Kodi is a very popular and very powerful media player which you can sideload onto any Fire TV or Fire TV Stick, and is my app of choice for all your media content needs. But if you’re look something simpler that you can get directly from the Amazon Appstore, you’ll be happy to hear that VLC, a very popular open source media player, has just been released for the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. The app can play both local content and content streamed over the network. I had a bit of trouble getting the app to connect to a shared SMB Windows network, but it played a locally stored high-bitrate 1080p file with ease. VLC supports subtitles as well as variable playback speeds. If you’re looking for an alternate media player to Kodi, give VLC a try.
@AFTVnews
AFTVnews
Fire Tv is on fire today
Cool, and it now provides an option to use VLC as the external player from within Kodi.
How?
Does that mean DTS support, maybe even through Plex?
You can get DTS via SPMC, a Kodi fork @ http://spmc.semperpax.com/
Your idea involves adding server software to my PC, right? Then side loading Kodi, right? Then other apps that make it more visible in the Fire TV stick, right? And possibly some coding in a terminal window, right?
None of that. You simply sideload SPMC onto Fire TV as you would Kodi or any other app. Now, use SPMC and enable DTS and DD passthrough. Also SPMC and Kodi can coexist on Fire TV as they have different signatures.
This is what I want. Can it be an external player for Plex? One that enables DTS and Dolby 5.1? Last time I enabled Plexs external player, the Fire Stick only offered one option, that didn’t work.
Odd that they’ll accept this for FireTV but not Kodi/SPMC. !?!
I can’t get vlc to see my smb shares
Same here. I can see my DiskStation listed, but when I try to access it, I get an endless spinning circle.
Same here. It sees directories on my network, but if i click I just get the spinning circle. Is there a fix?
How do you get it to see your directories, I have a mac and have turned on sharing. the VLC app on my firetv in local network does not show my Macbook.
Hi i finally fixed this. i had the same issue.
for the username i put
192.168.1.xxx;diskstation
if you do that you should be ok.
i still would prefer if you could see dlna an upnp devices though. disapointed
VLC for Fire seems to be very buggy. As reported by others I can also not access SMB shares. If I access media by UPNP I can playback them just one time and then VLC stopps proper working.
To get VLC working again I have to delete application data first.
For me this is a pre-alpha release :(
Any workaround for smb links or paths? Still dies trying.
Hi i finally fixed this. i had the same issue.
for the username i put
192.168.1.xxx;diskstation
if you do that you should be ok.
i still would prefer if you could see dlna an upnp devices though. disapointed
back to the drawing board. :(
correction it plays xvid….wow progress
Plays mp4 from the usb, after the new usb update,
VLC does want to run. Crashes, hangs, and won’t lock onto usb Fritz folders or even work with the stock amazon remote… The stock app from google market works much, much better. Only thing I like about Amazons VLC app is the fact it gave out an icon for the recent apps..
VLC for Fire clearly should never have been released. NO ONE to my knowledge has gotten it to do more than sit and spin. Which is what VLC can do… sit and spin, baby!
doesn’t play anything on my Fire TV Box (4k) says can’t open
I got VLC working, its reading my USB drive, but I’m not getting audio, just video. Any suggestions?
You say “The app can play both local content and content streamed over the network.” What is “local content” for a Fire TV Stick? Are you suggesting that the stick has some sort of accessible storage that you can put video content onto?
Where? I can find it on Fire TV?
how do i share a file from my pc over the network to VLC fire?
Can I play films from my NAS and control it from an app on my tablet?
I have been using this system flawlessly to my smart tv for a couple of years and it works great but im now looking for a DLNA Media Renderer to do this to a non smart tv.
Will the Fire TV stick work? I tried a chromecast and I couldnt get it to work waste of £30 I dont want to waste anymore!
VLC seems to work a little better on OS but is still buggy.
On FireTV, it is as dead as a door knob.
No MPEG-2 support, very limited by OS – unable to see UPNP, DLNA or SMB shares properly – No go for me. I will keep this App deleted until they support it.
why do you post an article like this and state ” I had a bit of trouble getting the app to connect to a shared SMB Windows network” and just leave it at that? Dont you realize that that is why people are searching for this type of info? We are all not network gurus…I am frustrated downloading app after app and having none of them work when other reviewers glab about how great the app is
I can report that as of October 23, 2016, VLC for Firestick can only see the directory structures on my local network but not any content.
I can confirm as of 11-2016 it is working. Revision 02d7ad2 2016-06-23 able to play smb shares from Windows 10 and server 2012 no problem. Opening mkv, flv,mp4,even rm files. Works on ftv Gen 1 and 2
Only thing is I am not sure it is decoding Dts or dolby properly, my receiver displays linear pcm when playing mkv that I know own has dts or dd.
this has been working fine to connect to my SMB network on firetv but I can’t even find it to install it on my firestick. when I go to amazon on my PC the firestick is listed as 1 of my devices but it’s not in the dropdown when I try delivering the app to it. was it been pull from firestiock use?
When I try to install from Amazon, the firestick isn’t listed in the dropdown. It’s instead in my list of other “compatible devices” w/ an X next to it saying it’s incompatible w/ VLC. I updated the firestick OS but no change. I can’t find any info saying firestick support was removed but was hoping AFTNews had some info.
Ok, it does no longer appear to be available in the app store. I just solved this problem. First install ES File Explorer. That is in the App store under utilities. This will allow you to side-load the VLC apk. It also appears that ES File Explorer has its own Video Player so it may make installing VLC a mute point. Download the VLC apk ( VLC-Android-2.0.6-ARMv7.apk ) from here: https://get.videolan.org/vlc-android/2.0.6/
Put it on a network drive your Firestick can access. Navigate to the network location using ES File Explorer and click on the file to install it. You’ll be good to go.
thanks
You’re welcome!
I also have the problem where VLC can navigate folders but not find any content on my DLNA/UPnP server. Feb 2017.
I am able to play content using DLNA/uPNP with the “DG UPnP Player” free demo (2 minute playback only). I’ll give BubbleUPnP and Vimu a try (though Vimu doesn’t seem to have a free trial/demo).
If you install ES File Explorer, along with VLC when you click on the file you wish to open, you will be given the choice to open the file with VLC or the ES File Explorer player.
Using Mezzmo server, it puts everything in a folder, but when you open the album folder, all of the songs are in alphabetical order and you have to select each song separately. Not very good.