Vimu Media Player for TV

Review by eFreeware

Streaming subscriptions cover a lot of viewing, but they do nothing for the files you already own: recordings, downloads, home videos and music sitting on a hard drive or a shared folder. Getting those onto a television usually means either a media server with its own quirks or a player that chokes on half your library. Vimu Media Player for TV is one of the apps built for exactly that job, and it comes from developer GTVBox.net.

Vimu is built for a television rather than a phone, and the app targets TV boxes and TV sets only, with phones and tablets explicitly out of scope.

The app has been on the Play Store since November 2011 and carries a 4.3 average from 1,301 ratings, with more than 100,000 installs. Those numbers suggest a long-lived tool with a settled audience rather than a new arrival. What follows is a look at what the developer describes it doing, where the requirements bite, and who I would expect to get value from it.

What the app is built to do

At its core, Vimu is a playback app for media you supply. The developer is explicit that it contains and provides no content of its own; you need a USB drive with files on it or a network share to attach. You point it at storage, it reads what is there, and it plays it on the big screen.

The interface is described as a Leanback UI for Android TV, which is the standard television layout of rows and cards navigated with a remote rather than a touchscreen. The developer also lists grid, list and double list navigation, so there is some choice in how a folder or library is presented. None of this is unusual for the category, but it is the part that matters most on a TV, where a cluttered browser becomes painful within minutes.

The app is not limited to files sitting on a drive plugged into the box. It can navigate and play from internal storage, SD cards and USB drives, and it also reaches network sources: Windows shares over SMB, UPnP/DLNA servers, WebDAV and NFS. For anyone whose media lives on a computer or a NAS in another room, those four options cover most of the ways a home network is likely to be set up.

Format support and 4K playback

The developer lists support for MKV, AVI, MP4, MOV, FLV, TS, MPTS, WMV, DIVX, 3GP and VOB for video, along with MP3, FLAC and ALAC audio and JPEG images. That is a broad spread, and it includes the container formats most people's personal libraries actually use. Support depends on the capabilities of the device, which is a fair point for a player relying on hardware decoding.

On supported Android TV hardware, 4K HEVC and VP9 can be decoded in hardware. Hardware decoding is the difference between smooth playback and a slideshow on high-bitrate files, so this is the headline capability for anyone with a 4K television and matching content.

Audio gets similar attention. The app handles switching between audio tracks in multilingual files, and it supports AC3, EAC3 and DTS pass-through on Android TV. Pass-through matters if you have a receiver or soundbar doing the decoding, since it sends the original stream out rather than converting it. If there is no sound during playback, the file may carry an audio track the device cannot handle.

Subtitles, playlists and network extras

Subtitles are handled in two ways. External SRT files are supported in any encoding, with a specific requirement: the subtitle file needs a lowercase .srt extension and must sit in the same directory as the movie, named to match, so movie.mkv pairs with movie.srt.

There are a few capabilities beyond straightforward playback. On Android TV the app also acts as a UPnP renderer, known as DLNA Push, so another device on the network can send media to the television for Vimu to play. It supports M3U playlists, and it can stream from HTTP and HTTPS sources using progressive download. Picture-in-picture is supported on Android TV 7.0 and above, which lets video keep playing in a corner of the screen while you do something else.

The most recent update, from June 2026, adds separate SMB2 and SMB3 settings, optimizes SMB3 performance, introduces a new pass-through mode called Full, fixes playback of audio with cover art, and includes small fixes. That the developer is still refining network protocol handling more than a decade after release is a reasonable sign for anyone whose library lives on a share.

What it asks of you before it works

The requirements here are real and worth weighing before spending $2.99. This is a TV-only app: it is compatible only with TV boxes and TV sets, and tablets and phones are not supported. If your television does not run Android TV and you do not have a box attached to it, the app has nowhere to live.

It is also a player without a library. There is no content inside it, so you need your own files on a USB drive or a network share before it has anything to show. The developer's claim of one-minute setup is appealing, but the setup it refers to is the app itself, not the work of organizing and connecting the storage your media sits on. That part is yours.

Device compatibility has a second layer. The app is described as compatible with all official Android TV units, and it may work on some unofficial TV boxes running Android 6.0 or higher. That word "may" is doing real work: on unofficial hardware, compatibility is not guaranteed, and format support generally depends on what the device can decode. The developer does offer a refund within three days of purchase if some files fail to play, which softens the risk of a mismatch between your library and your hardware.

Who this player is for

The clearest fit is someone with an established collection of files and a television setup to match. If your movies and shows live on a drive or a NAS, you watch on an Android TV device, and you want a paid app, this is squarely the scenario Vimu is built around. The network source list, the pass-through audio options and the subtitle handling all point at a user who cares about their own library rather than a catalog.

It also suits people whose media is spread across several locations. Being able to browse internal storage, an SD card, a USB drive, an SMB share, a DLNA server, WebDAV and NFS from one app means less switching between tools depending on where a particular file happens to sit. For a household with a server in one room and a television in another, that flexibility is the point.

The picture is narrower for anyone without that setup. A viewer who mostly streams and has little local media would find nothing here to play. Someone who watches on a phone or tablet is outside the supported hardware entirely. And a person with an unofficial TV box should treat compatibility as something to verify rather than assume, given the developer's own hedged wording.

A paid player for people with their own library

Vimu Media Player for TV is a focused tool, and it is priced and described like one. For $2.99 you get a player with a broad format list, hardware decoding up to 4K on compatible Android TV hardware, pass-through audio, external and embedded subtitle support, and playback from local drives and four kinds of network share.

The trade-offs are stated rather than hidden. It plays only what you provide, it runs only on TV boxes and TV sets, and on unofficial hardware it may or may not work. None of those are surprises for the intended user, but they do mean the app is a poor match for anyone who wants content included or who watches on a phone.

If you have an Android TV device and a library of your own files, this is an easy recommendation to consider, particularly if your media lives on a network share and you want audio and subtitles handled properly. If your viewing is mostly subscription streaming, or your screen is a tablet or phone, the app simply is not aimed at you.

What's new in version 12.50

- Separate SMB2 or SMB3 settings. - Optimized SMB3 performance. - New pass-through mode "Full". - Fixed playback of audio with cover art. - Small fixes.