Before you begin
- The personal M3U link from your activation message
- A player that accepts a playlist address
- An understanding that the link is a credential, not a setting
Nothing to sign in with yet? Take a 24-hour trial and keep every subscription you have while you check what this covers, or see what it costs first.
Getting it running
Treat the link as a password, because it contains one
The address takes the form http://server:port/get.php with your username and password written into it as parameters. Anyone who reads that link owns your subscription until it is changed. People post it in forums while asking why a channel will not play, several times a week, and it is worth not being one of them.
Use it for the job it is genuinely best at
Open it in VLC on a computer and you can see the entire line-up as a searchable list. Looking for a specific network? Search the file. Thirty seconds gives you a definitive answer about whether something exists, which no amount of reading a features page — ours included — will ever provide.
Put it in the player that needs it
VLC takes it under Media, Open Network Stream. Smart IPTV pairs it with a MAC at siptv.app/mylist. Kodi needs the IPTV Simple Client add-on and its playlist field. Smarters and TiViMate will accept one, though on those two the Xtream login is the better route and there is no reason to take this one.
Keep it out of anywhere public
Because your username and password sit inside the link itself, posting it in a forum, a support thread or a screenshot hands over your subscription to whoever reads it. This happens more often than you would think, usually from somebody asking why a channel will not play. Describe the problem instead and send the link only to support.
Add the guide separately where a player asks
Some software wants programme data as its own address, ending xmltv.php with your credentials attached. Support will send it. If your player collects the guide by itself, you are on the login route and none of this applies to you.
Then move to a real player on the screen you watch
VLC keeps no favourites, shows no guide and forgets where you were, which makes it an instrument rather than a place to spend an evening. Once it has told you what you needed to know, set up the television properly and spend the fortnight there — with everything you currently pay for still running.
When something misbehaves
It takes a long time to open
Simpler players read every entry in the file before showing anything, and there are thousands. Either move to a player that understands categories, or ask support for a version filtered to your own country, which shortens the file dramatically and makes older software usable again.
Some channels play and others will not
In VLC this is usually a format the default engine declines rather than a channel that is down. Test the same channel in Smarters before reporting it: a stream that plays in one player and not another is telling you something about the player, not about the line-up.
It stopped working after I renewed
A renewal occasionally issues a fresh link. Ask support for the current one. The Xtream credentials usually survive a renewal unchanged, which is a modest argument for using them wherever a player gives you the choice.
The channels have no names, only addresses
Very old players ignore the descriptive information in the file and show the raw addresses instead. Nothing is wrong with your playlist. Use current software rather than trying to repair a file that is already correct.
VLC plays it but there are no channel names
Some very old players ignore the metadata in the file and show raw stream addresses instead. Nothing is wrong with the playlist. Use a player that understands the format — Smarters, TiViMate or a current VLC — rather than trying to fix a file that is already correct.
Other players the same login opens
Smart IPTV (SIPTV)
Set up Smart IPTV on a Samsung or LG television: find the MAC, upload your M3U at siptv.app, activate. Deliberately minimal, 25,000+ channels.
Windows PC and Mac
Watch IPTV on Windows or Mac with IPTV Smarters for desktop, VLC and an M3U link, or the browser player. Nothing to configure. 25,000+ channels.
All of them
Every device and player covered, on a single page.
See what it covers on your M3U playlist
A trial costs nothing and runs alongside everything you already subscribe to, so you can work out what would genuinely go and what you would keep. Plans open at $15 a month for the full 25,000+ line-up.
What people ask about the M3U playlist
Why do the free lists people share online stop working?
They are scraped feeds republished for anyone to take, so an enormous number of people hit one source simultaneously and it is blocked or simply collapses, usually within days. Nobody is answerable when it does, and the sites hosting them have a long record of distributing malware. A paid playlist points at capacity reserved for your account alone.
Playlist or login — which should I use?
The login wherever it is offered, because the guide and catalogue come with it. The playlist where a player speaks nothing else, and for the thirty-second check of whether a channel exists at all. Most households use the login daily and the playlist twice a year.
Can I give the link to family?
Within your household that is exactly what it is for. Beyond it, you are handing over the subscription, and the simultaneous-screen limit will make that obvious quickly. Links found published are closed without refund, which is stated in the terms and is acted upon.
Does it include the films and box sets?
Partly, and untidily — they arrive as very large flat groups rather than the browsable library the login produces. Since the catalogue is the part that overlaps what you already pay for, judging it through a playlist will understate it. Use a player that speaks the login before drawing conclusions about the catalogue.
Will the M3U work in Kodi?
Through the IPTV Simple Client add-on, yes, with the playlist address in its M3U field and the guide address entered separately. Kodi is powerful and fiddly in equal measure. If you are not already a Kodi household, Smarters will get you watching considerably faster and with fewer moving parts.
Does using the M3U count differently against my screens?
No. A stream is a stream regardless of how the player found it, so a laptop playing through VLC occupies a screen exactly as a television does. This catches people out during testing: checking a channel on a laptop while somebody watches in the lounge can hit the limit on a single-screen plan.
Can I open the file to see what is in it?
You can — it is plain text, and opening it in a text editor shows every channel name paired with an address. Doing so is the quickest way to check whether a specific channel exists at all, without waiting for a player to load thousands of entries. Search the file for the name you care about; if it is not there, no amount of configuration will produce it.
Does the playlist change without me doing anything?
The link stays the same and its contents are refreshed at our end as channels move, which is why players that reload from the link stay current while a saved copy drifts. If a player of yours has been showing the same dead channel for weeks, it is almost certainly holding a stored copy rather than re-reading the link.