About the issue of Emby client's homepage dynamic images on Apple TV

[17732 21]

I created an animated image for the Emby homepage using After Effects. It's originally in GIF format, but after converting it to PNG and uploading it to Emby, the homepage can display the animation. However, I found that on Emby’s clients, only the Apple TV and Android TV clients show it as a static image. All other playback devices can display the animated image just fine. I’ve sent the homepage image file I made, hoping you can fix this issue, and I’ve also sent a video showing the homepage effect.

[Luke 42580]

hi, did you save it as apng?

[17732 21]

The images I made are in GIF format, but I manually changed the extension from GIF to PNG and uploaded them to Emby. The Emby clients for Appletv and AndroidTV won't play the images though.

[17732 21]

5 hours ago, Luke said:

hi, did you save it as apng?

I manually renamed the GIF animation to .png format, and both AppleTV and AndroidTV just showed it as a static image that wouldn't move at all. Then I changed it back to apng format, but that format won't upload - Emby doesn't seem to support it. You can check out the home screen effect on AppleTV; it still won't move, which is really weird

[Luke 42580]

OK right now gif and I believe webp are the only formats treated as animation capable.

[17732 21]

5 minutes ago, Luke said:

OK right now gif and I believe webp are the only formats treated as animation capable.

Is there any way to get the Apple TV's Embry to support animated GIFs?

[17732 21]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

OK right now gif and I believe webp are the only formats treated as animation capable.

I opened emby on my computer's web browser and tried uploading pictures in 5 different formats: jpg, png,webp,gif,apng

Only jpg and png files can be uploaded - any other format just keeps looping and won't upload. Also, Apple TV won't display animated images. Are you going to fix this?

 

 

[SamES 1107]

The native images on ATV don't support animated gifs. We used a custom image element for the main Hero Image on some detail pages to support animation but I'm not sure how compatible it would be with Library items.

[17732 21]

12 minutes ago, SamES said:

The native images on ATV don't support animated gifs. We used a custom image element for the main Hero Image on some detail pages to support animation but I'm not sure how compatible it would be with Library items.

I saw that players that connect to Emby can display animated images on Apple TV

[17732 21]

On 6/17/2026 at 10:45 AM, Luke said:

OK right now gif and I believe webp are the only formats treated as animation capable.

Title: Animated library section images only show the first frame on Apple TV and Android TV

Hello,

I am using animated 300×150 images for library sections on the Emby home screen.

I tested the same library image across multiple Emby clients:

• Emby Web: animation plays correctly
• Emby for Windows: animation plays correctly
• Emby for macOS: animation plays correctly
• Emby for Android Mobile: animation plays correctly
• Emby for iPhone/iPad: animation plays correctly
• Emby for Apple TV: only a static image is displayed
• Emby for Android TV: only a static image is displayed

I also tested the same image using Fileball on Apple TV connected to the same Emby server, and the animation plays correctly there.

To verify this, I created a test image with a unique first frame. On Apple TV and Android TV, only that first frame is shown, while other Emby clients display the full animation.

This suggests that the server is delivering the image correctly, but TV clients may only be displaying a static frame.

Is this the expected behavior, or could support for animated library section images be considered for Apple TV and Android TV clients in the future?

Thank you.