TV-Lite New Year 2026 release 0.8.0
We're here, exactly one year after the last release with a new one.
The new release has two brand new features and the usual small fixes.
Important: for now it is only for the Linux users. Windows user will have to wait a little bit.
Happy new year to everyone!
Using yt-dlp
The most important feature is the possibility of using yt-dlp to watch Youtube streams, or some other streams supported by yt-dlp.
It is still an experimental feature, not enabled by default, and this is what still holds back the Windows release.
I realize that, for the most Windows users, downloading yt-dlp and ffmpeg can be a somewhat complicated task, as they may end up looking into the wrong places and stumble across some malware. I'll try to find a way to distribute them along with the install kit, if this is possible.
Most of the Linux distros already have ffmpeg installed out of the box, and, if yt-dlp is not already in the repos, downloading it from Github and saving it in a folder should really be no big deal for any Linux user.
So this is really what holds back the Windows release.
To use this, you'll have to:
- Go to the "TV-lite" menu and select "Preferences". Then, in the new window, find the "Youtube" tab.
- Check the "Use yt-dlp (experimental) box.
- If yt-dlp is not located in a folder included in the PATH environment variable, you should indicate the full path to the yt-dlp in the respective text area. Use the button labeled "..." (three dots) to open a file selection window and further locate the yt-dlp. Leave it blank if yt-dlp is already in the PATH.
- Provided FFMpeg is already installed on your machine, please tick the remaining checkbox. Some streams may work without it, some may require it. For instance, watching regular Youtube videos may require it.
- Any additional yt-dlp command line parameters may be included in the "yt-dlp" parameters text area.
You can now test the functionality if you go, for example, to the Favorites list and create a new item with an Youtube URL.
Or, instead, you may create a "local list" and include streams of choice.
Other Changes
The rest of the changes are:
- It is now possible to accept or reject broken certificates for the secure links, as in VLC. Up until now, these links simply did not work.
- The Wayland workaround it is now effective for desktop environments as Gnome or Cosmic. The program was still falling back to Wayland, so the behavior was really weird. Now it should properly use XWayland.
As usual, please go to the Download page if you want to run this new release.
Happy New Year to those celebrating it!