Arloes: a TRUE modern Android TV client for Emby

[Pejamas 149]

3 hours ago, fallenwitch3r said:

I’ve noticed that the Spotlight section remains unchanged when the app is launched. By default, the home page is selected upon startup; the Spotlight content only updates once I navigate to the "Continue Watching" section—by pressing the down button on the remote twice—and then return to the Spotlight area. Furthermore, the Spotlight slideshow only begins after I press the down button and then the up button on the remote once more.

Here is the log file for the transcoding issue. It appears that transcoding is being triggered by the video bitrate, even though the selected quality is set to "Auto."

Arloes-playback-1793897925517.txt 179.77 kB · 0 downloads

All of the transcodes were mpegts files, do you have direct mpeg-ts playback enabled or disabled in the picture and sound advanced options? 

[Pejamas 149]

8 hours ago, lcann25 said:

Here you go 

Arloes-playback-1793881796448.txt 172.08 kB · 1 download

Does anything differ in the playback when this is being watched? like no different audio setup like using bluetooth speakers/headphones etc?

[lcann25 2]

1 hour ago, Pejamas said:

Does anything differ in the playback when this is being watched? like no different audio setup like using bluetooth speakers/headphones etc?

She always watches with bluetooth headphones, but not just this show, all her shows

[Grumpy1 50]

On 11/4/2026 at 11:24 AM, Grumpy1 said:

Hi

When using poster view set to medium and have all the other info off it stretches the poster out of proportion

Fixed now  ..thanks 

Another thing with the medium posters is that  ,if you have no info but have group collections on, it leaves a blank spot on the bottom of the non collection posters  (due to it listing the # of items on the collection ones).

 

not sure if this meant to be or not

Edited Thursday at 10:28 PM by Grumpy1

[arrbee99 1923]

12 hours ago, Pejamas said:

The update hasn't turned up yet, but an option would be nice to kill the album cover and brighten up the backdrop please.

eg. from Firefox -

 

[Pejamas 149]

9 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

The update hasn't turned up yet, but an option would be nice to kill the album cover and brighten up the backdrop please.

eg. from Firefox -

 

Next update actually hides the OSD (same behaviour as movie OSD behaviour,down press brings it back etc)

I've also gotten full gapless playback working - only tested with FLAC so far though.

And hopefully adding in lyric support too.

[arrbee99 1923]

Looks nice.

Still, like we can get rid of posters from getting in the way, optionally getting rid of albums would be nice as well...

[Pejamas 149]

5 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

Looks nice.

Still, like we can get rid of posters from getting in the way, optionally getting rid of albums would be nice as well...

No, sorry. I get people want unlimited customisation but I cant add endless hide this/hide that for absolutely everything, I have been pretty flexible with most things but the app still needs an identity - the settings become way too bloated and daunting especially when its much less out of the way compared to an alternative (not bashing the ATV app btw, just pointing out a difference).

[Pejamas 149]

2 hours ago, lcann25 said:

She always watches with bluetooth headphones, but not just this show, all her shows

Ah yep makes sense should be fixed in the next update - curious though, are the BT headphones connected to the shield itself? a workaround in the meantime that will work - connect the headphones to the TV itself (what I do in my study). it bypasses the shield trying to pass on the audio which can cause issues with exo player.

[lcann25 2]

1 hour ago, Pejamas said:

curious though, are the BT headphones connected to the shield itself? 

Yes they are. I'd try the TV but it's an older TCL and it doesn't have Bluetooth 

[fallenwitch3r 45]

8 hours ago, Pejamas said:

Ill look into spotlight, what exactly is your spotlight set up as though? like what content etc? For now can you just set the bit rate to 1000.

Movies an series content rotate every 10 seconds.

Mpeg transcoding is disabled.

[Pejamas 149]

1 minute ago, fallenwitch3r said:

Movies an series content rotate every 10 seconds.

Mpeg transcoding is disabled.

The setting is reversed, if you have the toggle set to off, it means you are transcoding it, having it set to on means it direct plays, the log tells me its off currently.

[ChrissiW 0]

Hi,

Thanks for the latest update! I've updated Arloes, but unfortunately the "View all" option still doesn't appear at the end of my custom collection rows on the home screen.

Is there anything I need to enable in the settings, or could this still be a bug?

Thanks!

[Pejamas 149]

19 minutes ago, ChrissiW said:

Hi,

Thanks for the latest update! I've updated Arloes, but unfortunately the "View all" option still doesn't appear at the end of my custom collection rows on the home screen.

Is there anything I need to enable in the settings, or could this still be a bug?

Thanks!

Did you add them properly to the home screen options on embys dashboard or with a plug-in that you earlier mentioned using? If it was a plug-in that created them it won't work.

[ChrissiW 0]

34 minutes ago, Pejamas said:

Did you add them properly to the home screen options on embys dashboard or with a plug-in that you earlier mentioned using? If it was a plug-in that created them it won't work.

I created the custom collection rows using the Home Screen Companion plugin. I enabled "Add as home screen section" in the plugin settings.

So the rows are indeed provided by the plugin, not added manually through Emby's dashboard.

Does this mean the new "View all" feature cannot support these rows?

[boschman 0]

Hi,

I really like the look of this from the screenshots, and the direction it is headed.

I did Steps 1. and 2. mid afternoon UK time, but when I search the play store on my Shield for Arloes, nothing comes up.  It's after 8pm here, does it take longer than that for the download to appear?

 

Thx.

 

[GrimReaper 5221]

1 minute ago, boschman said:

but when I search the play store on my Shield for Arloes, nothing comes up.  It's after 8pm here, does it take longer than that for the download to appear?

It won't show up, you need to "Install on other devices" to your Shield from your PC Arloes PlayStore page.

[boschman 0]

15 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

It won't show up, you need to "Install on other devices" to your Shield from your PC Arloes PlayStore page.

Ok, thx, that worked, I must have missed that bit, apologies. 

Edited Friday at 08:43 PM by boschman

[GrimReaper 5221]

21 minutes ago, boschman said:

Ok, thx, that worked, I must have missed that bit, apologies. 

Np, glad you got it sorted out, Arloes is awesome. 

[boschman 0]

Man, this is so much better than the official client, Android general or Android TV, and I've barely scratched the surface.

Thanks @Pejamas for making this available

[Pejamas 149]

ARLOES 1.11.0 — 7 november 2026
Changes since 1.10.0

NEW

• Built-in book reading for EPUB, PDF and CBZ files. Books have their own detail pages with cover artwork, author, synopsis, available metadata, Read, Favourite and Mark read actions, plus a More in Books row for other books in the same folder. Unsupported formats can be opened in another reader app. Covers follow their natural proportions, including square artwork, with placeholders for missing covers and aligned shelf labels. The hero uses a subtle wash of the cover colours.
• EPUBs use fitted pages, serif text, gentle page transitions and chapter/page progress. Left and Right turn pages, and Up opens the chapter picker. PDF and comic readers include page previews, zoom and panning. Reading position is saved on this TV. The synopsis can be expanded without leaving the book page.
• Optional Book Details fills missing book information from Open Library, including author, publication year, publisher, page count, reader ratings and subjects where available. Select the author to read their biography, or the synopsis to expand it. Enabled by default under Detail Pages.
• Optional Awards on movie and show pages, with a compact awards summary and a dedicated row of wins and nominations. Summaries also appear on Enhanced Home. Supports Academy Awards, Primetime Emmys, Golden Globes and BAFTAs using IMDb IDs. Enable Awards under Detail Pages.
• Cinema playback controls: an alternative to Classic with a stable progress bar, compact transport controls, a separate clock and previews for Info, Audio and Subtitles. Its chapter strip shows chapter names and timestamps on one line, and its cast and crew use portrait cards with available biography and library title counts below the progress bar. Move down through chapters and credits; music uses the same layout with access to its queue. Choose total runtime or remaining time at the end of the bar. Classic remains the default.
• Lyrics in Now Playing when supplied by your server. Timed lyrics highlight the current line and follow the song; untimed lyrics scroll with playback progress. Use the Lyrics button or Up to toggle them, and Back to close them.
• Optional slim mini music player without artwork, with artist and song on one line above the compact time, progress and queue display.
• Now Playing controls automatically hide into a backdrop-led display with compact artwork and track information. Down brings the controls back. Artist and album information has clearer, more consistent presentation.
• Compatible music tracks are prepared ahead in the same playback queue for continuous transitions, without reopening the controls at each track change.
• The remote Menu button can pause or resume music with a compact status/progress overlay. With the main controls hidden, Left and Right seek using your configured skip intervals.

UPDATED

• Settings has a new grouped overview and dedicated pages with tighter, headed option groups. The help area explains the focused option, recommended or default choices, when changes apply and where they are saved. Player Controls is separate from playback behaviour, with subtitle previews and colour pickers retained.
• Music album and artist heroes now follow the movie and TV layout, with aligned logos, titles, metadata, descriptions and actions instead of a separate oversized cover image.
• Title, metadata, ratings, genres, taglines and synopses use more consistent spacing across detail pages, Home and browsing views.
• Subtitle menus identify Default, Forced and SDH tracks beneath their names. SDH labels in track titles are recognised too. Formats are shown where relevant, such as PGS, DVD and ASS, and Media Information identifies hearing-impaired tracks.
• Playback reports include settings that differ from their defaults, making unwanted conversion and playback problems easier to diagnose.
• New settings and explanations are translated across Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Dutch.

FIXED

• Enabling only Deinterlace SD or Deinterlace HD could cause unnecessary H.264 conversion and subtitle burn-in. Deinterlacing now targets interlaced video of the selected size.
• Transcoded playback can recover from eligible stream failures by requesting a fresh stream at the current position, up to three times per session.
• Dolby audio on PCM-only outputs, such as Bluetooth headphones, could unnecessarily require server conversion when Automatic Compatibility Retry was off. Eligible files can now use the built-in libVLC decoder independently of that setting.
• Dolby and DTS music could be unnecessarily converted to stereo MP3. Supported output formats now play directly, higher-bitrate music is accepted, and necessary conversion can preserve surround audio using lossless FLAC when the selected bitrate allows.
• Audio and subtitle menus could show more than one selected track. Auto now identifies its active audio track without also ticking that track as a separate manual selection.
• Focus could become invisible while moving down the Customise Header/Sidebar list.

[Pejamas 149]

Oh, and as a bonus - first pre-release test for the mdblist companion plugin for anyone wanting to make mdlist playlists easily from emby server, and change the top 10 spotlight items

MdbListSync.dll

[Grumpy1 50]

Latest updates are awesome ...amazing work on this

Lyrics addition is great 

A few things to suggest that i would love to see 

Another view i think would be great is the posterflix and landscapeflix (like in kodi) which is essentially just like on the homepage for the widgets.<--- people either love or hate this view so just a suggestion

- on the homepage the synopsis and overlay ( not sure the term here) go really far to the right and cover up a lot of the fanart,,,could this be a bit smaller to show more of the fanart.

Just some suggestions ...app is already great as it is   

 

thanks

Edited 18 hours ago by Grumpy1

[Nick12345 0]

Latest updates looking great. Thank you.... I seem to have lost option to add in Search and Favourites to the Header bar, has the control moved? Google TV Streamer. 

[Pejamas 149]

2 hours ago, Nick12345 said:

Latest updates looking great. Thank you.... I seem to have lost option to add in Search and Favourites to the Header bar, has the control moved? Google TV Streamer. 

Search lives in the avatar icon menu now (where you can also add more quick links), favourites is still addable to the header, Settings > Navigation > Customise Header/Sidebar.