Welcome to TarPlay

TarPlay allows you to mirror your mobile device's screen with audio to a browser or our receiver app, which runs on a car, a desktop, or other compatible devices. For example, you can view your phone within the browser window on Tesla.

With a decade-long emphasis on mobile streaming technologies, our team takes pride in being pioneers in implementing protocols like AirPlay, Chromecast, Miracast, CarPlay, and Android Auto. We provide both wireless and USB wired streaming solutions for Android, iOS and desktop.

Our Apps

rPlay TV — a native IPTV player for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and CarPlay. It plays your own M3U, Xtream Codes or Dispatcharr playlist, with a full programme guide, multiview and recording — and it puts video on the car screen for your passengers. Free on the App Store.

About rPlay TV  ·  Get it on the App Store

Scan to install rPlay TV

CarPlay Receivers and In‑Car Video — Technology Licensing

We work on both ends of the link: the receiver that runs in the vehicle, and the phone‑side app that feeds it. Automakers, tier‑1 suppliers and aftermarket head‑unit makers can license our code to add CarPlay and Android Auto support to a new unit, or to extend a receiver they already ship — including video playback on the car display.

CarCast Field Notes — what we see on the wire, written down for the people building in the same corner. Latest: Video on the Dash — how iOS 26 CarPlay video playback works. What changed in iOS 26, the videoPlayback capability and the /info handshake that gates it, and how a video fling flows between phone and car. The shape of the problem, written for engineers.

Receiver side — for automakers and head‑unit makers

We have a fully compatible CarPlay receiver of our own, running on macOS, Android, Linux and embedded SoC targets, over both wireless and USB wired transports. A real iPhone connects to it and renders its CarPlay screen full‑size with touch input, across the standard display resolutions — and it advertises videoPlayback in its /info response, which is the switch that makes the phone offer video to the head unit at all.

Around it sits a decade of receiver work across AirPlay, Chromecast, Miracast, CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless and USB wired, on Android, iOS and desktop. It is built to be ported and extended rather than dropped in as a black box, which is what an automotive programme actually needs.

• Add protocol support to a head unit that does not have it, or bring a second protocol alongside one you already ship.
• Extend an existing receiver with video playback on the car display, so passengers can watch while the vehicle is in a state you decide is appropriate — the policy stays yours.
• Port to your hardware and OS: Linux, Android Automotive, QNX or a custom stack, wireless or USB wired, with the encoder and transport tuned to the SoC you actually have rather than a reference board.
• Bring an ageing platform forward so a unit already in production keeps up with newer phone OS releases instead of being frozen at the version it shipped with.

Phone side — proven, and on sale today

Video playback on a CarPlay display is one of the hardest things to get right in the car, and we have it shipping. rPlay TV is our reference implementation, published on the App Store and running today in production vehicles: it plays live video on the head unit, on units that support Apple's newer video‑in‑car feature and on units that have no video capability at all. Two delivery paths are implemented, and the app selects between them automatically at runtime, per vehicle:

• System presentation — on head units that report video support, the stream is handed to the system for the head unit to present.
• Phone‑side rendering — on every other head unit, the picture is composited and encoded on the phone and delivered over the existing CarPlay video channel. No head‑unit hardware or firmware change is required, which is what makes this deployable across a fleet that is already on the road.

Both paths are built on Apple's public CarPlay APIs. CarPlay itself is licensed by Apple, so a head unit still has to be an MFi/CarPlay licensee — what we provide is the engineering that turns that entitlement into working video, not a way around it.

Technical scope

The vocabulary an integration engineer will recognise, so you can judge the fit before writing to us:

• Transport — wireless bring‑up over Wi‑Fi, and wired CarPlay over USB with CDC‑NCM interface discovery; iAP2 session start and role negotiation.
• Media — RTSP/RTP session setup, SRTP, and the FairPlay‑protected media path; H.264/AVC and HEVC/H.265 encode and decode, with latency and bitrate tuned to the SoC in front of us rather than a reference board.
• Capability advertisement — the receiver's /info response and feature bits, including enabling videoPlayback so the phone will offer video to the head unit in the first place.
• Display and input — multiple display roles, touch, rotary knob and trackpad input, and focus handling on non‑touch units.
• Targets — Linux, Android, Android Automotive, QNX and desktop, plus Android Auto (AAP) alongside CarPlay where both are required.

We work with MFi/CarPlay licensees under their own Apple agreements, and integrate against the specifications and tooling those agreements give you.

What we license

• A complete CarPlay receiver, in source, ported to your hardware — macOS, Android, Linux and embedded SoC, wireless and USB wired — for automakers, tier‑1 suppliers and aftermarket manufacturers.
• Extending a receiver you already ship, including video playback support and keeping an existing unit current with newer phone OS releases.
• Video‑on‑the‑car‑screen technology, on head units with native video support and on those without.
• A phone‑side reference implementation and integration support for app publishers who want their own content on the car display.
• Custom receiver and sender development across the streaming protocols above, wireless and USB wired.

OEM and licensing enquiries: info@vmlite.com. Tell us the head unit, the SoC and OS it runs, and the phone OS versions you need to support, and we will tell you plainly what applies and what it takes.