Before you start
- An Android TV, Google TV, Firestick or Android box
- Your IPTV4Cheap login details
- Optionally TiViMate Premium, for recording, multi-view and multiple playlists
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Doing it, one step at a time
Install TiViMate
Android TV and Google TV have it in the Play Store. On a Firestick it has to be sideloaded with Downloader. For Apple, Samsung or LG hardware there is no version at all, so use IPTV Smarters on those and keep TiViMate for the Android devices in the house.
Add the playlist
Open the app and take Add playlist, followed by Xtream Codes login. The server address, username and password go in from your activation message, then Next. No M3U link is requested and none is required, which reliably confuses anybody arriving from a player that wanted one.
Name it and let it load
Give the playlist a name you will recognise if you ever add a second, then let the channels and guide download. It asks which categories to include. That choice is changeable later, so do not agonise over it now, though switching off the countries you will never watch does make the first evening much calmer.
Set the guide up properly
Settings, then TV guide, then a refresh interval of every 12 hours. Because the guide source rides along with the Xtream login, there is no separate EPG address to hunt down and paste in, which several other players do demand. While you are in that screen, set the time zone to where you live rather than where the broadcaster sits.
Decide about Premium
This is the part almost everybody gets stuck on: Premium is not sold inside TiViMate on the television at all. It is bought in the separate TiViMate Companion app on a phone. The price is around $9.99 a year, or a one-off lifetime licence in the mid-thirties, and a seven-day trial comes first. Recording, multi-view and multiple playlists are what it buys.
Set the time zone before your first evening
Under Settings, the time zone follows the device unless you tell it otherwise. Set it to where you actually live. Every fixture time in the guide then reads correctly, which is the whole reason for choosing this player if you are following sport from another country.
When it goes wrong, and why
"Playlist could not be loaded"
Check that the server address carries its port and that the plan is still active. Then retype the password by hand rather than pasting it, because text copied out of a chat frequently brings an invisible space along with it and the error message will never tell you so.
The guide says "no information"
Force a refresh from Settings, TV guide, Update now, then restart the app. A first load across a channel list this large can also simply need longer than people are willing to give it, so try again after ten minutes before reporting a fault.
Recording fails partway through
Recording is a Premium feature writing to local storage, and a Firestick has very little of it. Point the recording path at a USB drive or network share in the settings, or expect long recordings to stop when the device fills up.
Channels play but the list is in the wrong order
TiViMate sorts by the order the provider sends unless told not to. Under Settings, Playlists, choose your own sort order and hide the categories you never open. Ten minutes here makes a list of this size genuinely navigable.
Players that take the same login
IPTV Smarters Pro
Installing IPTV Smarters Pro on Firestick, Android, Samsung, LG, Apple TV and desktop, signing in with Xtream Codes, loading the guide and fixing errors.
Smart IPTV (SIPTV)
Setting up Smart IPTV on Samsung and LG televisions: find the MAC address, upload your M3U at siptv.app, restart and activate. Why it has no login screen.
The full index
Every device and player covered, gathered on one page.
Point your TiViMate at home
From $15 a month for 25,000+ channels, with the details back on WhatsApp in under 15 minutes.
Questions about TiViMate
What does TiViMate Premium cost?
Roughly $9.99 for a year, or between $34 and $38 once and for good, varying with the region you buy from. The purchase happens in the TiViMate Companion app on a phone, never on the television itself. A seven-day trial runs first, which is long enough to work out whether recording and multi-view are things you will use.
Does this service work with TiViMate?
Natively, yes. Every account here is issued as a plain Xtream Codes login, and that is precisely the format TiViMate is built around, so the guide, the catch-up and the on-demand shelves all fill in without anything further being configured. Add it under Add playlist, then Xtream Codes login.
Can I run two accounts in one app?
With Premium, yes, and it is a common arrangement in shared houses abroad where two people want their own favourites and their own countries pinned. Without Premium you are limited to a single playlist at a time.
Why is TiViMate not in the Amazon store?
Amazon does not carry it, which is why the Firestick route is a sideload through Downloader. That is not a sign of anything untoward; plenty of well-made Android TV apps are absent from Amazon's catalogue. The Play Store version and the sideloaded version are the same app.
Is the lifetime licence worth it over the yearly one?
If you expect to keep using it for more than about four years, arithmetically yes. Most people buy the yearly first, because the seven-day trial is short and a year is long enough to find out whether recording and multi-view are things you actually use.