New Android TV App - Aether - A Direct-Play-First Emby Client for Windows & Android TV

[DanielVNZ 3]

Hi everyone

I wanted to share a project I’ve been working on called Aether — a modern Emby client built specifically for people who care about direct play, quality, and control.

Aether
The Definitive Direct-Play Experience for Emby

• Platforms: Windows, Android TV

• License: MIT

• Source: https://github.com/DanielVNZ/Aether

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What is Aether?

Aether is a community first Emby media player.
It is designed to avoid server-side transcoding entirely wherever possible and always request original streams, delivering the highest possible audio and video fidelity.

If your server is already set up correctly and your media is well-encoded, Aether aims to get completely out of the way and just play it — cleanly and efficiently.

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Key Features

Premium Experience

• Modern UI/UX
  Built with React, featuring smooth transitions designed for both desktop mouse use and the “10-foot” couch experience (…mostly still work to do on d-pad navigation).

• Dynamic Home Screen
  Continue Watching and personalised recommendations synced directly with your Emby account. (optional TMDB API key, also builds recommendations from your watch history)

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Technical Focus

• Direct Play First
  No forced transcoding, no unnecessary quality loss. Aether explicitly requests original streams whenever possible.

• Stats for Nerds
  Real-time playback stats including bitrate, resolution, codec info, and buffering health.

• Rust-Powered Desktop/Android TV App
  Built with Tauri, giving lightweight, secure, and fast native Windows builds without the Electron bloat.

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Current State

This is still early-stage and under active development.
There will be rough edges, and some features are still evolving — but the core playback and navigation goals are already in place.

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Feedback Welcome

I’d really appreciate:

• Feedback from Emby power users

• Bug reports

• Feature requests

• Anyone interested in contributing

Repo & docs are here:
https://github.com/DanielVNZ/Aether

[arrbee99 1814]

You mentioned in Github, but looking forward to screenshots.

[DanielVNZ 3]

https://github.com/DanielVNZ/Aether/tree/main

Screenshots are up on github thanks!

[rbjtech 5282]

It's nice to have an alternative client.   Well done for starting this.

Quote

IMPORTANT NOTE: due to the complexity of android development and my limited experience in this field. I will continue to develop Aether as a Windows application and not for Android TV. This decision was not made lightly and I may continue android development in the future

Quote from Github - if this is true, then sadly I have lost my original interest as I rarely use Windows for playback ...    You may also want to remove this topic from the AndroidTV section to avoid future disappointments..   if confirmed development has stopped then maybe reach out to @GrimReaperto remove ?

Edited February 6 by rbjtech

[CBers 7450]

You had me at Android TV, but lost me at Windows.

BTW, this isn't a "community first Emby media player", as the first Android TV app was by a contributor, and they created a 2nd one as well, called TIAMAT.

I'll come back if/when you get back on the Android TV route again.

Thanks.
 

[MediaIntelNUC 12]

Same here!

The app looks sweet, hoping u get it up and running for Android TV