📖 IPTV Glossary 2026 — Every Term Explained
IPTV is full of acronyms — M3U, Xtream, EPG, HLS, HEVC, DRM. This alphabetical glossary explains every term you will run into when setting up or troubleshooting IPTV, in one or two plain-English sentences each.
🅰️ A — C
IPTV
Internet Protocol Television: delivering live channels and video over an IP network (the internet or a managed network) instead of cable, satellite or terrestrial broadcast.
OTT
Over-the-top: video delivered over the open internet — like Netflix or YouTube — without being tied to a specific network operator's infrastructure.
M3U
A plain-text playlist file that lists channel names and their stream URLs. It is the most common and most widely supported IPTV format.
M3U8
A UTF-8 encoded M3U file. The .m3u8 extension is also used for HLS manifests that point to a stream's video chunks.
Xtream Codes
A login-based IPTV API using a username, password and server URL. Unlike a flat M3U, it exposes live TV, VOD, series and catch-up with full metadata and artwork.
EPG
Electronic Program Guide: the on-screen TV schedule that shows what is playing now, next and over the coming days.
XMLTV
The standard XML file format used to feed EPG (programme guide) data into IPTV apps.
tvg-id
A tag inside an M3U channel entry that links that channel to the correct programme data in the EPG/XMLTV file.
tvg-logo
An M3U tag containing the URL of a channel's logo image, shown next to the channel in the app.
group-title
An M3U tag that assigns each channel to a category or group (e.g. "Sports", "UK"), used by apps to organise the channel list.
Catch-up
The ability to watch a channel's programmes after they have aired, played back from a server-side archive the provider keeps for a few days.
CDN
Content Delivery Network: a network of edge servers that caches streams close to viewers, reducing latency and buffering.
Buffering
The pause that happens when playback consumes data faster than it arrives, forcing the player to wait while it refills its buffer.
Bitrate
The amount of data used per second of video, measured in Mbps. A higher bitrate usually means better picture quality but needs a faster connection.
🇩 D — M
DVR
Digital Video Recorder: recording live TV to local or network storage so you can watch it later.
PVR
Personal Video Recorder: another name for a DVR, common in TV-app and Kodi contexts where a "PVR backend" feeds live TV and recording.
DRM (Widevine)
Digital Rights Management: encryption that protects premium content from copying. Widevine is Google's widely used DRM, with three security levels (L1–L3).
DASH (MPEG-DASH)
Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP: an open, codec-agnostic adaptive-bitrate protocol common in premium and multi-DRM services.
FAST channels
Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV: linear, scheduled channels delivered over the internet for free, funded by adverts (e.g. Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus).
HLS
HTTP Live Streaming: Apple's chunked, adaptive-bitrate protocol that is the de facto standard for IPTV and online video.
LL-HLS
Low-Latency HLS: an HLS extension using tiny partial segments to cut live delay from 20–30 seconds down to a few seconds, useful for sports.
H.264 / AVC
Advanced Video Coding: a universally supported video codec and the default for most SD and HD IPTV channels.
H.265 / HEVC
High Efficiency Video Coding: roughly half the bitrate of H.264 for the same quality, and the standard codec for 4K IPTV.
AV1
A royalty-free, open video codec offering better compression than HEVC. It needs hardware decoding found only on newer devices.
MPEG-TS
MPEG Transport Stream: a continuous, broadcast-style container (file extension .ts) used directly by many IPTV providers in M3U playlists.
MAG device
A popular family of small Linux-based IPTV set-top boxes (made by Infomir) that connect to providers using the Stalker/portal protocol.
Multicast / IGMP
Multicast sends a single stream to many devices on a network at once; IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) manages which devices join or leave a multicast group, common on ISP IPTV.
🇳 N — Z
RTMP
Real-Time Messaging Protocol: a low-latency protocol from the Adobe Flash era, now used mainly to ingest a stream to a server (e.g. OBS to a platform).
RTSP
Real-Time Streaming Protocol: a low-latency protocol used mainly for IP cameras and managed IPTV such as in hotels and hospitals.
STB (set-top box)
A dedicated hardware device that decodes and plays IPTV on your TV — for example a MAG box, Android TV box or Formuler box.
Stalker portal
A middleware/portal protocol used by MAG boxes: the device loads its channel list from a provider's portal URL, identified by the box's MAC address.
Threadfin
An open-source M3U and EPG proxy (a successor to xTeVe/Telly) that presents your IPTV playlist as virtual HDHomeRun tuners so Plex, Emby or Jellyfin can use it as live TV.
Timeshift
Pausing, rewinding or resuming a live broadcast using a buffer, so you can step away and catch up without missing anything.
Transcoding
Converting a stream to a different codec, bitrate or resolution — often on the fly on a server — so it plays on a device that cannot handle the original format.
Tuner
A hardware or virtual component that receives one channel at a time. The number of tuners limits how many streams you can watch or record simultaneously.
VOD
Video On Demand: a library of movies and series you can start whenever you want, as opposed to scheduled live TV.