Fluxceiver — native Apple TV/iPhone/iPad client over HTSP (beta testers wanted)

fluxceiver_dev

Hi everyone,

long-time TVHeadend user, first-time poster here. For the past months I've
been building Fluxceiver, a native client for Apple devices — Apple TV,
iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch (as a remote) — and it just entered a closed
TestFlight beta.

What makes it a bit different from the existing options:

• It speaks HTSP natively (not just the HTTP API): realtime subscriptions,
local stream muxing, DVB subtitle decoding — so zapping is instant and
live metadata is complete.
• Two playback engines: a hardware-friendly FFmpeg/AVSampleBuffer pipeline,
with libVLC as fallback so awkward codecs still play.
• Full EPG with search across live TV + guide + recordings, DVR management
with cross-device resume, timeshift, channel tags as rails.
• Channel logos (picons) and EPG artwork from your server are picked up
automatically.
• No account, no cloud in the path — it only ever talks to your server.
Optional iCloud sync (E2E-encrypted credentials) for multi-device setups.

It's an unofficial client, not affiliated with the TVHeadend project.

I'm looking for beta testers with a good mix of setups — DVB-S/S2, DVB-C,
DVB-T/T2 and IPTV, TVHeadend 4.2 and 4.3/nightly. If you'd like to help:
fill in the short form at https://fluxceiver.app — the invite then arrives
via TestFlight email from Apple. I'm inviting in small waves so I can keep
up with the feedback.

Happy to answer anything about the HTSP implementation — and grateful for
every bug you can throw at it.

Cheers,
Christoph

Hardcore Jax

Great work and thanks for test 🙂

Some feedback:

Make up/down channel change a user setting in TvOS (i prefer up as next channel that)
On channel list, don´t stop at the end just go to first channel again ( so we don't have to scroll all the way back)

Nice to have from live tv playback:
-Channel epg in list form for running channel (right press on remote)
-A low list channel list ( long press OK on remote)
-Timeline epg from live tv (left press on remote)

Here are some screenshots from Kodi to get you a idea what i meen

fluxceiver_dev

Thanks for testing and for the detailed feedback — and for the Kodi
screenshots, that makes it much easier to see what you mean.

Going through your points:

Up/down zapping direction as a setting: fair point, some people
expect it the Kodi way. That's an easy one, goes on the list.
Wrapping around at the end of the channel list: for the lists
themselves (channel switcher, live TV view) I'd rather not —
circular focus goes against Apple's tvOS guidelines and tends to
feel off with the system focus engine. What I can do is wrap
around when zapping with up/down during playback, so you never
have to scroll all the way back. Goes on the list too.
Channel list during playback: that actually exists already — press
right (or click the touchpad) while watching and the channel
switcher opens.
Programme list for the running channel: I like that idea. If it
comes, it would probably live in the playback overlay rather than
on its own remote key, so the existing controls stay as they are.
Timeline EPG over live video: honest answer — that one is a big
chunk on tvOS. Getting overlays to scroll and focus smoothly there
is surprisingly hard, so I wouldn't expect this anytime soon. For
browsing the timeline, the full guide in the app is the way to go
for now.

No promises on timing for any of this, but it's exactly the kind of
feedback the beta is for. Thanks!

Cheers,
Christoph

Hardcore Jax

DVB subtitle placement on DVBS doesn't look right

Txt subtitles looks better, but maybe to high on screen and to narrow/small

Also please add a option to always enable subtitle with user language, thanks!

fluxceiver_dev

Thanks for the report and the photos. These subtitle issues are addressed in TestFlight Build 16.

DVB subtitle placement has been corrected, and text subtitles on Apple TV now use a more appropriate size. I’ve also added settings to enable subtitles automatically and choose a preferred subtitle language.

Could you retest the same DVB-S channel and, if possible, a channel using text subtitles? Another comparison photo would be very helpful.

Hardcore Jax

Yes works, thanks! I have sent you picture via feedback in ios app.

1080i video still has pixlated parts in the edges of screen. Here is a short video of the issue https://sprend.com/sv/download?C=bf80ab2480ab4081b55c424a32dc62ba

fluxceiver_dev

Hardcore Jax

Thanks for the confirmation and especially for the video — it was very helpful. The artifacts look like damaged or incomplete H.264 frames being displayed, rather than a cropping or overscan issue.
Build 17 validates incoming video data more strictly, drops frames reported as damaged, and resynchronizes the decoder at the next keyframe if corruption continues. I deliberately did not crop the picture.
Could you please retest the same 1080i channel in Build 17, ideally for a few minutes and after several channel changes? If damaged data is received, you may now see a very brief frozen frame instead of the pixelated edge artifacts. Please let me know whether the artifacts are gone or at least reduced.

Hardcore Jax

Thanks ! Better but i can still see some artifacts in some 1080i channels but not all. Maybe my dish needs some fine tuning to get this app smooth? I don’t see them in Kodi or Enigma.

Subtitle ”on setting” did not stick on app update so had to enable it again

fluxceiver_dev

Hardcore Jax

Thanks, that is very useful feedback. Since the same channels play without artifacts in Kodi and Enigma, your dish is probably not the main cause. Different players use different error concealment and deinterlacing methods, so Fluxceiver likely still needs some additional handling for certain 1080i streams.
Could you please tell me which channels are still affected? If possible, another short video and feedback report from one of those channels would also be very helpful.
The subtitle “On” setting should persist across an app update. Thanks for reporting this — I will investigate it separately.

Hardcore Jax

Skyshowtime 1 and 2 , would a short Tvheadend .ts recording help if i can send it to you so you could play the recording?

fluxceiver_dev

Hardcore Jax

Yes, that would help a lot — it is probably the best next step.
A short raw TVHeadend .ts recording from SkyShowtime 1 or 2 would be ideal. Around 30–60 seconds is enough, as long as the recording contains visible artifacts. Please use a pass-through profile without transcoding if possible.
It would also be very helpful if you could confirm whether the exact same recording plays without artifacts in Kodi or Enigma. You can send it using a private download link. Thanks!

Hardcore Jax

Edit, looks like there is some issue with these channels ( bad signal?) i could see some kind of articacts in Kodi Tvheadend client on TVos also now. Not as bad as yesterday but still. So let us forget about this for now. I will try to fine tune my dish first. Thanks !

fluxceiver_dev

Hardcore Jax

Thanks for the update! That makes sense. Let’s leave it for now and see whether fine-tuning the dish resolves the artifacts. Please let me know if the issue persists afterwards.