AerialDream

A screensaver for Android TV devices (including Nvidia Shield, Fire TV, Google TV, etc) inspired by the Apple TV's video screensaver

This is a forked and modified version which features the following changes...

Great performance and support for older Android TVs (eg. 2015/ATV1 platform)
Supports only the latest Apple video feed (it contains nearly all previous videos too!)
Ability to play Apple or any other videos stored locally
Ability to play videos from a local network share (ie. Samba/SMB)
HDR support (Dolby Vision is required for Apple's videos)
Skip video feature (Swipe right on your phone or press right on your TV remote's d-pad)
Alternate text position to help avoid burn-in on OLED TVs

How to install

This version of the app is not available in the Play Store, yet, so your options are...

Download the APK from the Releases page and install it manually
Clone this repo to your PC or Mac, download Android Studio, then build and deploy

Where to download Apple videos for offline/local playback

Please visit this web page to download download the tvOS 13 videos supported by this screensaver.

Special note for Fire TV owners

The app can be installed and configured, like with any other Android TV device, but the ability to set Aerial Dream as the default screensaver has been disabled in the FireOS menus.

To get around this, you'll have to install a command-line developer tool, run a command - and that's it. I would recommend having a look at this guide over at Nerds Chalk for the exact steps.

Just note that the command is little different due to a name change in the code, try this instead:

adb shell settings put secure screensaver_components com.amazon.ftv.screensaver/.app.services.ScreensaverService:com.codingbuffalo.aerialdream/.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity settings put secure screensaver_default_component com.codingbuffalo.aerialdream/.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity

How remote and local playback of Apple videos works

The app contains a video manifest (ie. a list of links) which it uses to figure out what videos to play in which format (1080p, 4K, HDR, etc)
When using local playback, the app searches for the same filenames (eg. xyz.mov) locally instead of making a request to a remote web server
Local videos can be placed in any folder
When using local and remote playback, local videos are used if found, but for missing videos, the remote version is used.

Device support and testing

The plan is the keep support and great performance for older Android TVs
Newer features, which require more powerful devices (eg. Nvidia Shield or Google TV) can be disabled or enabled
The app has been tested with...
- Sony Bravia (2015, Android v6)
- Nvidia Shield (2015, Android v7)
- Fire TV Stick 4K (2018, Android v7)
- Nvidia Shield (2019, Android v9)
- Chromecast/Google TV (2020, Android v10)

Known issues

Sometimes after copying videos to your Android TV device they fail to play or appear during the screensaver. A quick fix is to restart your Android TV device.
HDR videos may not play properly for everyone, even with a TV that supports HDR/HDR10 and Dolby Vision. If you get a black screen or the colours are not correct, please use the SDR option
This app cannot be installed at the same time as Aeriel Dream from the Google Play Store
If set to local playback only and there are no videos, there is no error message or notification - only a black screen with the time
This app is designed to play Apple's video only. It will not play any random video you have on the device or USB storage
Network connection issues are not handled well, the videos will simply pause

cellois/AerialDream