VLC has been officially released for tvOS on the fourth generation of the Apple TV, and it has been a long time coming. The advent of VLC for the Apple TV is only possible due to Apple’s decision to allow third-party app downloads for the latest Apple TV via the new tvOS App Store.
Considered to be the Swiss Army Knife of media players, VLC is open source and widely used as the go-to media option for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux desktop computers. VLC supports playback of a plethora of container formats, including MKV, AVI, M4V, MP4, MOV, OGG & FLAC files.
The tvOS version of VLC has a web interface to allow playback control on any device, supports network streaming over HLS, MMS and RTSP and is compatible with FTP and SMB (Windows Sharing) file servers.
To download the VLC for the Apple TV, you’ll need to navigate through the tvOS App Store on the device itself.
The iOS version of VLC can be synced with Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, iCloud Drive and iTunes, and it has the ability to offer direct downloads, Wi-Fi sharing and streaming playback via SMB, FTP, UPnP/DLNA media servers or just a general web address.
Other features in VLC for Mobile version 2.7 include support for TouchID on iOS devices, system-wide search through Spotlight and split-screen on iPad models able to use Apple’s new Split-Screen Multitasking feature.
If you’re looking for something a tiny bit more polished than VLC, Infuse 4 comes highly recommended and is available for both tvOS and iOS. Its major benefit over VLC for Mobile is Infuse 4’s ability to play AC3, or Dolby Digital 5.1. audio, after users purchase the $9.99 Infuse Pro upgrade.
Alternatively, Plex is also a fantastic media player designed to not only stream but also organize your video or music library stored on your desktop computer to your Apple TV. If you’re already a Plex Pass subscriber ($4.99/month), you will be use the Plex app on your Apple TV for free, but if not you can unlock the tvOS version of the app by paying a one-time fee of $4.99.
