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Help finding most suitable providers

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goosey123

Newbie
So I have been researching IPTV services for a couple of months now. I got a Shield TV Pro and Tivimate as it was touted as being the best experience. I have found suppliers through Discord channels and purchased a few 1 month subs to try different services out.

Through research on Reddit and other forums, techkings is always brought up as a place to find good providers so I said I will give it a go.

Through my current provider (found on discord) I have all channels for most countries in the world, sport channels at 50fps and 2 connections with no device/ip restrictions. My only issues are there is no EPG so I had to sort that myself (still some work to do to get it right) and sometimes a sport channel will go down (there are still about 5 of each channel so it's not much of an issue, just an inconvenience).

My problem is the providers found here all seem very expensive in comparison to what I currently have (Cheapest quote on techkings is three times the cost for 1 month subscription). I would love to hear peoples experience on this matter and maybe some tips on finding different providers.

I need Italian channels so maybe this is the reason I am finding it hard to get a good quote. Seems most providers are UK/USA focused from what I can tell.

Please do not disclose what you are currently paying for your IPTV service as I do not want this thread to break any forum rules.
 
I suspect most of the providers here are UK/Ireland based and have the content that most people living in these locations look for. So that makes it mostly UK/US content.

My advice - post in the thread requesting provider and ask for a trial. You should be able to look at what is on offer from a provider very quickly. If you like their content, then pay for a months sub to test reliability. I have a Swedish partner and my current provider has channel listings for many European Countries (including Sweden). The quality and reliability of these channels seems to vary. None are as good and reliable as the UK/US content. For me this is fine.

I think the short answer is to ask for trials and see what is on offer and make your own conclusions. IMO you really need to test a provider for at least a month. 24 hour trial will not give you an idea on how reliable they are. This will let you see what channels they have on offer.
 
From my experience so far I think you are right. It will be a long process testing different providers month by month until I find something I am happy with. Luckily the current provider I have is cheap enough that I can probably keep it as well. Good practice putting together an EPG for it using different resources since it doesn't have one.
 
The old saying is cheap won't be good and good won't be cheap. Generally good providers will keep the streams updated and they will generally be good quality and you normally get full uk and us epg. In addition you get some kind of support (if needed). I have had subs in the past where you get multiples of each channel and that is because they are generally unreliable. I used to use echannelizer to get my epg when iptv first came out as you never had a complete epg but it was far too much trouble and things change all the time. Thesedays most suppliers offer a good epg but it all depends what you are prepared to pay. With the amount of channels available now I would find it impossible to watch anything without full epg.
 
to be honest suppliers tend to keep UK,USA,CA,& Australian channels going really well.

you will struggle with anything else to be honest I would have to say if you are looking for anything else look at sat.

yes you can get cheap subs but be prepared to sort them out.

the savings in my experince are not worth the hassle
 
formandvoid said:
The old saying is cheap won't be good and good won't be cheap. Generally good providers will keep the streams updated and they will generally be good quality and you normally get full uk and us epg. In addition you get some kind of support (if needed). I have had subs in the past where you get multiples of each channel and that is because they are generally unreliable. I used to use echannelizer to get my epg when iptv first came out as you never had a complete epg but it was far too much trouble and things change all the time. Thesedays most suppliers offer a good epg but it all depends what you are prepared to pay. With the amount of channels available now I would find it impossible to watch anything without full epg.
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Having multiple of each channel is annoying me. I am searching for a way to merge same channel streams into one channel but there doesn't seem to be a good solution for this.

Are you saying the supplier can give one channel with multiple streams so the video source can be switched within that channel?
 
goosey123 said:
Having multiple of each channel is annoying me. I am searching for a way to merge same channel streams into one channel but there doesn't seem to be a good solution for this.

Are you saying the supplier can give one channel with multiple streams so the video source can be switched within that channel?
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No, I'm just saying most suppliers will give you just one channel that works. They give you multiple so if one won't work you just use another one.
 
goosey123 said:
Having multiple of each channel is annoying me. I am searching for a way to merge same channel streams into one channel but there doesn't seem to be a good solution for this.

Are you saying the supplier can give one channel with multiple streams so the video source can be switched within that channel?
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Sometimes there are different resolutions of each channel, SD, HD, FHD ,UHD etc.

You could use some of the m3u editing sites to remove channels or some apps let you hide groups of channels, not sure about about individual channels. Its alot of work work for not so much gain IMHO
 
Can you just delete the channels you don't want and turn off updates so it won't restore the deleted channels. You don't need to update it every day. I just update once a month on E2
 
When it comes to prices, there's no one right answer. It's all about what you feel is a fair price and what the person you're buying from thinks is fair too. Suppliers have a lot of costs, so it makes sense that they might charge more. A good way to handle this is to try out a few different ones, see which ones you like best, and then choose the one that seems to charge a fair price. If they all seem expensive, it could be because what you're asking for costs them more to provide.


I hope this helps.
 
mrmchd said:
Sometimes there are different resolutions of each channel, SD, HD, FHD ,UHD etc.

You could use some of the m3u editing sites to remove channels or some apps let you hide groups of channels, not sure about about individual channels. Its alot of work work for not so much gain IMHO
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Yes I played around with m3u editing sites and it was interesting to see what could be done. I was looking to combine say 5 channels into one with the option to select video source for 1080p50hz/1080p/720p etc. There is a way but it requires setting up a TVHeadend server which is a bit too much effort for me. Rather just finds a provider that offers something similar and pay for the convenience.
 
Can you not just favourite the channels you want to use in the app. That way you just go yo favourite, rather than needing to constantly play about with m3us
 
jigger121 said:
Can you not just favourite the channels you want to use in the app. That way you just go yo favourite, rather than needing to constantly play about with m3us
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My reasoning was that if one video source went down it would automatically load the next available for that channel.

What I am now looking for is a reliable enough service that I don't have to worry about the channel going down and can just favourite them like you said.
 
goosey123 said:
My reasoning was that if one video source went down it would automatically load the next available for that channel.

What I am now looking for is a reliable enough service that I don't have to worry about the channel going down and can just favourite them like you said.
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No service is 100%. Reliable 100% of the time, the alternative channels may be off another provider,if one goes down, the other may still be working.
 
Over the last 6/7 years I have tested several Providers going back to the CC days. Over the the yars I whittled down to 3 providers all good but none perfect, as earlier stated I don't think you can get a 100% perfection. I moved to Formuler boxes a few years ago, this year I purchased a new Formuler Z11 pro and found that two of my providers had difficulty connecting the boxe's to their servers, one provider completely failed to connect.

Last week I requested a new provider on the forum to which I got several good replys. I am now in the selection process.
 
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