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Introduction to IPTV
IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) is a digital television service delivered using the Internet. Unlike traditional broadcast and cable TV, IPTV transmits television content, including live TV and video on demand (VOD), through packet-based internet technology. This approach enables more interactive and flexible multimedia services.IPTV configuration
To configure IPTV in Zoom Player, first open the Advanced Options dialog and navigate to the "Playback / IPTV" page.Xtream Codes
After specifying the user name, password and base URL provided by your IPTV provider, press the "Authenticate Subscription" button to verify the account exists and retrieve information about the capabilities of your IPTV provider.Zoom Player supports three distinct Xtream Codes modes to access the stream list and EPG (electronic program guide) information. These modes exist to offer a fallback solution in case your IPTV provider is only offering partial support for Xtream Codes' feature-set.
Player API :
This is the most recent Xtream Codes API. It uses network queries to obtain both the Stream Playlists and EPG data. TV Series and Movies are handled separately from live streams, providing an enhanced navigation experience.
However, the EPG information is only accessible on a per-stream level and not as a whole, preventing the Global Filtering and EPG Grid features from functioning.Player API + XML (default) :
By leveraging the Player API for the stream list, you can still benefit from the separate handling of TV Series and Movies. With the entire EPG downloaded as a single XML file, the Global Filtering and EPG Grid features have access to the full program guide and can work as intended.M3U + XML :
This is the most basic mode with both the EPG and the stream playlists downloaded as single-file databases. Global Filtering and the EPG Grid features work as intended, however TV Series and Movies are left to the graces of your IPTV provider, which means they may be harder to access and usually lack EPG or Meta-Data information (e.g. Bitrate).
If your IPTV provider has issues with secure (https) connections (e.g. due to a Bad Certificate), you can enable the "Force http" checkbox as a work-around.
Once authentication is successful, press the "Add Subscription" button to complete the setup. If the entire EPG is not synchronized with your local time, press the "Time Shift" button to specify how the EPG time should be shifted. If some of the streams are listing correctly and others are not, you can perform a per-stream time shift directly from the IPTV window by right-clicking an EPG entry and choosing a time shift value.
Manually entering a Stream List (M3U) and EPG (XML) files/links
If your IPTV provider does not support Xtream Codes, you can manually enter the download links provided by your IPTV provider or manually download the files yourself and add them as local files.Local Stream List files
Specifies the stream playlist file(s) that reside on your PC or local network (".M3U" file extension).Local Electronic Program Guide files
Specifies the EPG file(s) that reside on your PC or local network (".XML" file extension).Stream List URLs
Specifies the stream playlist URLs (links) that Zoom Player should download from the internet. You can specify an auto-update refresh rate (in days) for each link. To support IPTV providers that require a specific user agent text to access automated downloads, you can set a custom User Agent for each entry.Electronic Program Guide URLs
Specifies the electronic program guide URLs (links) that Zoom Player should download from the internet. You can specify an auto-update refresh rate (in days) for each link. To support IPTV providers that require a specific user agent text to access automated downloads, you can set a custom User Agent for each entry.
Free IPTV Streams
When opening the IPTV interface for the very first time, Zoom Player will prompt you to download a free IPTV stream list from the Free-TV project on GitHub. Even if you choose not to, you can later on click a button in Zoom Player's advanced options dialog to add the Free-TV project streams.There are two popular GitHub projects that maintain a list of publicly accessible IPTV streams:
1. Free-TV
2. IPTV-ORG
Free Electronic Program Guide
Here are some more resources and information on free EPG:1. IPTV-ORG
2. EPGGuide.net
3. EPG.best
Play Program live stream offset (seconds)
When playing a program from an Archive stream, it often takes the IPTV server several seconds to create a play buffer. Specifying a program play time that falls on this buffer period can cause the stream to fail loading. By specifying a live stream offset of a few seconds, this issue can be avoided.Archive Stream Symbol
This setting allows you to customize the icon that appears next to IPTV archive (VOD) streams.Download Timeout
Specifies the number of seconds Zoom Player should wait when initiating a database download (doesn't affect stream playback). Some IPTV providers may have badly configured or under-powered servers that can take a while to respond and require a high timeout value.Safe Mode
Enabling "Safe Mode" prevents editing favorites, hiding groups, customizing the UI or time shifting streams, all features you don't want accidentally changed by inexperienced users sharing your PC.IPTV window should remain on-top when entering fullscreen
Keeps the IPTV window as "Stay on top" when Zoom Player enters fullscreen mode.Sort the Stream List (alphabetical order)
If enabled, the stream list is sorted in alphabetical order. Most stream lists are already sorted by group, region, genre or some other factor so enabling this setting is rarely required.Sort the Group List (alphabetical order)
If enabled, the Stream list's groups are sorted in alphabetical order.Opening a group snaps the group to the top
This setting controls what happens when you click on a stream list group to open it. When enabled, the newly opened group is snapped to the top of the list to ensure the maximum number of streams within the group are visible.Ignore Grouping
Since some IPTV providers may list 1000's of streams, the IPTV provider will segment the streams into groups such as Region or Genre. By enabling this setting you will see all the streams in one long list without any grouping.EPG stream filter includes program description
Zoom Player allows you to quickly filter through the program listing in the EPG. By enabling this setting, both the program title and description are used to filter (otherwise just the program title is used).EPG global filter includes program description
Similar to the local filter, the global filter searches the entire EPG for matches. Please note that global filtering is CPU intensive and including a program's description in the filtering taxes the CPU even more.Hide program end time in EPG listing
Can clear up some screen real estate.Hide outdated EPG entries
Hides all EPG entries that are older than the current time.Hide outdated archive stream EPG entries that are too old to stream
Archived IPTV streams provide a limited number of archival days, beyond these days older content can no longer be played. Enabling this setting hides old EPG entries that are no longer playable.Playing an IPTV stream clears the playlist
With this setting enabled, playing an IPTV stream will first clear the current playlist, otherwise the stream is added as the last playlist entry.Merge multiple EPG files/links containing info on the same stream
If you are using multiple sources for your electronic program guide, these sources may contain duplicate information for some of the streams. By enabling this setting, Zoom Player tries to merge EPG data from multiple sources (which can slow down the initial load time).Search for missing stream icon in EPG
If the stream list (Xtream Codes/M3U) does not contain an icon, enabling this setting will have Zoom Player searching for an icon in the EPG database. This can cause the IPTV window to take longer to show.Auto-Close IPTV Window after
Specify the number of seconds until the IPTV window auto-closes on inactivity.Hidden Groups
This interface allows you to unhide groups previously hidden through the right-click menu or hide new groups by their Group title.Logo Cache (Clear)
Zoom Player caches the IPTV steam's logo. Pressing the clear button wipes this cache and new logos will download the next time you browse through the steam list.Using Zoom Player's IPTV interface
You can open Zoom Player's IPTV interface by pressing Ctrl+"G", right-clicking the video area and looking under the "open interface" sub-menu. Or pressing the "Custom Action" button (unless you changed its default behavior) which looks like a star-burst on the top-left section of Zoom Player's skin (assuming you're using the default skin).The Stream List Panel
The stream list displays groups of IPTV streams. You can open and close groups by clicking them. The right-click stream list context menu can be used to hide groups and add streams to your favorites list.When adding streams to your favorites list, they appear as the first streams in a new "Favorites" group. You can use the right-click context menu on a favorite stream to re-order the list and to remove streams from your favorites.
Use the "Filter Streams" box to filter steams based on their name and the "X" button to clear the filtering.
To play the stream live, double click the steam's entry or select it and press the "Play Stream" button.
When specifying multiple IPTV playlists, you can select which playlist (or all) are currently visible from a drop-down menu above the stream list.
The Electronic Program Guide Panel
When clicking on a stream in the Stream List panel, Zoom Player tries to display the stream's program guide (if it exists, some streams may not have any information to display).Right-clicking a program in the EPG displays more information and options for this program and stream. You can choose to create a notification which alerts you when the program is about or start or select an option to play the stream automatically right before the program starts. If the EPG is out of sync with the live broadcast, you can specify a time-shift value to correct the listing for this specific stream.
If the EPG is listing an archive stream, you may see the "Play Program" button enabled for some of the listed programs. Double clicking the program or clicking the "Play Program" button starts playback of the selected program.
To quickly find a program, you can filter the EPG using a Stream or Global filter. The stream filter only filters-out any EPG listing that doesn't match the specified filter text within the currently selected stream. The global filter works by filtering out both streams and programs not containing the specified filter text. Please note that the global filter is CPU intensive and can take a few seconds to work on older systems.
The Small Buttons
Above the stream list panel, you will notice several small buttons:>
: Hide/Show the EPG.#
: Hide/Show the EPG Grid.↺
: New EPG/Stream List downloaded, click to update.