IPTV

Review by eFreeware

Most video apps want to be your source of things to watch. IPTV does the opposite: it ships without a single channel and expects you to bring your own playlist, whether that comes from a paid TV provider or from free live streams you have found online. That single decision shapes everything about the app, and it is the reason it has held a following for well over a decade.

The developer is Alexander Sofronov, the app is free to download, and it carries advertising. It has passed ten million installs and sits at a 4.5 average across more than 117,000 ratings, which for a utility with no content of its own is a notable figure. If you already have a subscription that hands out an M3U link, or you maintain your own list of channels, this is the sort of app you would reach for. If you have no playlist and no intention of finding one, there is nothing here to watch.

Playlists are the whole foundation

The app reads M3U and XSPF playlists, the two formats most IPTV providers and channel-list builders produce. You supply the file or the address, and the app turns it into a browsable channel lineup. The developer is explicit that no channels are bundled, so the app is a viewer rather than a service.

One detail I appreciate is that the app keeps a history of playlists you have loaded. If you juggle a provider list and a personal one, or you swap lists when a source changes address, that history saves you from re-entering everything. The playlist history is one of the features the app keeps track of.

Multicast streams, common on some provider networks, are handled through a UDP proxy. That proxy has to be running on your own local network rather than somewhere out on the internet. The developer points to a few ways of setting one up: a UDP-to-HTTP proxy utility for Windows, the option offered during installation of IP-TV Player, or udpxy on Linux. The tidiest arrangement, in the developer's view, is udpxy running directly on a WLAN router, which some routers support through DD-WRT or OpenWrt firmware and a few manufacturers build in already.

Guide data, layouts and parental control

An electronic program guide is supported in XMLTV and JTV formats, so if your provider publishes guide data alongside the channel list, you can see what is on and when rather than scrolling through names alone. That is the difference between a channel picker and something closer to a conventional TV guide, and it matters most when a provider carries dozens of channels.

For browsing, you can arrange channels in a grid, a list or tiles. Those three views cover the usual preferences: a dense list for people who know what they are looking for, and a visual grid for anyone who recognizes channels by logo. The app can also hand playback to an internal player or pass the stream to an external one, which is useful when a particular stream behaves better in a player you already trust.

Parental control is included as well, which gives you a way to keep certain channels out of reach on a shared device. Between the guide data, the layout choices and that restriction, the free version covers the basics of actually living with an IPTV list rather than just opening it once.

What the free version asks of you

The app is free and supported by advertising. The paid tier is a separate Pro version rather than something you buy inside this one. The developer lists what Pro adds: no ads, the option to start the app when the device boots, automatic playback of the last channel you watched, and a longer playlist history. The boot-start option is described as useful for set-top boxes, which makes sense for a device that lives under a television and should come up ready to play.

The other requirement is the one that catches people out. There are no channels in the app, so you need a playlist of your own before anything appears on screen. That can be a list from an internet provider, a subscription service that supplies an M3U link, or free live streams gathered from around the web. Either way, the app is the last step in the chain, not the first.

Multicast viewing adds a further condition: a UDP proxy on your local network. That is a piece of infrastructure rather than a setting, and it is worth understanding before you commit to a provider whose streams use multicast.

Getting a list working without frustration

The app is aimed at people who already have a playlist in hand and want a straightforward player for it. That way, if a channel fails, you know whether the problem sits with the source or with the player. It also means you are not troubleshooting two things at once.

If you are on a provider that uses multicast and you have a router that supports udpxy through custom firmware, setting the proxy up on the router is the arrangement the developer favors. It keeps the proxy running for every device on the network instead of tying it to one computer that has to stay switched on. On a smaller setup, the Windows utility or the option bundled with IP-TV Player will do the job.

Guide data is worth the small amount of effort it takes to point the app at the right XMLTV or JTV source, because a channel list without program information is much harder to browse. And if the device is a set-top box rather than a phone or tablet, the Pro version's boot-start behavior is the feature that turns the app into something that behaves like part of the furniture.

Recent updates have focused on bug fixes, so the app is still being maintained rather than left to sit. It first appeared in February 2012, so this is a long-running project with a settled shape.

A viewer for people who already have a source

IPTV does one job and does it without pretending to be a streaming service. It takes an M3U or XSPF list you already have, presents it with guide data and a choice of layouts, and plays it through an internal or external player. The advertising is the price of the free download, and the Pro version is there for anyone who wants it gone along with boot-start, autoplay of the last channel and a longer history.

I would point this at people who pay for an IPTV subscription, run their own channel list, or have a set-top box that needs a dependable front end. The install numbers and the 4.5 average suggest a lot of those people have been satisfied with it.

What's new

Bug fixes