I know it’s probably because there’s money to be made.

I just wish there was a good place to discuss IPTV providers that wasn’t full of sketchy resellers over promising and under delivering. You’d think they could at least sort out their EPGs as most I have used are like 80% complete at best.

Not asking for provider recommendations, not sure if that’s allowed here. Just wondering if y’all know of a place where that shit can be discussed in a neutral and honest environment?

  • kratoz29@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    I once got downvoted in Reddit for asking how I could use legal IPTV streams with the TiviMate Android TV app (which IMO it is the best you can have for IPTV experience).

    They even told me I was surely using clever writing to get other users spit their secretly guarded IPTV resellers lol.

  • skankhunt42@lemmy.ca
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    8 days ago

    I don’t think I’ll ever sub to IPTV because of the community around it. I miss the days of setting up your own satellite dish and downloading the decryption keys.

    • Yppm@lemy.lolOP
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      8 days ago

      Honestly if it weren’t for sports and Jeopardy I wouldn’t bother. I wish more leagues went the way if F1 with their decent price and amazing app.

      • skankhunt42@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        Isn’t IPTV shit for sports or really anything popular? I’ve read there’s a tonne of buffering and quality problems… I dont watch sports but I have family and friends looking for a solution and ask me because they’re on my Plex server.

        Personally the *arr stack is perfect for what I do. When I want to watch something I’ll scroll through the recently added and pick something.

        • lemmyingly@lemm.ee
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          8 days ago

          I think buffering comes with the cheapest firesticks and the cheapest providers.

      • kevincox@lemmy.ml
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        8 days ago

        If you don’t need to watch Jeopardy live it is pretty readily available via torrents. Probably in better quality and without ads.

        Sports are much harder to find. There are trackers but they are much harder to get into and I can’t attest to the completeness (I’m not really into sports) and watching it live is probably more relevant.

        • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
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          8 days ago

          Why not an aerial for Jeopardy? It’s usually on local broadcast, so you could plumb together a DVR setup if you want it within a unified experience.

          • Banzai51@midwest.social
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            7 days ago

            Lots of TV stations in the US are moving to the new broadcast standard, ATSC 3.0, encrypting the channel, and stopping their ATSC 1.0 broadcasts. This makes an antenna useless. And the only digital boxes that are allowed are ones that have to be plugged into the TV directly with HDMI. This means you’d have to have an antenna and expensive converter box for EACH TV.

            Basically, broadcast TV is an unreliable mess now.

    • anon5621@lemmy.ml
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      7 days ago

      I am still using ccam with satellite dishes ,there are “providers” where u can buy cheap decryption keys. Did I miss something in time?

    • Yppm@lemy.lolOP
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      8 days ago

      Totally. I just don’t have the desire to create it lol.

      Would have to basically ban resellers or flair them or maybe a monthly reseller thread. But open and good faith discussion of the different services would be nice.

  • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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    8 days ago

    I think you are right on the money (heh pun).

    It’s one type of pirate to hoard and spread about the booty, but it takes a special form of hypocrisy to turn around and charge for hard money.

    As to communities, I can’t help too much there but instead offer that there actually do exist groups that effectively have created swarms that are like a private tracker but for live/on demand viewing. Think an invite group of dozens of jellyfin servers. It might be safer to work toward identifying and joining one of those, depending on your desire.

    • Yppm@lemy.lolOP
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      8 days ago

      I get that the services themselves cost money and there are ties to organized crime (or so I’ve read).

      Interested in these jellyfin swarms I’ll have to do some research thanks!

    • Tm12@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      In Canada, where they can put up brick and mortar shops, it’s not uncommon to see resellers. It’s a business to them. The market sees an opportunity, and fills it.

      • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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        8 days ago

        Ironically I’m ok with this in moderation… But scalpers that charge a high price, more than materials and maybe a small fee, I dislike.

        Filling a void is a service. While there a grey area, there’s a balance between acceptable fee and blatant junk.

        Region locking of any type I feel should be outright illegal, but I’m just a lowly pirate with bent ethics.

  • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 days ago

    I’ve tried 4 iptv providers for long term subs and evaluated a ton more. They’ve all been okay but none were amazing so I keep trying new ones when my sub runs out

    My basic thing is this: if they don’t offer a trial I don’t fuck with them. If the epg is totally fucked or the buffering on channels I watch is atrocious during the trial I don’t bother. If that’s all good I buy a month and see how it goes. I do this because I’m pretty sure some have better servers for trials, or maybe I just got lucky during the trial period, because during the month service goes to shit sometimes. If the month is good I’ll extend it longer

    I’ve never found one with a complete EPG. I’ve found ones with complete epgs for us channels (my current one has this) but international channels, raw 4k streams, etc? They always have no EPG

    https://forum.iptvinsider.org/ is the best forum I’ve found for this but as you’ve said it’s a nightmare to browse and absolute garbage. It does at least have some user reviews but I ultimately don’t trust them too much and go with the above

  • kickassduke42@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 days ago

    My general take away from the random posts I read, is to find a seller on z2u. I currently have a sub to 8k iptv through a seller there 39$ for a year… Works well. My favorite service so far has been from thetvsub.to but it is more expensive than I wanted to pay (150$ a year)

      • darcmage@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        I think kickassduke42 and I have been using the same source of info. It’s all thanks to mrrobvs at the other site and started with this post. Prior to that, I had always used various resellers at 2x-5x of what I’m paying now.

        I’m surprised that group hasn’t been taken down yet. Maybe we could find a way to post reviews of the various services, something that doesn’t clutter up the community and makes it easy to search for relevant info.