Installing VLC on an ADT-1

The ADT-1 is a neat little machine. It’s very sleak and designy.

I signed up for the developer version of Android TV because I’d like to port a game I wrote to the platform. And Google was nice enough to send one over.

But out of the box it doesn’t allow streaming videos over your home network, which seems like a must for an HTPC. The user interface on the ADT-1 is pretty much locked down. Google play is limited to very few titles. So let’s set up VLC.

Enable USB debugging on your ADT-1. Just go into your developer settings and turn it on. Connect to the ADT-1 using adb. I did this over my network with the following command:

adb connect {ip}:4321

Download a VLC nightly APK. Install the apk using adb:

adb install *.apk

This might take a minute. My wi-fi is as slow as molasses.

If you want to be fancy and start VLC over the network. This can be done in two stages. First, shell in to your ADT-1:

adb shell

Now you can load VLC with am:

am start -n org.videolan.vlc/org.videolan.vlc.gui.MainActivity

Or if you’re into doing things the easy way, you to Apps under settings and you should see VLC.

And that’s it. Now if you walk over to your ADT-1 you will see the bright orange face of VLC smiling at you. Have a nice day!