SOLVED: Bring back libvlc

[PokestarFan]

On the Android TV client, I used to be able to set libvlc as the player, but now that option is gone. How do I bring it back? I watch a lot of subtitled content and transcoding is very slow.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

See these links for more info on why it was removed:

• https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and.../pull/2534
  
• https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and.../pull/3639
  

You grab the last version of ATV that still has the experimental LibVLC player here: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...g/v0.16.11

[PokestarFan]

See these links for more info on why it was removed:

• https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and.../pull/2534
  
• https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and.../pull/3639
  

You grab the last version of ATV that still has the experimental LibVLC player here: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...g/v0.16.11

Will 0.16.11 be compatible with the newer Jellyfin versions?

Alternatively, since there still is a “Use external player” option, which player is most similar to libvlc?

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Will 0.16.11 be compatible with the newer Jellyfin versions?

No guarantees it will continue to work with newer server versions.
The Jellyfin team can only guarantee support for the latest version of releases.

Alternatively, since there still is a “Use external player” option, which player is most similar to libvlc?

You can try to use other players found in the Google Play store.
Like VLC or MPV, but how well that will work depends.

[TheDreadPirate]

It was removed due to libVLC not having been updated in 2 years by VLC. And in those two years there have been numerous security vulnerabilities reported for libVLC. That is in addition to the playback code surrounding libVLC was difficult to maintain.

What are your server hardware specs and OS?

[kuato]

Just a heads up. LibVLC was updated recently to v3.6.2 on April 24, 2025. Are you considering adding it back? Or is the code still too messy to deal with?