F1TV UHD Patcher

Automated pipeline that patches the F1TV Android TV app to enable UHD/4K playback on any device. (only tested on my own Nvidia Shield TV Pro)

How it works

1. Checks APKPure every 3 hours for new F1TV Android TV releases
2. Downloads the app bundle — Google Play primary (arm64 native via NVIDIA Shield profile), APKPure and APKMirror as fallbacks
3. Patches the validateIsUhdSupportedDevice smali method to always return true
4. Signs all APKs with a consistent keystore
5. Publishes the patched bundle as a GitHub Release
6. Notifies via Pushover when a new patch is ready (or if it fails)

Installing on your Android TV

Prerequisites: Enable Developer Options & ADB

1. On your Android TV, go to Settings > Device Preferences > About
2. Scroll to Build and click it 7 times to enable Developer Options
3. Go back to Settings > Device Preferences > Developer Options
4. Enable USB debugging (and ADB over network if installing wirelessly)
5. Note the IP address shown under Settings > Network & Internet, or Device Preferences > About > Status

Option 1: ADB from a computer (recommended and tested)

Install ADB on your computer (download platform-tools) and add it to your PATH.

Via USB:

# Connect your Android TV via USB cable, then:
adb devices  # Confirm it shows up — approve the prompt on your TV

Via WiFi:

adb connect 192.168.1.100:5555  # Replace with your TV's IP
# Approve the connection prompt on your TV

Then download f1tv-uhd-patched.apkm from the latest release and install:

# Uninstall the original F1TV first (required — different signing key)
adb uninstall com.formulaone.production

# Use the install script (auto-extracts and auto-detects device config)
./scripts/install.sh f1tv-uhd-patched.apkm
# With ADB over WiFi:
./scripts/install.sh f1tv-uhd-patched.apkm 192.168.1.100:5555

Or install manually:

# Unzip the bundle
mkdir f1tv && cd f1tv && unzip ../f1tv-uhd-patched.apkm

# Install (adjust splits for your device — most Android TVs are arm64)
adb install-multiple base.apk \
  config.armeabi_v7a.apk \
  config.en.apk \
  config.xhdpi.apk

The install script accepts .apkm, .xapk files, or a directory of extracted APKs.

Option 2: Send & install directly on the TV (not tested yet)

No computer needed after the initial download.

1. Download f1tv-uhd-patched.apkm from the latest release on your phone
2. Install Split APKs Installer (SAI) on your Android TV (available on Play Store)
3. Transfer the .apkm file to your TV via:
   • USB drive — copy the file to a USB stick, plug it into the TV
   • Send Files to TV — install this app on both your phone and TV, send the file over WiFi
   • Google Drive / cloud — upload to Drive, open it from the TV's file manager
4. Open SAI on the TV, select the .apkm file, and install

Option 3: Wireless ADB apps (not tested yet)

If you don't have a computer but want a one-tap solution:

1. Install Bugjaeger on your Android phone
2. Enable ADB over network on your TV (see prerequisites above)
3. Connect Bugjaeger to your TV via its IP address
4. Use Bugjaeger to install the individual APK files

Common split APKs

The bundle contains split APKs for different device configurations. You need base.apk plus the correct splits. Split names vary by source (config.* from APKPure, split_config.* from APKMirror, com.formulaone.production.config.* from Google Play):

Split (any prefix)	When to include
*.arm64_v8a.apk	Most modern Android TVs (NVIDIA Shield, Chromecast, etc.)
*.armeabi_v7a.apk	Older 32-bit devices
*.x86.apk	Some emulators
*.en.apk	English — replace en with your language code
*.xhdpi.apk	Standard TV density — almost always needed

Note: You must uninstall the original F1TV app before installing the patched version (different signing key). This means you'll need to log in again.

Setup your own pipeline

1. Fork and enable Actions

Fork this repo and enable GitHub Actions in the Actions tab.

2. Custom apkeep fork

The pipeline uses a custom build of apkeep with an NVIDIA Shield TV device profile added to rs-google-play. This allows downloading the arm64 native variant directly from Google Play.

To set up your own:

1. Fork EFForg/rs-google-play, add your device profile to gpapi/device.properties, delete gpapi/src/device_properties.bin, commit & push
2. Fork EFForg/apkeep, change Cargo.toml to point gpapi at your rs-google-play fork, commit & push
3. Tag a release (git tag v0.18.0-shield && git push origin v0.18.0-shield) — the included workflow builds the binary automatically
4. Update APKEEP_CUSTOM_TAG in patch.yml to match your tag

A device profile dump script is included at scripts/dump_device_props.sh — connect your Android TV via ADB and run it to generate the profile.

3. Secrets

In Settings > Secrets > Actions, add:

Secret	Purpose	Required
GOOGLE_EMAIL	Google account email for Play Store downloads	For Google Play
GOOGLE_AAS_TOKEN	Google AAS token (how to obtain)	For Google Play
KEYSTORE_B64	Base64-encoded signing keystore (persistent key across builds)	Recommended
KEYSTORE_PASS	Keystore password	Recommended
KEYSTORE_ALIAS	Key alias	Recommended
PUSHOVER_APP_TOKEN	Pushover app token for notifications	Optional
PUSHOVER_USER_KEY	Pushover user key for notifications	Optional

Without Google Play credentials, the pipeline falls back to APKPure (armeabi-v7a only) and APKMirror automatically.

Generate a persistent keystore:

keytool -genkeypair -keystore f1tv.keystore -storepass yourpass \
  -keypass yourpass -alias f1tvpatch -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 \
  -validity 10000 -dname "CN=F1TV UHD Patch"

# Encode and add as KEYSTORE_B64 secret
base64 -w0 f1tv.keystore

Without a persistent keystore, a new key is generated each build — you'll need to uninstall before each update.

4. Manual trigger

If the automatic download fails, you can trigger the workflow manually:

• With direct URL: Go to Actions > F1TV UHD Patch > Run workflow, paste an .apkm URL
• Force rebuild: Check the "Force rebuild" option to re-patch an existing version

Project structure

.github/workflows/patch.yml   # CI pipeline (check, download, patch, release)
scripts/
  check_version.py             # APKMirror RSS parser (fallback version check)
  download_apkm.py             # Playwright-based APKMirror downloader (fallback)
  patch.sh                     # Smali patching, signing, bundling
  install.sh                   # ADB install helper (accepts .apkm, .xapk, or directory)
  dump_device_props.sh         # Dump Android TV device profile for rs-google-play
device_profiles/
  nvidia_shield_tv.properties  # NVIDIA Shield TV profile for Google Play downloads

Requirements (local use)

Only needed if running scripts locally outside CI:

• Python 3.10+, Playwright (pip install playwright && playwright install chromium)
• Java, apktool, zipalign, apksigner
• ADB (for install.sh)

Applied patches

Patch	File	Method	What it does
UHD unlock	DeviceSupportImpl.smali	validateIsUhdSupportedDevice()	Always returns Pair(true, null) so 4K streams are served
Quality button	DiagnosticsPreferenceManagerImpl.smali	isVideoQualityEnabled()	Always returns true so the quality selector is visible
Direct-to-view	RenderAPIConfig.smali	getNRPTextureBlitMode()	Amlogic only (runtime check): bypasses Tiledmedia GPU tile composition, decoder outputs directly to SurfaceView. Fixes ~13% frame drops on Amlogic devices. Other devices use the default rendering path.

License

For personal/educational use only.