MediaHub 0.5.4-beta is now available for Android TV, introducing a new two-channel MultiView experience for Live TV.
MultiView allows two different live channels to play side-by-side within MediaHub. Moving focus between the two screens switches audio instantly, while both video streams continue playing.
Each screen can be controlled independently, allowing a channel to be replaced, retried or closed without interrupting the other stream. Separate buffering recovery is also available for both screens, helping to isolate playback problems to the affected channel.
Two Fullscreen Options
Users can press OK on either screen to open the focused channel individually in fullscreen.
A dedicated fullscreen MultiView option is also available. This keeps both channels visible together against a black background, with each picture fitted correctly rather than being stretched or cropped to fill the display.
Audio can still be switched between the two streams while using fullscreen MultiView, and pressing Back returns to the normal two-screen layout without reconnecting the channels.
Live TV Integration
MultiView is available through the compact button beside Favourites on the MediaHub Home screen.
The channel selection screen has been designed to match MediaHub’s existing Live TV interface, including its compact category navigation, channel rows and programme information.
Existing hidden, pinned and reordered Live TV categories are also respected by the MultiView channel picker.
Where EPG information is available, MediaHub displays the current programme beneath each active screen.
Provider and Device Safeguards
Watching two live channels normally requires two simultaneous connections from the IPTV provider.
Before opening another stream, MediaHub checks the active and maximum connection figures reported by the current Xtream/XUI account. If the additional stream would exceed the reported limit, MediaHub displays an explanation rather than knowingly opening too many connections.
MediaHub also checks Android’s advertised video-decoder capabilities. Devices that explicitly report support for fewer than two simultaneous decoder instances are prevented from starting MultiView, while additional warnings may be shown on lower-memory Android TV hardware.
Provider connection information and Android decoder figures are not always exact guarantees, so MultiView is deliberately being introduced as a Beta feature while it is tested across more devices and IPTV services.
Existing Live TV Timeshift
Normal Live TV pause and rewind functionality remains unchanged.
Supported streams continue to provide Pause, Resume, Rewind 30 seconds, Fast Forward 30 seconds and Go Live controls through MediaHub’s existing timeshift system.
MultiView streams remain at the live edge in this first Beta and do not create two independent rolling timeshift buffers. This keeps the feature lighter and avoids doubling the additional storage and processing required for local timeshift.
Visual Refresh
The MultiView interface includes polished icon-led controls, improved D-pad focus states and styling designed to match the wider MediaHub interface.
The MediaHub launcher icon, in-app logo and Android TV banner colours have also been refreshed to better reflect the lighter steel-blue branding used throughout the current application.
Existing Improvements Retained
MediaHub 0.5.4-beta retains all the stability improvements delivered in the previous release, including automatic Live TV recovery, more efficient loading for large IPTV catalogues, wider Xtream/XUI compatibility, safer caching and improved Jellyfin, Emby and Plex series navigation.
MediaHub Management 0.8.2-alpha is available alongside this release. The updated Docker and native Ubuntu packages contain the new 0.5.4-beta managed Android template, allowing generated MediaHub deployments to receive the same MultiView functionality and core improvements.
MediaHub remains Beta software, and testing across different Android TV devices and IPTV providers continues to be extremely valuable.
MediaHub 0.5.4-beta can be downloaded from the MediaHub Downloads page.
Thank you to everyone who continues to test MediaHub, report problems and suggest new features.