a 96278328 byte allocation with 25165824 free bytes and 77MB until OOM, target footprint 212041056, growth limit 268435456
    at java.lang.StringFactory.newStringFromChars(StringFactory.java:124)
    at J1.h.toString(SourceFile:20)
    at T2.d.c(SourceFile:28)
    at sk.tvhclient.shared.storage.EpgCacheCodec.encode(SourceFile:31)
    at u3.E3.invokeSuspend(SourceFile:40)
    at f2.a.resumeWith(SourceFile:9)
    at A2.P.run(SourceFile:110)
    at F2.g.run(SourceFile:26)
    at H2.j.run(SourceFile:3)
    at H2.a.run(SourceFile:94)

[2026-07-05 23:31:02] FATAL @ thread=DefaultDispatcher-worker-11
  java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Failed to allocate a 96125848 byte allocation with 25165824 free bytes and 77MB until OOM, target footprint 212644304, growth limit 268435456
    at java.lang.StringFactory.newStringFromChars(StringFactory.java:124)
    at J1.h.toString(SourceFile:20)
    at T2.d.c(SourceFile:28)
    at sk.tvhclient.shared.storage.EpgCacheCodec.encode(SourceFile:31)
    at u3.E3.invokeSuspend(SourceFile:40)
    at f2.a.resumeWith(SourceFile:9)
    at A2.P.run(SourceFile:110)
    at F2.g.run(SourceFile:26)
    at H2.j.run(SourceFile:3)
    at H2.a.run(SourceFile:94)

I noticed another minor niggle, "Today" is not translated in the EPG view:

Can we have to option to filter by tags in the EPG view too, please?

MikrotikExe

Chris G Thanks a lot — that log was exactly what I needed, it pinpointed the problem straight away.

The crashes were out-of-memory errors while saving the EPG cache. The app was serialising the entire program guide into one huge block in memory before writing it to disk. On your server, with that many channels and days of EPG, that block was around 96 MB, which blew past the memory limit and crashed the app.

I've rewritten it to save and load the cache one channel at a time (streamed), so it never holds the whole guide in memory at once — memory use stays low no matter how big your EPG is. I also made sure a cache failure can never crash the app again.

While I was there I also fixed the "Dnes" label in the TV Guide that wasn't translated — it now shows "Today" (and the correct word in every language).

Both fixes will be in the next release, build 31. I'll let you know when it's up in the testing track — then please re-add your server and give it another go.

The tag filter in the EPG view is on my list too; I'll look at it after these fixes are out.

Chris G

"Today" fixed and no more crashing version 31.

daonguyen minhnhat

I installed it on my phone and on my TV box. Now that I have time to review it, I won't mention the previous issues that forum members have already shared. My problem is that the channel information display area (see attached image) is quite difficult to see with the current colors, I set the theme to dark. The issue with displaying the channel logo seems to be due to my server settings, so I will check the logo display issue. Otherwise, the application is great.

MikrotikExe

daonguyen minhnhat Thanks for the feedback on the channel info bar — you're right that it can be hard to read over bright video.

In the next version I'm adding a dedicated Appearance section in Settings, and inside it an option to switch on a solid background for the player info bar. With it enabled, the bar sits on a fully opaque backing instead of a light gradient, so it stays readable over any picture — and it works in both light and dark themes. It's off by default, so anyone who prefers the current look keeps it.

The channel logo issue you mentioned does look server-side, so no need to worry about that on the app end. Thanks again — glad you're enjoying the app otherwise.

MikrotikExe

HeadentClient — update: builds 30–33, Google Play status, and Open Collective

Hi everyone,

it's been a while since my last update here (build 29), so here's a summary of everything that landed in HeadentClient since then — builds 30 to 33 — plus some project news.

Build 30 — light player theme, background radio, crash diagnostics

The modern player got a proper light theme, selectable independently of the app theme.
Fixed background radio on servers with digest authentication — radio keeps playing on the background panel after leaving the player, on both plain and digest servers.
New crash diagnostics: if the app crashes, a log is saved and you can review and send it from Settings → About → Diagnostics, with device/OS/app info pre-filled.

Build 31 — recording indicator, large-server stability, guide filter

The recording indicator now shows only on the channel that is actually recording — recordings are matched by unique channel ID (same approach as the Kodi Tvheadend client), not by name/number.
Fixed out-of-memory crashes on servers with a very large EPG: the guide cache is now stored and loaded per channel, keeping memory low regardless of EPG size.
New TV guide filter by channel group (tags/bouquets, incl. Favorites) — works with the D-pad on Android TV and touch on phones, remembered per server.

Build 32 — Appearance settings, picon backgrounds, solid info bar

New Appearance section in Settings: interface mode (classic/modern), app theme and player theme in one place.
Picon background picker — default, fully transparent, or preset colours; applies everywhere logos appear, great for transparent picons.
Optional solid info-bar background on Android TV, so the channel strip stays readable over bright video.

Build 33 — channel groups, search and favorites on TV, decoder color fix, HDR switch

The channel list in the TV player now has a group filter (All, Favorites, your server tags) — press up to the pill and switch groups left/right; CH+/− zapping then stays within the selected group.
Search channels by name on TV — a magnifier next to the group pill opens a search field with the on-screen keyboard; results filter as you type across all channels.
Favorites on TV: gold star in the list and search results, add/remove (or hide a channel) directly from the channel menu (hold OK).
New decoder color fix option for boxes where hardware decoding shows wrong (blue/orange) colors — switches the decoder to a compatible path while keeping decoding fully hardware-accelerated.
You can now allow or block HDR switching when auto frame rate (AFR) changes the display mode — blocking it avoids the HDMI re-sync and unwanted HDR flip on some boxes.
Plus: consistent D-pad focus on all settings switches, the guide info no longer disappears when switching groups, and various smaller fixes.

Google Play status

The app has been in closed testing on Google Play for a while now (12+ testers, daily use). The application for production access has been submitted and is currently in the final review before approval. Once approved, HeadentClient will be publicly available on Google Play — and after the official release, the APK will also be downloadable directly from the website for those who prefer to sideload.

Open Collective — the project is now fiscally hosted

Some more good news: HeadentClient has been accepted by Open Source Europe as its fiscal host, so the project now has an official, transparent Open Collective. If anyone would like to support development, it's possible here — purely voluntary, no pressure whatsoever, the app is and stays free and open source (MIT) with no ads or paid features:

https://opencollective.com/headent-client

Links

Website & news: https://headentclient.com
Source code: MikrotikExe/headentclient
Open Collective: https://opencollective.com/headent-client

As always — big thanks to the testers from this forum. The group filter, TV search and favorites in build 33 all came directly from your reports and ideas. If you'd like to join testing, sign-up is on the website.

Markus Bonet

Latest build 33 takes long time to read EPG (10 seconds). Often even crashes.
Android TV 12.

MikrotikExe

Markus Bonet Thanks for the report, Markus — sorry about that, let's track it down.

Could you help me with a few details?

Crash log: the app saves one automatically — please go to Settings → About → Diagnostics and send the log via the pre-filled e-mail. That will tell me exactly where it crashes.
Where does the 10s delay happen — in the TV guide tab, or in the channel list inside the player (the list with the EPG panel on the right)?
Was build 32 OK on the same box, or did it have the delay too? (Trying to isolate whether it's a 33 regression.)
Roughly how big is your setup — number of channels, and how many days of EPG does your server carry?
Connection type in the app — HTSP or HTTP?

Build 33 added channel-group data preparation on top of the channel list, which on very large servers could add some load — your answers will tell me where to optimize. Thanks!

Markus Bonet

Interesting enough I can't reproduce the crash. Loads EPG now within 2s. Even after quitting the app before the next try.

MikrotikExe

Markus Bonet Thanks for checking, Markus — glad it's fast now!

One likely explanation: build 31+ builds a per-channel EPG cache on first load after install/update, so the very first guide open can take noticeably longer (especially with a large channel list), while subsequent loads read from the cache and are quick. The 10s you saw right after updating to build 33 would fit that pattern. A crash during that first heavy load shouldn't happen though, so I'd still like to see it if it ever returns.

If it happens again: the app saves a crash log automatically — go to Settings → Information → Diagnostics and send the log via the pre-filled e-mail. That will show me the exact spot.

Two small questions, just to be safe:

roughly how many channels does your setup have?
are you connecting via HTSP or HTTP?

Thanks again for testing!

MikrotikExe

Testing phase closed — Headent Client 1.0.0 heading to Google Play

Hi everyone,

a big status update on Headent Client: the testing phase is now officially closed, and we are moving on to the first public release. Huge thanks to everyone who tested, reported bugs and sent screenshots — several fixes in this release exist directly because of your feedback.

Where we are

Google has granted the app full production access on Google Play
The first public release, version 1.0.0, has been submitted for review
The Play listing will be: play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.tvhclient (returns 404 until the review completes — that's expected)

Timeline

Google reviews first production releases more thoroughly than updates, and Android TV goes through its own separate review. Based on typical review times, expect the app to appear publicly on Google Play within roughly 3-7 days, possibly sooner. Phones usually go live first; Android TV can lag a day or two behind. I'll post here the moment it's live.

Can't wait?

A signed APK of 1.0.0 (with SHA-256 checksum) is published on GitHub for sideloading on phones, TV boxes and Android TV:

Releases: github.com/MikrotikExe/headentclient/releases
Source code: github.com/MikrotikExe/headentclient

What's in 1.0.0

Live TV and radio over HTSP or the HTTP API (libVLC playback, hardware decoding)
Recordings (DVR) with archive browsing and recordings shown in the TV guide
Full EPG — day-by-day grid on TV, compact adaptive grid on phones with a density toggle
Stream profile switching directly in the player (HTTP live)
Classic and modern UI, phone and Android TV layouts, remote control of the TV app from your phone
Parental lock, favourites, channel groups, picons
31 languages

Note for testers

With the public release, the testing track is no longer needed — the app updates to the public version automatically, nothing to do on your side. Your settings and servers stay as they are.

Website and changelog: headentclient.com

Feedback is welcome as always — here, on GitHub, or through the app's Support page.