Jellyfin 0.20 for Android TV adds support for external video players & improved subtitles

The Jellyfin team has released version 0.20 of its media player for Android TV, bringing a redesigned settings interface, improved playback compatibility, and expanded subtitle support. According to the official announcement, the update detects devices' playback capabilities more accurately, helping more videos play directly without transcoding, and allows users to manually override support for HDR formats, audio passthrough codecs, and H.264/H.265 codec level limits. While browsing, viewers will now see badges indicating HDR and surround audio formats as well as 3D content, and thumbnail previews when seeking through videos are no longer an experimental feature.

One of the headline additions is support for external video players. Users can now choose between Jellyfin's built-in player and compatible third-party apps, with special handling for VLC, MPV, MX Player and Vimu to pass along external subtitles and preserve playback progress when returning to Jellyfin. Subtitle handling has also seen significant improvements: direct playback of ASS and SSA subtitle formats, available as an experimental option, renders subtitles locally via libass, avoiding the need to transcode video. Subtitle customization now offers custom colors and additional font weights with a live preview, and the app remembers language choices across episodes.

The update does come with new requirements: Jellyfin Server 10.11 or newer is required, with support for server version 10.10 dropped, and the minimum Android version has risen to Android 6, ending compatibility with Android 5 and 5.1. Notably, users with newer Fire TV devices may find the app unavailable, as Amazon's new Vega OS cannot run Android apps; a native Jellyfin app for Vega OS is reportedly in development.