# imoreapps/ffmpeg-avplayer-for-ios-tvos

A tiny but powerful iOS and Apple TV OS av player framework that's based on the FFmpeg library.

Repository: https://github.com/imoreapps/ffmpeg-avplayer-for-ios-tvos
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/ffmpeg-avplayer-for-ios-tvos
Language: C
License: LGPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2020-09-01T20:44:26+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3977, "days_push": 2192, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1044, forks 238 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:21.233629+00:00)

## What it is
A small Objective-C/C media player framework for iOS and Apple TV OS built on FFmpeg, supporting most audio/video formats and network streams without VLC or SDL dependencies. It offers hardware H.264 decoding, subtitle support, playback controls, and streaming protocol support (HTTP, RTSP, RTMP, FTP).

## Use cases
- play mkv and avi videos in an ios app without converting
- add an ffmpeg-based video player to an iphone app
- stream rtsp or rtmp video on ios
- play videos with external srt or ass subtitles on apple tv
- grab video thumbnails in ios
- hardware-accelerated h264 playback on iphone and ipad

## When to choose
- you need broad codec and format support in an iOS/tvOS app beyond what AVPlayer offers
- you want network stream playback (rtsp, rtmp, http) with subtitles and playback controls
- you need hardware H.264 decoding on arm64 iOS devices

## When to avoid
- you only need to play standard formats like MP4/HLS - Apple's built-in AVPlayer is simpler
- you need Dolby audio (AC3/E-AC3/TrueHD) without a Dolby license
- you need actively maintained software - the last release was in 2020
- you target Android or non-Apple platforms

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: video-processing, audio-processing, graphics
- domain: media, mobile-development, apple-ecosystem
- platform: cpp, c
- tags: ffmpeg, video-player, apple-tv, objective-c, hardware-decoding, subtitles, streaming-playback, ios, mobile

## Member repositories
- imoreapps/ffmpeg-avplayer-for-ios-tvos (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:21.233629+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:02:13.857405+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/imoreapps/ffmpeg-avplayer-for-ios-tvos (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:21.233629+00:00, sha 3e9ed1b3d034)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.