What Is IPTV? Internet Protocol Television, Explained

IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television. It means television delivered over an internet connection using standard networking protocols, rather than broadcast to you by a satellite, a cable or a terrestrial aerial. The programmes themselves are the same television — what differs is the delivery route. Practically, an IPTV subscription is a set of credentials (an Xtream Codes login or an M3U playlist URL) that you enter into an app on a device you already own, which then plays a live channel line-up and an on-demand library over your broadband.

It means TV that arrives down your broadband line instead of from a dish on the wall. If you have used BBC iPlayer or Now, you have already watched television over IP. The difference with an IPTV subscription is scope: instead of one broadcaster's catalogue, you get a full live channel line-up from many broadcasters in one app, with a programme guide, plus a video-on-demand library.

The provider receives channel feeds, encodes them into streaming formats — usually HLS or MPEG-TS, increasingly with HEVC/H.265 for 4K — and publishes them from servers. Your credentials authenticate you against those servers. When you open a channel, your app requests that specific stream and the server sends it to you alone; this is unicast, one stream per viewer, rather than broadcast. A separate XMLTV file supplies the seven-day programme guide. Because every viewer consumes their own stream, peak-time capacity is the hardest thing for a provider to get right and the most common point of failure.

Technically very little — both send video over IP to one viewer at a time. The difference is what is on offer. Netflix and Disney+ are on-demand catalogues owned by the platform, with almost no live television. An IPTV service is built around live channels with a programme guide, the way a satellite or cable package is, and usually adds an on-demand library alongside. If you want to watch a match as it happens or channel-surf, that is IPTV territory; if you want to binge a series, a streaming app does it well.

None — IPTV is simply the abbreviation of internet protocol television. You will also see "IP television", "IP TV" and "internet protocol TV", which all mean the same thing. The longer form tends to appear in technical and industry writing, while IPTV is what almost everyone says in practice.

The technology is entirely legal — it is a delivery protocol, and BT, Sky Glass and Now all deliver television over IP. Legality depends on the provider, specifically on whether they hold or license distribution rights for the channels they carry. That is a question you can partly investigate yourself: a legitimate operator is a registered company you can look up at Companies House, publishes a real address and terms, and takes payment through a traceable processor. Our full explanation of where the line sits is on the "Is IPTV legal in the UK?" page.

Around 15–25 Mbps of stable throughput per simultaneous stream is a realistic target: standard definition needs very little, HD sits around 8–10 Mbps, and genuine HEVC 4K wants roughly 25 Mbps. Stability matters more than the headline number — a consistent 30 Mbps connection outperforms a 200 Mbps line that fluctuates, because buffering is usually caused by jitter and packet loss rather than insufficient bandwidth. Wired Ethernet beats Wi-Fi wherever you can manage it, and if two people will stream at once you need the bandwidth twice over.

No. IPTV needs no dish, no aerial and no proprietary receiver. Any device that accepts Xtream Codes credentials or an M3U playlist URL will work — an Amazon Firestick, a Samsung Tizen or LG webOS Smart TV from 2018 onwards, an Android TV box, an Nvidia Shield, a MAG or Formuler receiver, an iPhone, iPad, Android phone, Windows PC or Mac. Buying a dedicated IPTV box is worth considering only if your television is old or its built-in apps are slow.

They are the two standard ways a subscription is handed to you. An M3U playlist URL is a single web address that resolves to the list of channel streams your subscription includes. Xtream Codes is a login instead — a server address, a username and a password — which lets the app pull the channel list, the on-demand library and the programme guide separately, and generally handles updates better. Both are open standards, which is the point: because they are not proprietary, you can move your subscription to a different app or device whenever you like.

Sportix Media plans run from £10 to £75 depending on term length and how many devices stream at once, with every plan carrying the identical channel line-up and on-demand library. The full breakdown, including the effective monthly cost of each term, is on our pricing page — that is the one page we keep authoritative on price, so nothing quoted elsewhere can drift out of date.