The transmission of television is continuously developing so we can have better experiences. However, television can be a little limiting because you can only watch what is being broadcasted at a certain time. With so many technological advancements, it only makes sense that a traditional TV is not a practical solution anymore. There are too many limitations, such as your clashes between your time schedule and the program’s air time. Secondly, in this era of internet and portable laptops, having a TV should not be your only medium of watching your favorite shows and programs. If you ever wondered how amazing it would be to watch the shows of your choice whenever you want, you can download the best IPTV app and experience it for yourself! IPTV is here to revolutionize the way we can watch our favorite programs on television but in a way that fits our needs.
What Is IPTV?
IPTV, otherwise known as Internet Protocol Television technology, provides the transmission of programs that are aired on standard television video programs, with the help of internet and Internet Protocol. With an IPTV, your television service can integrate with its broadband internet service and share with you the homes’ internet connections.
IPTV is the most efficient transmission mode and is basically a collection of hardware, software, and infrastructure. There is a series of IP packets encoded for the delivery of video streaming, which is then broadcasted in your IPTV app. In simple words, traditional TV broadcasts all the channels at the same time, while IPTV only sends the viewer transmission of shows or films that he or she requests. When the channel is changed, a new stream is transmitted to the user.
Features Of IPTV:
There are some amazing features in IPTV that separate it from television.
DVR
DVR, or digital video recorder, is a digital video recorder that enables the viewer to watch the programs that were broadcasted in the past. DVR is also known as time-shifted programming because the DVR provider allows the user to watch the programs at any time of the day. There is a live DVR at the provider’s end, making it cost-effective and efficient. Users can re-watch programs through an interactive menu.
Live Television
You can watch live transmission on IPTV, and because of its high quality, there is no delay in the transmission on the viewer’s end. Users get to watch the broadcasts with or without interactivity, something that separates it from the traditional TV.
VOD
VOD means video on demand. It is an option available to people using IPTV on their devices. There is a catalog of videos and all the users have the options from choosing the video they want to watch and can do so as many times as required. While in a normal TV, once you miss the program, you cannot replay it. This VOD feature uses unicast transmission and real-time streaming protocol in IPTV; whereas, traditional TV broadcasts use multicast transmission.
Where Can You View The IPTV?
There are different kinds of IPTV systems that have their own setup requirements for you to fulfill. If your television has built-in IP support, which is then called Smart TV, then you can connect your TV directly to the home networks. That way you can configure and receive the IPTV programming directly. You can also install other devices like Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV on your home networks and interface it with your old TV. You can also install laptop computers if you have the software necessary for supporting online videos and IPTV viewing. Even your smartphones and tablets can run apps that are able to work with IPTV services.
How To Watch IPTV On Iphone Or Android?
IPTV is supported on all the devices including iPhones and androids. If you have any of these devices and want to watch IPTV on them, this article will tell you how to do that.
Watch IPTV On iPhone
- Connect your iPhone to your internet where IPTV streaming is available.
- Your vendor needs to provide you with a playlist, which can be in the m3u or m3u8 formats.
- Install a multimedia app from Appstore that can support the playlist that you are using. It is better to install the VLC for iPhones because it can support most of the formats and can handle unicast and multicast streams.
- You can load the stream in the app and watch it.
Watch IPTV On Android
Setting up IPTV on Android is easy, but not as simple as it is on the iPhone.
Unicast & Multicast
First, you need to check if your stream is multicast or unicast. To check this, open the m3u playlist in any Text Editor and it will have the channel information and hyperlinks. If the hyperlinks start from HTTP:// then it means that it is Unicast Streaming and if you see UDP:// or UDP//@ in the beginning, it means that it is Multicast.
Unicast
Android devices can easily receive unicast transmissions, so you just need to downloadan IPTV app or MX player. IPTV is a nice app that can make your experience smooth. MX player is a great video streaming app and can support any video format.
Multicast
Setting up for the multicast stream can be tricky on Android devices because some Android devices support it while others don’t.
- Find out if your Android device supports multicast streaming. Download a File Manager app. Check if igmp/proc/net exists in your device or not.
- If your device supports multicast, you can easily open UDP streams in Multimedia Player apps like VLC Player, IPTV app or MX Player.
- If your device does not support multicast, then you will need to use external PC as a Proxy, which can listen to UDP requests and then convert them into HTTP.
Getting IPTV on your mobile device will revolutionize the way you used to watch TV programs and shows. We hope this article provided you with enough information about IPTV!
