+1, good idea.
Generally been opposed to trying to do software decoding of additional formats on iOS devices, but as OP correctly states, other devices have been mobile devices, with battery constraints. The new Apple TV has no such issue, and a fairly powerful CPU.
I read an interview with someone from Plex where it was stated that the initial ATV app was done using the built in player due to time constraints, rather than the custom Plex player that powers iOS playback.
Meanwhile MobileVLCKit continues to exist, providing codec support in software for iOS devices. This may not be immediately compatible with the ATV, and if Plex relies on this, that’ll be another reason why it’s not been implemented… yet.
I imagine the rationale behind a lot of clients not playing anything not natively supported through hardware in the platform is due to them largely having small CPUs or power constraints. Given the ATV has none of these things, adding support for additional formats through a custom player would be a nice thing to see!
+1. Liked. Not a high priority, as this is already covered through server-side transcoding and users purchasing an ATV4 should already be aware of the limitations, but removing some would be nice.
EDIT: Whoops, looks like this is a dupe of https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/193381/feature-request-integrate-ffmpeg-in-ios-tvos-clients-natively
