What IPTV is
The technical definition, how it differs from digital terrestrial and on-demand services, and why in Italy the word is nearly always used to mean something else.
Section
IPTV guides
How the technology works, what the files a player reads actually contain, where the legal line falls, and what to do when something breaks. A handful of pages, each devoted to one precise question.
The basics
Legal IPTV in Italy
What sets an authorised service apart, what law 93/2023 provides for, and how the blocking platform operated by AGCOM works.
The formats
M3U playlists
What a playlist file looks like inside, what its attributes mean, and why a list that “works” stops working.
EPG and the programme guide
The XMLTV format, the role of tvg-id, and the four causes that explain nearly every empty or misaligned guide.
When something goes wrong
Buffering and stalls
A five-step procedure for working out whether the cause is your local network, the device or the source. With the real orders of magnitude for the bandwidth needed.
DNS and VPN
What they genuinely do, when they are worth having, and why they are not the answer to the problems they are most often recommended for.
If you are choosing an app or a device
The guides above explain how the technology works. For the practical choice of a player or a device, the starting point is the IPTV apps overview, which breaks down by platform: Android and Android TV, Samsung and LG smart TVs, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, Windows and macOS, the Fire TV Stick and boxes and set-top boxes.
The method by which we gather and check this information, along with the state of our own testing, is described in how we test, and who runs the site is stated openly.