Before you begin
- Android TV, Google TV, a Firestick or an Android box
- Your VISNOVAA credentials
- Around ten dollars a year, if you later decide Premium is worth it
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
Install it where it exists
The Play Store carries it on Android TV and Google TV. A Firestick takes it through Downloader, exactly as the Firestick page describes. On Apple, Samsung or LG hardware there is nothing to install and nothing to buy — use Smarters there, and treat any similarly named listing on those stores as a different product hoping you will not notice.
Point it at your account
Add playlist, then the Xtream Codes option, then the server address, username and password. It will never ask for a playlist file and does not want one. If you find yourself searching your messages for an M3U link at this point, you have taken the wrong branch and should go back a screen.
Answer the category question properly
It asks which groups to include, and the temptation is to accept everything and move on. Do not. Selecting the fifteen or twenty categories your household would actually open turns an unmanageable line-up into something you can navigate with a remote. The choice is reversible, so being decisive costs nothing.
Spend ten minutes on the channel groups
TiViMate rewards curation more than any other player here. Hide every category you will not open, put your regulars in a favourites group, and set that group as the default. A list of thousands becomes a list of forty. This is the step that decides whether the television is still pleasant in three months, and it is the one everybody skips.
Build the favourites group you will actually live in
Beyond categories, put your regular thirty or forty channels into a favourites group and make it the default view. This is the single highest-return ten minutes on this page. It is also the step almost everybody skips, and skipping it is the difference between a television that gets used and one that gets avoided.
Set the guide to refresh on its own
Under Settings, TV guide, choose a twelve-hour refresh. The programme data travels with the Xtream login, so there is no separate address to find and paste anywhere. Missing this setting is why some people conclude the guide is unreliable when it is simply working from yesterday's copy.
Consider Premium, but buy it in the right place
Premium costs roughly $9.99 a year or a lifetime licence in the mid-thirties, with a seven-day trial, and adds recording, multi-view and multiple playlists. It is purchased in the separate TiViMate Companion app on a phone, not on the television — a detail that defeats more people than every other question about this player combined.
Then measure what it displaces
Keep paying for everything while you use it. A fortnight of ordinary evenings tells you which apps on this device you stopped opening, and that is the only figure worth acting on. A first-night impression of a very good player is not the same as evidence about your household's habits.
When something misbehaves
It says the playlist could not be loaded
Confirm the server address still carries its port and that the plan has not lapsed. Then enter the password by hand instead of pasting it, since text lifted from a chat window brings invisible characters along with it more often than seems plausible.
The guide reports no information
Run Update now from Settings, TV guide, then restart the app. Also allow more time than feels reasonable on a first load — several minutes across a large line-up is ordinary, and impatience accounts for a good share of these reports.
Premium will not appear on the television
Because it was never bought there. Install TiViMate Companion on an Android phone, purchase inside it, and the licence attaches to the same Google account and shows up on the television. This is the commonest confusion with this app by a wide margin.
A recording stops partway through
Usually the device running out of room rather than anything wrong with the channel. A Firestick in particular has very little free space, so point recordings at a USB drive or network storage and check the path in settings before assuming a stream dropped.
Multi-view stutters on a Firestick
Two streams decoded at once is more than a stick's processor comfortably manages, particularly at 4K. Drop both windows to HD, or accept that multi-view genuinely wants a Shield or a Formuler. It is not a fault in the streams, and it is the clearest case on this site of hardware being the limit.
Other players the same login opens
IPTV Smarters Pro
Install IPTV Smarters Pro on Firestick, Android, Samsung, LG, Apple TV or PC, sign in with Xtream Codes and load the guide. Free, 25,000+ channels.
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.
All of them
Every device and player covered, on a single page.
See what it covers on your TiViMate
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 TiViMate
What does Premium actually cost?
About $9.99 for a year, or a one-off lifetime licence between roughly $34 and $38 depending where you are. There is a seven-day trial, which is the sensible way to find out whether recording and multi-view matter in your house rather than taking anybody's word for it.
Will it work with an account from here?
Yes, directly. Lines are issued as ordinary Xtream Codes logins, which is exactly the format TiViMate expects, so guide data, catch-up and on-demand all populate without any extra configuration. Add playlist, then Xtream Codes login, and you are finished.
Is it worth paying for on top of a subscription?
For live sport, the guide alone repays ten dollars inside a month. For mostly on-demand viewing it probably does not, and the free player will serve you perfectly well. The trial exists precisely so this is not a guess.
Why has it never come to Apple or Samsung?
Because it is an Android application and those platforms are not Android — this is not a licensing dispute and there is no port in progress. Anything on those stores wearing a similar name is an unrelated product trading on the resemblance, and some of them charge for the privilege.
Does TiViMate work with any provider?
Yes — it is a player, and it holds no content of its own. Any Xtream login or M3U playlist works in it, which is worth knowing because it means the app is not tied to us. If you ever change supplier, the app and everything you configured in it stay exactly as they are.
Is Premium worth it if I only watch on demand?
Probably not. What Premium buys is recording, multi-view and multiple playlists, all of which matter for live sport and none of which matter much for a catalogue. The seven-day trial is there precisely so you can answer this for your own household rather than taking anybody's word for it.
What makes the guide worth switching players for?
It shows what is on now and next across every channel in a grid you can move around while something keeps playing in a corner, which is how live television was always meant to be navigated. A basic player gives you a list of channel names and nothing else, so finding a fixture means knowing in advance where it is. After a fortnight of that, most people who watch sport pay the ten dollars without much deliberation.