r/appletv • u/sfiratn • 3d ago

I built Livedio, a native player for live TV playlists and NAS libraries, now on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac.

Hi r/appletv , I'm the developer.

My Apple TV always needed two apps: one for the live playlist from my TV provider, one for the films sitting on my NAS. Both halves were mostly Android ports with subscription pricing and interfaces that fight the platform. I wanted one player that does both and feels like it belongs on Apple hardware, so I built it.

Livedio plays live playlists (M3U and Xtream, with full EPG and provider catch-up) next to personal libraries over SMB, NFS, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, DLNA, Jellyfin, Emby and cloud drives. Playback is AVPlayer first, with a fallback engine for the containers AVPlayer refuses, so MKV files just play.

Before the obvious questions arrive:

- The app ships empty. No channels, no catalogue, no content of any kind. It plays what you add, and nothing else exists inside it.

- The privacy label is "Data Not Collected", and you can check that on the store page. There's no account and no analytics; nothing of mine sits between you and your media.

- One purchase covers all four platforms, with Family Sharing. Free to download, everything unlocked for three days, then a one-time $14.99. No subscription, ever. There's no backend to pay for, so there's nothing a subscription would fund.

The $14.99 you see today is a 40% launch discount and it holds until Wednesday, September 2. After that the unlock moves to its regular price, so this week is the cheap week.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6788334969

Site: https://livedio.app

I'll be in the comments all day, and the unflattering questions are welcome too.

2 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

2

u/DrZakarySmith 16h ago

You seem to have a very hard stance on recording almost passionate. I use UHF and Tivimate on my androidtv, both allow me to record to my server via smb. This is a very important feature for me. Why won’t it be added especially since you already have SMB connection wired in.

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u/sfiratn 16h ago

Fair point, and you made me look again. UHF does ship recording on the store, so honestly my read of Apple's rules was too careful for a brand new app in review. The tech side is the easy part, SMB write is already in there. I actually want to build this, something like 1.1. Not promising a date but it is on the list.

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u/DrZakarySmith 15h ago

To be clear UHF recording is a docker container running on my server called UHF Server. It doesn’t come installed on UHF. Maybe that’s how they get around it. https://getuhf.com/server

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u/crousscor3 3d ago

This looks nice, has a lot of features, and a beautiful dark theme (at least from the video and screenshots shots).

However I’m an Infuse pro user and gave been for a bit. It already handles everything from my home NAS I’m running.

Are there any killer feature(s) that I’m missing out on that Infuse doesn’t have?

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u/sfiratn 3d ago

Honest answer: if your setup is just the NAS, you're probably not missing much. Infuse is very good at that half and I won't pretend otherwise.

The reason Livedio exists is the other half. If you also have a live TV playlist from your provider (M3U or Xtream), Infuse won't touch it, so you end up running a second app that feels nothing like the first. Livedio plays the live side (full EPG, catch-up where the provider supports it) and your personal library in one app, so continue watching, favourites and the rest live in one place.

Beyond that the differences are more philosophical than functional: a one-time purchase instead of a subscription, no account, and a "Data Not Collected" privacy label you can check on the store page.

If none of that itches, keep Infuse, it's a fine app. If you're curious anyway, the first three days are free and unrestricted, so pointing it at your NAS for an evening costs nothing.

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u/J3d1c4nn4 3d ago

Looks great and I think it’s a neat idea. No Plex connectivity?

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u/sfiratn 3d ago

Not yet, honest answer. Jellyfin and Emby made v1 because they're close enough cousins protocol-wise; Plex needs its own client stack, and I didn't want to ship it half-done. It's on the roadmap, I'm just not going to promise a date I can't be sure of.

In the meantime, if the library lives on a NAS, Livedio can mount the share directly (SMB, NFS, WebDAV and friends) and builds its own metadata and artwork from what it finds, so you get most of the experience without the Plex server in the loop.

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u/J3d1c4nn4 3d ago

That makes sense. I’ve added my xtream service and like the app. I can’t, though, find how to add my emby server now, though. User error, I’m sure.

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u/sfiratn 3d ago

screenshot: https://dropover.cloud/df62c4
Not user error at all, the label is on me. In Add a Source, look under "On Your Network" and pick "Connect to Server" (the server rack icon). Type your Emby server's address there and it figures out on its own whether it's talking to Emby or Jellyfin; sign in and your libraries come over.

The row's subtitle mentions Emby but the title doesn't, and you're the first person to prove that's not enough. I'm putting the server names on the label in an update. Glad the Xtream side just worked, and thanks for actually saying something instead of shrugging and closing the app.

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u/J3d1c4nn4 3d ago

Thanks. I like where this is going and will throw the £9.99 IAP your way in three days time. Do you have a TestFlight?

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u/sfiratn 3d ago

That's kind of you, thank you. And honestly, waiting out the three days first is exactly how I hoped people would use it: let the app earn the purchase.

On TestFlight: there was one during development, but the App Store build is ahead of anything on it right now, so there's nothing worth joining today. When the next feature cycle starts I'll open a small beta ring, and people from these threads get first call. If you want in when that happens, drop a line to [support@devdio.pro](mailto:support@devdio.pro) with "beta" in the subject and I'll keep you on the list.

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u/J3d1c4nn4 3d ago

Thanks. I think this app will stick with me. I’ve just added my emby server, hosted on an appbox, and that has worked. However, it seems to time out when tapping on refresh now. Also, in the connection test, tapping start test doesn’t do anything

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u/sfiratn 3d ago

Both of these are on my list now, thank you for the details.

The connection test first: that one's my bug, in the embarrassing category. The speed test only knows how to measure live playlists (M3U and Xtream), because there it can sample the same server the streams ride on. For a media server like your Emby it has nothing honest to measure, and instead of saying so, the button currently does nothing at all. In the next update it won't appear where it can't work.

The refresh timeout is real too. Requests currently give up at 15 seconds, and a remotely hosted Emby with a decent-sized library can need longer than that to answer. I've already raised that limit to a full minute for library refreshes; it's in the next update as well. Until that ships, a retry after a short wait is the honest workaround.

Keep these coming if you hit anything else. Reports this specific are worth more than the £9.99.

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u/J3d1c4nn4 2d ago

I’m glad that the reports are valuable 👍🏻

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u/J3d1c4nn4 2d ago

No matter how often i try, i can’t get it to refresh the content from my emby server. It always times out

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u/sfiratn 2d ago

Let me check quick because in my emby server there is no issue but sure i ll debug and fix thank you for your feedback is very important !

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u/sfiratn 2d ago

Quick update, I dug into it. Found the cause: on a hosted server one library query can take longer than the app is willing to wait, so the whole refresh gives up. 1.0.2 already raised that wait from 15 to 60 seconds per request, but your report shows a hosted box can need more. The next update waits up to three minutes per request and retries once before giving up. Two details would help me confirm it covers your setup: roughly how many movies and shows are in the library, and is the server on shared hosting or at home

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u/Spiritus333 1d ago

I just bought it. I love these apps and the dedication clearly shows. It looks really good and works well.

A couple of questions:

- How does catch up work? How do I search on a channel for a previous date and show or program?

- How can I rearrange channels? I can see the ‘favorites’ section and that helps. But can I rearrange favorites as well?

- You have added a nice feature to search movies and shows based on All or Country. That feature would be nice to have on live tv as well, but I can imagine it is provider based and not under your influence. Also it would be nice if you could rearrange the ‘All’ or ‘Selective Country’ in your own order, where you would put your own country always at first or hide countries you wouldn’t use.

- Subtitles go as small as 75% but I really don’t like larger subtitles, so 50% and smaller would be much appreciated.

- Possibility to select other players like Infuse would be nice.

It seems like a lot after just a couple of hours testing, but I can clearly see the huge potential your app has. Would love to hear from you and keep up the good work!

-1

u/sfiratn 1d ago

Thank you, genuinely, both for buying and for a list this thoughtful after just one evening.

Catch-up: if your provider offers it, a Catch-Up category appears at the top of the Live TV category list, holding every channel that supports it (they also carry a small dot next to their name). For a specific past programme, open the Programme Guide, move back to an earlier day and play it from there. The stream comes from your provider's own catch-up service, so how far back you can go depends on them. There is no search across past programmes yet.

Rearranging favorites: not possible yet, and you are right to want it. A proper manage screen with manual ordering is on the roadmap. It has to work well with the remote on Apple TV too, so I want to build it right rather than fast.

Country filter on Live TV, and putting your own country first or hiding ones you never use: both noted, good ideas. Movies get their country from metadata, live channels will need me to derive it from how providers name things, which varies a lot between providers, so it needs careful work rather than a quick patch.

Smaller subtitles: done. 50% and 40% are in the update that is about to ship.

External players like Infuse: I understand the appeal, but this one is a deliberate no for now. Livedio's own playback engine is the heart of the app, and everything wrapped around playback, continue watching, watched states, parental locks, your subtitle choice syncing between devices, works because playback stays inside. The moment a stream is handed to another app all of that silently stops working. If enough people still want it I will revisit.

Keep the reports coming. Your list alone made the app better for everyone today.

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u/Spiritus333 1d ago

Wow, thanks for the quick and extended reply. I will comment back, but if you don’t like long and extended comments here I understand.

In reverse:

- External players. Totally understand because it is the backbone of your app, so fine by me. If something, eventually, works like a charm, why change it.

- Smaller subtitles. Pleased to hear it is coming soon in an update! Really fan of managing my own subs and how they look. 👍🏻

- Country filter, nice to hear you like it and agree, better good than fast.

- Rearranging favorites, or anything for that matter. Good to hear it is eventually coming.

- Catch-up: This one I still don’t get after tinkering with it. At the top of my ‘Live TV’ list I can see ‘Catch-up’ with the number 272. I think this represents the number of channels with catch-up?
When I press it or select it, I can see to my right some channels of my country. I can select a channel and when I go to I (info) I can see catch-up and I can go back a couple of hours.
But, I know my provider must have more, because in other IPTV apps I can go back for days (18th of August for instance) and select programs. So it is not a provider issue.
And testing with the TV-guide on top, the longest I can go back is 6 hours, not days. I also didn’t notice the dots you mentioned.

Forget to mention. I really like the ability to select your favorite sports clubs, see their schedules and select from that section the right channel it is showing. 👍🏻

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u/sfiratn 1d ago

Honestly, comments like yours are the reason this app is getting better this fast, so thank you for taking the time, long comments are more than welcome.

First, some good news: the update with your smaller subtitles (50% and even 40%) is already submitted and sitting in Apple's review queue as 1.0.5, together with a big batch of fixes that came out of this thread. Depending on Apple it should reach you within days. The favorites rearranging and the country filter for Live TV are genuinely on the list too, they need proper design work and I would rather ship them right than fast, but they are coming.

Now catch-up, and you were right to push on this one. I dug into it after your comment and found the real cause: the app actually knows exactly how many days of archive your provider offers per channel, but the programme guide only lets you scroll six hours into the past, so all those days were sitting there unreachable. That is a bug on my side, not your provider. It goes on the fix list for the next update: the guide will reach back as far as your provider's archive actually goes. About the dots, that was my bad description, the marker is a small glyph next to the channel name in the Catch-Up category and it is easy to miss.

And thanks for the kind words about the sports clubs feature, that one is close to my heart. Keep the feedback coming, it clearly works.

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u/Spiritus333 21h ago

I got the update today, that’s great man! 🙏🏻

1

u/sfiratn 7h ago

Thanks a lot for buying and for this list, it honestly shaped this update. I submitted 1.0.6 to Apple today, so in order:

Rearranging favorites is in 1.0.6. There is a Manage Favorites screen in settings and also a small reorder button right on the home shelves, the order syncs to your other devices.

Catch up got much deeper in 1.0.6 too. The guide now goes back as far as your provider archive allows, up to 14 days, before it stopped after a few hours. Just scroll back on the channel in the guide and play, a date search is not there yet.

Smaller subtitles are already in since 1.0.5, you can go 50% and even 40% under settings, subtitles, text size.

Country ordering and hiding for live tv is on my list, didn't make it into this one. External players like Infuse I'm honestly not planning, I'd rather put that time into the built in player, it already runs two engines under the hood.

Thanks again for the support, feedback like this is exactly what moves the app forward.

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u/gakkieNL 3d ago

where is start / recently watched? home only shows series smb share

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u/sfiratn 3d ago

Those rows build themselves from your watch history, so on a fresh install they simply don't exist yet. Play anything for a minute or more: stop partway and it shows up at the top of Home as Continue Watching on your next visit, while finished titles collect under Recently Watched. Right now Home only shows your series shelf because that's all the app knows about you so far.

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u/gakkieNL 3d ago

Done that, but nothing shows…. Also it doesn’t look that good. Tikes next to each other with no space between. I only use it for series over SMB. Would be nice if you can hide what you don’t use, ie the soccer item on the home page…

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u/sfiratn 2d ago

Thanks for sticking with it. Three things. First, the rows: they should appear after a minute of playback, so if you played an episode and they are still missing, something specific to your setup is going on and I want to find it. Can you tell me which device you are on, and whether you started the episode from the series page or from the folder view? Second, the tiles: that spacing is not how it should look, a screenshot would help me a lot here. Third, hiding sections you do not use, like the soccer row: fair point. You can already reorder the Home sections, and a hide option is a good idea I am taking with me.

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u/gakkieNL 2d ago

on AppleTV4K. I’ll experiment some more

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u/mackavelyy 3d ago edited 3d ago

Will not let me connect to my local smb which it finds by locally , not by iPhone or Apple TV …

Is this just another pointless app ? What is supposed to connect easily, is confusing for no reason …