What to have in the room with you
- Your personal M3U link from the WhatsApp activation message
- A player that accepts a playlist address rather than a login
- The same credentials again if the player asks for the guide separately
No login in hand yet? Take the free 24-hour line, or read the price table first.
From a blank screen to live television
Decide whether you need the playlist at all
Start here, because the answer is often no. If the player in front of you offers an Xtream Codes option, use that instead and close this page: the login brings the guide, the catch-up and the on-demand library, while a playlist mostly brings channels. Reach for the M3U link in three situations. The player has no Xtream option at all, as with VLC and some television apps. The app uploads a list against a MAC rather than signing in. Or support has asked you to try it because something specific needs testing.
Look at what the link actually contains
Read it once, left to right. It opens with http://, then the server, then a colon and the port, then /get.php - and then, the part most people slide straight past, your username and password riding along on the end as parameters. Your credentials are inside that address. It is a password wearing the costume of a web link, and everything that follows from that is true: do not paste it into a shared computer, a group chat, a public forum or a website that offers to check playlists for you. If it leaks, the account is the thing that leaked, and we have to reissue the credentials and you have to redo every screen.
Give the link to the player that wants it
VLC takes it under its network stream option on the media menu. Kodi needs the simple IPTV client installed first, then the link goes in that add-on's playlist address field. Smart IPTV does not take it on the television at all - it is uploaded against the television MAC on the developer's site, which our SIPTV guide covers. TiViMate and Smarters will accept a playlist if you insist, although in those two you are giving up features for no reason. Paste the link whole, and do not let anything wrap it across two lines.
Add the program guide separately if it is asked for
Players that take a playlist usually cannot find the guide by themselves, and will ask for an XMLTV address. It comes from the same server as the playlist, ending in xmltv.php, with your credentials attached in the same way. Ask support on WhatsApp and we will send it across ready to paste. Set the refresh to once or twice a day rather than hourly, and expect a large guide to take a few minutes the first time it downloads.
Let it load, and trim it if the player struggles
A playlist of a full line-up is a big file, and simpler players read every line of it before they will show you anything at all. On a laptop that is a pause. On an older television or a small box it can look like a freeze. If a player takes minutes rather than moments, you have two good options: move to a player that understands categories and loads them as needed, or ask us for a link trimmed down to the countries you actually watch, which we can issue.
Watch something, then clean up after yourself
Play a channel, leave it a minute or two and open a second one from a different group, which is enough to tell a working list from one that loaded and then stalled. Then finish the job on any machine that is not yours: remove the playlist from the player, and clear the address out of the browser bar and its history if you pasted it there. A link left in the history of a hotel business-center computer is your subscription left on a hotel business-center computer.
Where it tends to stall, and the fix
Opening the link in a browser downloads a file instead of showing channels
That is the correct behavior and not a fault. The address returns a text file, not a web page, so a browser does the only sensible thing and offers to save it. There is nothing useful to see inside it either. Hand the address to a player rather than a browser, and if you did save the file, delete it afterwards - it carries your credentials in plain text.
The link stopped working after you sent it to yourself
Links break in transit more often than people expect. A notes app or an email client can wrap a long address across two lines, a keyboard can capitalize the first character, and a messaging app can turn it into a shortened link that a player cannot follow. Go back to the original WhatsApp message and copy it again from there. Paste it straight into the player rather than making a stop along the way.
Channels play on the laptop but not in the television app
Compare the two before assuming the list is wrong. Usually the laptop received the whole address and the television received a trimmed or reshaped one, because it was retyped by hand on a remote. Where a television app allows it, send the address to the set from a phone or a browser rather than typing it. If both carry the identical address and only one plays, the difference is the connection or the app, and support can tell which from a photograph of the screen.
Somebody else has a copy of your link
Tell us on WhatsApp straight away and we will reissue your credentials. The old link stops working the moment we do, which is the point. You will then need to set up your own screens again with the new details, which is an hour you would rather not spend - so treat that link the way you treat a bank password, and never hand it to a friend who wants to try the service. Send them to the free trial instead.
Other players that take the same login
Smart IPTV (SIPTV)
Smart IPTV has no login box at all. Register your M3U link against the television MAC at siptv.app/mylist, restart the app and the channels appear.
Windows PC and Mac
A laptop proves an account in five minutes. Smarters for desktop, VLC with the M3U link, or a browser player, all reaching the same 25,000+ channels.
Every other guide
The rest of the devices and players, listed on one page for whatever you find at the other end.
A login for that M3U playlist, before the evening goes
The shortest term costs $15 and opens 25,000+ channels. Ask on WhatsApp and the details come back in under 15 minutes, ready for the M3U playlist in front of you.
M3U playlist IPTV questions people ask
Why do the free M3U lists people share online stop working?
Because a public list is somebody else's stream handed around to everybody at once. The source gets hammered by strangers until whoever runs it pulls the plug or the machine simply gives up, and that tends to take days rather than months. Nobody answers when it dies, half the entries have gone stale inside a week, and the sites that hand these lists around have a long history of carrying malware alongside them. What you pay for here is a list that belongs to one account: yours.
Is the M3U link the same account as my username and password?
Yes. One account, two wrappers. The playlist address has your username and password built into it, and the Xtream login has the same values kept in separate fields. Using both at once does not create a second subscription and does not double anything - what the plan counts is how many streams are playing at the same moment, whichever shape they came from.
Can I use the link on a laptop in a hotel room?
Yes, and for a night away a laptop with VLC is often the least trouble of anything you could pack. Two cautions. Hotel networks frequently hold you at a sign-in page first, which a browser can clear and a television stick cannot. And if the laptop is not yours, remove the playlist and clear the address from the browser before you give it back.
Does the link change when I renew?
No. Renewing extends the dates on the same credentials, so the link you already pasted everywhere keeps working and nothing needs redoing. It only changes if we reissue your details, which happens when you ask us to - normally because the link has been seen by somebody it should not have been.