The site now has a page where you can report mismatches that I'll feed into the training model as heavily weighted.

If you've seen any weird placement of your movies and/or TV shows, feel free to make a submission. As new betas and App Store releases roll out, the ML model version will tick up with these corrections. https://www.bunnyearstv.com/corrections

This will probably be one of my last beta build posts here on Reddit.

Once I get this build onto the App Store I'll be moving beta discussions to Discord. This should hopefully reduce confusion for non-beta testers. I'll have a link soon, and I hope all of you beta testers are able to make the move.

For now, we're still here! This build focuses heavily on background audio playback, streaming reliability, AirPlay and HomePod audio, custom channels, and better music station accuracy.

Background Playback and Lock Screen Controls

Bunny Ears TV can now keep video, Music Video Mixtapes (channel 19), Weather (channel 20), and Radio playing in the background on iPhone and iPad! You can choose Always, Full Screen Only, or Off, while Lock Screen and Control Center controls let you pause, seek through DVR content, change channels, and see what is currently playing.

Radio defaults to Always, while video and Weather default to background audio only when you exit the app from Full Screen.

Better AirPlay and HomePod, and ARC Audio

AirPlay and HomePod playback should start faster and avoid unnecessary Plex transcoding. I also improved switching between HomePods, AirPods, receivers, and other audio outputs, along with ARC/eARC latency handling and Audio Sync calibration.

There are several recovery improvements here, so please let me know how playback behaves with your particular audio setup.

Separate Audio and Video Streaming Quality

In addition to the video streaming quality settings, there's now audio quality settings for Cellular, 5G, Wi-Fi, and Apple TV Ethernet. You can use Auto, select a specific bitrate, or choose Original Quality.

Auto audio briefly buffers and confirms that playback is stable before continuing. Slower connections can step down automatically without immediately skipping the station or becoming stuck.

Smarter Auto Audio/Video Quality

Auto can now learn when a specific remote Plex connection needs a lower starting quality. It also saves enough tuning time for a useful lower-quality retry instead of letting the first attempt consume the entire timeout window.

Verified local Direct Play and manually selected quality settings are left alone.

Oh, and it all works when Bunny Ears TV is backgrounded too, so radio stations adapt to available bandwidth automatically.

More Accurate Music Channels

Music stations now make better use of Plex genres, styles, and moods, with less broad artist information being applied to every song. This should reduce crossover between unrelated stations and create more accurate genre and mood mixes.

And while you're at it, start up a radio station and connect to CarPlay or go on a walk with your iPhone. Your Plex music library can now go with you wherever you are!

Easier Custom Channel Editing

Custom channels can now be reordered directly inside the channel list. iPhone and iPad use drag and drop, while Apple TV lets you pick up a channel, move it with the remote, and drop it into place. This should be a much better experience compared to the annoying up and down reorder arrows.

Ordered custom channels also have a new “When One Show Ends” setting. A shorter show can either wait for the remaining shows to finish or start over from its first episode. I believe this caused some users to assume the custom channel ordering was not working correctly, so if you're seeing one show dominate, it's possible your other shows ended. Check out the new setting and see how it goes!

Smaller Improvements

• The Profile PIN screen has a cleaner layout, clearer controls, and better portrait, landscape, iPad keyboard support, and Apple TV controls.
• Channel Packages now show reserved channel ranges more clearly and have better spacing and touch targets. This should help you find the channels you'd like to disable and it just looks a lot better.
• Channel Surfer fits narrow iPhone screens better without cutting off channel names or numbers.
• iPhone and iPad can now show only the date in the guide, so I hid the Show Time setting on iOS devices.
• Apple TV Interface Sounds controls are easier to focus, adjust, and understand.
• Guide music previews once again respond correctly to taps and VoiceOver.
• Hid Ethernet quality settings for iPhone and iPad devices.

Bug Fixes and Reliability

• Fixed background playback stopping during DVR rebuilds, stream recovery, slot changes, and audio restarts.
• Fixed healthy AirPlay sessions being mistaken for stopped playback.
• Fixed repeated retunes caused by minor audio capability changes.
• Fixed Radio and Weather stalls skipping too quickly instead of recovering the current track.
• Fixed short bumpers being consumed by Plex transcode startup.
• Improved custom channel scheduling consistency between devices.
• Improved playlist and collection syncing when Plex returns incomplete information.
• Improved large music library syncing when Plex omits metadata.
• Improved Audio Sync error messages and VoiceOver support.

The areas I would especially appreciate testing are background playback and Lock Screen controls, AirPlay/HomePod and ARC/eARC audio, Auto quality on remote connections (driving or walking around listening to radio stations really tests this out), Radio and Weather streaming, and custom channel reordering.

As always, please share what is working well, anything that still needs attention, and sharing what is working well is great too. Thanks!

Hey all, another update about beta promo pricing.

After some thought, I've decided I need to automate the promo code distro process. Direct messaging each person directly will just consume too much time.

If you joined the mailing list on the site when first joining the beta, you're already registered and there's nothing more for you to do. You will receive an email with your promo code.

If you never joined the private beta, please visit this page and enter your email address: https://www.bunnyearstv.com/beta-thanks

The form adds a special "Thanks" tag so you will never receiving anything besides a single promo code email.

I believe most of you probably already have shared your email, but if not, please follow that step and you'll be good to go once the emails go out.

Thank you early adopters and beta testers!

Build 5 is a fast follower with all the code that should have been in build 4. Feel free to update and enjoy!

PLEASE HOLD OFF ON UPDATING AND OPENING THE LATEST BETA! I promise this build is more stable, but I forgot to merge one of my branches into the main branch before building. This causes subscription features to not work correctly. I’ve already merged the code, but I want to test to make sure I don’t have another mishap. Sincere apologies, it’ll be fixed soon.

Happy Friday nostalgia lovers!

Bunny Ears TV BETA 1.11 Build 4 is now available, and I'm really excited about this latest build because I've added a couple cool new features, and through my own testing I'm finding it very stable.

The headline is a completely new Music Video Mixtapes experience on Channel 19, but there are also major improvements to streaming adaptability, playback stability and transcoding avoidance on Apple TV, mobile controls, interface interaction sounds like Tivo from back in the day, and overall reliability.

New Features

Music Video Mixtapes on Channel 19

Channel 19 turns your Plex music video playlists, collections, and libraries into your own personalized music television station! It also completes the Basic Channels package with a solid lineup of channels that will always remain free. You can balance how sources are mixed (coming soon to custom channels), reduce repeated artists, highlight new additions so they play more often for X number of days, schedule artist mini-sets, add ad bumper breaks unique to Channel 19, and customize the Song IDs shown over each video (artist info overlay like VH1 and MTV used to have).

The guide stays clean with one continuous LIVE MIX card showing what is playing and what is coming next. Your settings and schedule also sync across Apple TV, iPhone, and iPad. Rock on!

Interface Sounds

Bunny Ears TV now includes optional interface sounds for navigation, channel changes, DVR skips, selections, blocked actions, and completed tasks. Choose Off, Subtle, or Full, then adjust the volume separately from whatever you are watching. This is a UI throwback to the days of Tivo, but with original sounds created just for Bunny Ears TV using Garage Band!

Smarter Connection Testing

Auto Streaming Quality can now test the actual route between your device and Plex using a small bit-limited media sample. This helps Bunny Ears TV preserve Direct Play when your connection can support it, while still adapting quickly when it cannot.

A new Current Stream row shows whether playback is using Direct Play, Direct Stream, or transcoding.

Improvements to Existing Features

Better Playback and Audio Sync

Audio Sync calibration has been rebuilt using real stereo and 5.1 reference videos (real videos instead of Swift UI elements replicate actual offset delays) played through the normal playback system. Playback is also better at recovering from stopped audio, frozen video, incorrect DVR positions, failed streams, and rapid audio or subtitle changes.

AirPlay and HomePod playback now use a more reliable native playback path designed to keep audio and video working from the same clock.

I'm really hoping you all see a solid improvement, so please share your feedback!

Better iPhone and iPad Controls

Channel Surfer is now designed specifically for touch, with dragging, tappable channel rows, VoiceOver actions, and a dedicated Watch button. The iPhone guide also gains a pull-down program information drawer that can get out of the way and let the guide shine, edge-swipe Back support in Settings, and cleaner full-screen navigation.

More Reliable Plex and Guide Syncing

Large Plex libraries and music-video sources now import more safely, even when Plex returns incomplete or malformed data that doesn't actually match Plex's own API spec. I believe this was the cause of many failures for truly gigantic libraries.

Guide generation, profile changes, server switching, CloudKit syncing, and account changes now do a much better job of rejecting outdated background work before it can overwrite newer information.

UI Polish

• Weather on 20 now uses one continuous live guide card which makes it much easier to jump into.
• Weather ticker updates are smoother and no longer drop frames.
• Channel colors have improved contrast throughout the app.
• The Tuning In indicator is now properly centered. Thanks to the family that reported this, I appreciate the team effort. Go team! :)
• The iPhone and iPad guide no longer duplicates the system clock.
• The Bunny Ears TV+ row now moves based on subscription status and shows a subscriber badge. Meaning once you subscribe it moved to the bottom and out of the way.
• Profile photos now cache so you don't see a reload on every visit to the Profile page.
• Channel names are now slightly smaller and wrap to a second line on iPhone and iPad so you can see the full name.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed several causes of silent playback, frozen video, and endless retry loops.
• Improved DVR seeking, scrubbing, Restart, Go Live, and playback position recovery.
• Fixed playback occasionally joining at the wrong live or DVR position.
• Improved buffering behavior on cellular, constrained networks, healthy 5G, and Plex Relay. I literally drove around to different areas, parked, and tested with my iPhone and cellular iPad to test different network conditions.
• Fixed old connection tests and network changes interrupting healthy streams.
• Improved switching between local and remote Plex connections without losing playback position.
• Fixed cancelled library refreshes continuing to modify the local database.
• Fixed temporary Plex failures being mistaken for intentionally empty libraries or channels.
• Fixed older guide and CloudKit work overwriting newer schedules.
• Improved purchase loading, Restore Purchases, entitlement verification, and TestFlight access.

What to Test

The biggest areas to explore are Music Video Mixtapes on Channel 19, Auto streaming quality, interface sounds, audio sync calibration, and the updated iPhone and iPad controls, plus general polish.

Let me know what you enjoy, what feels confusing, and anything that does not work as expected. And of course let me know if things are going well! I love all your feedback.

Thank you for continuing to help make Bunny Ears TV better and happy watching over the weekend!

I just completely removed all versioned beta criteria for the public beta link. If you were trying to get access on an iOS device and were unable to download it from TestFlight earlier, give it another try.

https://testflight.apple.com/join/NdaJfb9n

Thanks!

First off, happy Friday!

Beta 1.11 Build 3 is probably the biggest feature set introduction since launch.

There's a lot here, and I hope you can take the time to read through everything. That way you know what to test, and explore!

And please do chime in and share your feedback. It seems to be a little quieter lately. Maybe that's a good thing because there's less to report, but with a large release like this, there's bound to be issues. Even if you're not experiencing a bug, let me know what new additions you're enjoying!

The Biggest News

• iPhone and iPad interfaces are here! Even though this is build 3, it's the first build to include support for more than the Apple TV. I've done quite a bit of testing on my own, and I've made many tweaks and improvements to Auto transcoding over the past month so devices gracefully handle switching from Wifi, 5G, and LTE. I'm sure you'll all find things that need fixing since this is the first release, but I'm super excited to get this out to you all!

Other Cool New Features

• Weather on 20 is a new 24/7 weather channel, on you guessed it, channel 20. There's current weather conditions, extended forecast, and almanac screens. Each has a wealth of weather information. The background color is dynamic to match weather and day/night conditions, and the soundtrack comes from your own Plex music library, with a preference for jazz and easy listening if those exist in your music library.
• There's a new profiles tab bar item for fast user switching. You'll see your profile photo and name right next to Guide and Settings.

Some Smaller Feature and Updates

• The static effect got a lot fancier. There are now 4 static options. Auto (the new default), Day, Night, and Off. Auto uses sunrise and sunset data from the weather channel to toggle between Day and Night mode. Day is the classic static look you're familiar with. Night substitutes the white color in the static for a darker blue color pallet, which makes night viewing less straining on the eyes when channel surfing. Off gets rid of the static, and instead displays light gray "Tuning In" text on a dark background.
• There's now a date and time widget in the guide. It's enabled by default, but can be turned off on the Guide settings screen. Handy for not losing track of time.
• You can now enable channel logo overlays when in fullscreen mode, just like real broadcast TV. It's a small change, but it's nice to have a subtle visual indicator always visible to let you know what channel you're on. This setting is under Settings > Playback > Live TV > Channel Logo Overlay.
• Additional guide scheduler fixes have been added to build 3. There were some regressions while making the guide more random in previous builds. I've added a ridiculous amount of new tests to catch future regressions, and I believe the issue is fully fixed now. Sorry about that!
• The ML classifier has been updated to version 2.10 after some additional training data was added. I created a report to find weak spots in the training data, and worked to build out the weak areas. The classifier is now trained on over 300,000+ media items, and you should see more movies and tv shows appear as the model gained confidence in new areas.
• The Guide now defaults to not muting the video preview. I ran a poll and the majority agreed it was confusing when sound wasn't playing on initial launch. There's still the option to disable this under Settings > Guide > Mute Guide Preview.
• When you subscribe or buy Bunny Ears TV+ Lifetime, the subscribe button moves to the bottom of the Settings screen to get out of the way.

Feature Recap

Some of these were added over the last couple of builds, and I haven't heard much about it. Recapping here incase you missed it. Try out the new functionality and share your thoughts!

• Streaming Quality is Bunny Ears TV's take on transcoding and a number of new settings were added. There are 4 quality profiles you can customize. Cellular, 5G, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet. Wi-Fi and Ethernet disable transcoding so it behaves like the app does today. The goal is always on device playback because the difference in speed is noticeable, but cellular and 5G enable transcoding by default so Blu-ray remuxes stream smoothly when away from home. You're able to customize everything to fit your needs and network speeds.
• There's also a simple Playback Reliability setting under Streaming Quality that allows you to easily adjust buffer and connection retry settings for better resiliency on unstable connections.
• Ad Bumpers recently got a ton of new functionality. In addition to now supporting Playlists, Collections, and Libraries, you can also create multiple Ad Bumper groups and assign them to channel packages. This allows you to show kid friendly ads on family channels, and more adult themed ads on other channel packages. There's a lot of customization here, so share how it's working for you!
• Every Profile has multiple settings that allow you to tailor the guide for who's watching. Select Content Restrictions, choose to allow or block unrated content, and even hide or show music channels per profile.
• Audio Sync now detects offset more accurately. More of you should no longer require an audio offset at all, but if you do, there's a new UI that allows you to make adjustments in realtime to really dial in the offset. Smaller 10ms increments were added as well for even better accuracy.
• There's a new Chapters button when in full-screen for media with chapters. Every chapter has a screenshot, and this new feature allows you to quickly jump to major sections in a movie or TV show.
• Custom Channels now have more icons to choose from, perfect for Holiday channels, or whatever else you can think of.
• The Settings screens in general received some TLC. I've reorganized some settings and worked to add more consistency between the screens.

Thank you all for your interest in and support of Bunny Ears TV! This build is only the beginning. Please share what you love, what is not working, and what you would like to see improved. I truly value your feedback and will continue using it to make the app better.

Have a great weekend and happy watching!

Version 1.11 build 1 is now available to beta testers with Plex profiles, parental controls, improved ad bumper breaks, audio calibration, external subtitles, and major reliability improvements.

Thank you to everyone who has tested Bunny Ears TV, reported bugs, and shared ideas. Your feedback directly shaped this release.

What’s New

Plex Home Profiles and Parental Controls

Bunny Ears TV now supports Plex profiles with a Who’s Watching screen.

You can select a profile at launch, switch from the guide, use Plex PIN protection, and keep settings synchronized for each profile. The active profile remains local to each device, so switching on one device will not interrupt another.

Profiles can also be limited to Little Kids, Older Kids, or Teens content, with additional controls for unrated content and music channels.

More Flexible Ad Bumper Breaks

You can now create bumper groups from Plex playlists, collections, or entire libraries.

Each group can be assigned to specific channel packages, with one to five clips per break. This now makes it possible to give different channels their own commercials.

Audio Sync Calibration

In addition to new audio syncing logic under the hood, I've added a new full-screen calibration tool that uses synchronized flashes and beeps to help correct audio that plays ahead of or behind the video.

Offsets can be adjusted from negative 1000 milliseconds to positive 2000 milliseconds, with changes applied immediately so you can easily make adjustments until the on-screen flash and beep align perfectly.

External Plex Subtitles

External Plex subtitles are now supported, including forced and SDH tracks.

More New Features

• Choose between the classic TV static transition or a cleaner black change effect.
• Music channels now create more balanced queues with better artist variety.
• Subtitle preferences are remembered separately for each Plex server.

Guide and Scheduling Improvements

The guide received a major reliability pass.

• Movies and episodes should no longer be shortened.
• Programs and bumpers crossing midnight are scheduled correctly.
• Guide extensions no longer lose the end of programs or bumpers.
• Shuffled channels should avoid long runs of the same show.
• Bumper and custom-channel changes regenerate the guide more reliably.

Syncing and Plex Improvements

• Switching Plex accounts should no longer allow old account activity to affect the new one.
• Empty or replacement iCloud accounts are handled correctly instead of being mixed with old local data.
• Guide conflicts, missing data, interrupted deletions, and corrupted guides recover more safely.
• Bunny Ears TV is better at recovering Plex connections and server tokens.
• Plex Relay, HTTPS, Docker, private addresses, IPv4, IPv6, and plex.direct connections are handled more carefully.
• Plex errors now provide clearer messages based on the actual problem.
• Changed shows and albums refresh more reliably.

Playback and Stability Improvements

• Audio synchronization now uses a more accurate system clock.
• Canceling a library load should no longer leave the app stuck.
• Incomplete onboarding returns to library selection.
• Signing out now provides visible cleanup progress.
• Expired Plex sign-in requests stop correctly.

Family Sharing Update

This build includes the correction needed for Family Sharing with lifetime purchases. Unfortunately, the fix cannot fully take effect until version 1.11 is released publicly.

I apologize for the mix-up, and I appreciate your patience while I get this corrected.

Thank You

Version 1.11 is a major foundation for what comes next, including the full Bunny Ears TV experience on iPhone and iPad!

Please keep reporting anything that feels confusing, inconsistent, or broken. Every report helps make the public release better.

Thank you for supporting Bunny Ears TV, and have a great week!

UPDATE: The new build has been submitted and is waiting on review from Apple.

Happy Friday!

You may have noticed the r/bunnyearstv subreddit has been extra busy the last few days.

I made a post on r/appletv the other day that became the top post of the day and reached 240K views! Simply amazing. So if you're new here, welcome!

While amazing, a fresh wave of users also uncovered some unresolved issues. I hope to have the next beta release out today, but at the latest it'll be tomorrow. If you are new here, I take bug reports and feedback very seriously. If you've already made a purchase and are experiencing an issue, don't worry, we'll get it taken care of. All I ask is that you're a little patient as I work through it all.

Now, onto the fun part! Here's a quick overview of what's on the way:

Fixes:

• Can't load library (this is rare, but obviously a blocker for those affected)
• Audio not playing issues (also rare, but very frustrating)
• Audio sync issues (especially for HDMI ARC and AirpPlay speakers such as HomePods)
• Large library fixes (sync stalls)
• Family Sharing (lifetime purchase was not sharing correctly)
• Missing meta for playlists and collections
• Purchase issues (the fix is to expose the actual issue returned from the App Store instead of generic messaging)
• End of video restarts (this is a part 2 fix)

There have also been many requests for some new features. Some small, some large. I implemented some of the easy ones, one that should clear up confusion (ad bumpers), plus a couple that will align so well with the iPhone and iPad support that's coming soon.

New features coming:

• Profiles! (with an on/off setting to enable or disable profile prompting when the app opens, and a fast user switching menu shortcut)
• Major Ad Bumper enhancements (playlists, collections, and libraries support, PLUS you can create multiple ad bumper groups and assign them to channel groupings. This will allow you to have kid friendly ad bumpers for the kid channels, and possibly more adult oriented bumpers for the mature channel packages)
• Audio sync is getting a more dynamic settings screen (a flashing circle and a tone that play allow you to easily make adjustments live to dial in the sync that works best for your set up)
• A toggle to enable/disable static during channel tunes
• New custom channel icons (lots of new icons, including holiday icons, and an 18+ icon for custom "adult" channels)

Still tons of features to work on, but after I work through some of these bugs, I'll be focusing iPhone and iPad support.

Thanks so much for all of your support. There's so much to look forward to with this app thanks to you all!

I’m the creator of Bunny Ears TV, a tvOS app for people who use Apple TV and have their own personal media library.

I choose the Apple TV as the launch platform due to the neural engine, which I don't see a lot of people talk about.

The app uses this hardware to turn your personal media library into automatic virtual channels thanks to a custom trained machine learning classifier. It scans all of your movies, TV shows, and music, then assigns all of it to highly curated movie/tv show channels, in addition to music stations.

So far there are 425 movie/tv show channels and 65+ music stations.

I just posted my first demo/promo video in r/bunnyearstv, and I’m branching out to gather feedback from additional Apple TV/Plex users.

I’m the creator, so I’m happy to answer questions and to hear your thoughts.

Thank you for your time!

Miss the simplicity of channel surfing, but still want to watch your own Plex library? My app creates always-on TV channels (highly curated using custom ML training), a live guide, and a cable-style browsing experience from the movies and shows you already have.

I just launched on Product Hunt and would love your feedback, support, or a vote if it looks useful.

So far I’ve been very disappointed with this launch. I’ve received many messages from beta testers confirming they voted to show support, but I’m not seeing their votes or comments on my PH launch page. I believe many created new accounts so the platform is not counting them which is too bad. I’ve built up quite the following, and it seems like none of their votes count.

Product Hunt has really changed it seems. Besides priming my community earlier, are there any other steps I should be taking to have a fair shot?

Still hoping some seasoned account holders find the product today and vote.
https://www.producthunt.com/products/bunny-ears-tv