M3U or Xtream Codes: what's the difference?

Your IPTV provider usually gives you one of the two, sometimes both.

M3U link

An address that often ends in .m3u or contains get.php. It holds the list of all channels and videos. Easy to copy, but often long to type with a remote: use the phone keyboard.

Xtream Codes

Three pieces of information: server address, username and password. The player asks the server for channels, movies, series and the TV guide, which is usually faster and more complete.

Which one?

• If you have both, prefer Xtream Codes: better-organised categories, a more reliable TV guide, faster updates.
• Otherwise, the M3U link works very well.

TOS reads both formats and accepts several playlists (see Add your IPTV playlist).