If you use one or more IPTV service and you get annoyed by missing information in the guide (EPG), then this post is for you. I will attempt to explain exactly how EPG’s work and what you can do to solve the issue of missing information. Please be advised that this information is all to the best of my knowledge and I apologize in advance if any small part of it is slightly inaccurate.
Firstly, EPG stands for Electronic Program Guide (which you probably know already if you opened this post). When you sign up for an IPTV service, you are given access to a playlist of channels (usually in m3u format) and a matching EPG (usually in XMLTV format). Within both of these files for each channel is a hidden channel number (TVG-ID), which is not the same as the name of the channel that you can see. This number is not standardized, meaning each provider assigns their own corresponding numbers to the channel in the playlist and the guide. When you use an IPTV player (such as Tivimate or Sparkle), it matches the guide information to the correct channels by looking for the hidden TVG-ID numbers to see if they match. If the TVG-ID is missing or does not match, no information will populate in the guide. To fix this, you have 3 options.
The easiest thing to do is contact the support team for your IPTV provider and tell them the guide information is missing for a certain channel. If you have a good provider, they should be able to pull the guide information from whatever source they use and assign the matching TVG-ID. Then all you have to do is refresh your playlist and EPG. Keep in mind that your IPTV provider may not always be able to source the guide information for really obscure channels. And there will definitely be no guide information provided for things such as 24/7 channels.
You can use multiple EPG sources per playlist. In Tivimate, you can go into your settings and add as many EPG sources as you want. After you add the EPG sources, you need to go into your playlist settings and “assign” which EPGs you want to use for that playlist. The EPG from your IPTV provider must ALWAYS be your primary EPG, because again, it will automatically match the channels by their TVG-ID. The rest of the channels have to be manually assigned to a different EPG (if that EPG even contains the channel that you were missing). To do this, you go into the guide in Tivimate, long press on a channel, then go down to “assign EPG”. You can also search all your EPG’s for the channel name. Obviously, this can be a time consuming process if you have a lot of channels missing guide information. And if you are randomly finding free EPG sources on the internet, you have no idea if the channel you are looking for is included in that EPG or not. It could be entirely trial and error and you may end up with a ton of EPGs.
You can create your own EPG for your playlists. There are m3u editors like IPTVBoss, m3u4u, IPTVEditor, epg.best, etc. They work by uploading both your playlist and EPG information so that you can create your own customized EPG. If the service has the missing channel information that you seek, you can manually assign it to the channel in your EPG and it will use the corresponding TVG-ID from your playlist so that Tivimate can link it. These EPG editors usually have a subscription cost because the EPG you are creating is stored in the cloud, allowing you to simply input the new XMLTV address in Tivimate or whatever other player you are using. If you didn’t have this link, you would have to download a file and manually transfer it to your streaming device to load it in Tivimate. And you would have to update this file every single time a new channel is added to your IPTV service that is missing guide information. With the cloud service, you just login with your account and update your EPG, then refresh in Tivimate and it should be there. One big benefit of using an EPG editor is how it handles instances of duplicate TVG-IDs when you are using more than one service. If this occurs, the service acts as an intermediary by creating a “new” playlist with altered TVG-IDs. So, the same channel in two different playlists will both have the same TVG-ID which is then matched with your new EPG. Obviously, any changes to the playlist on the provider side when they add, delete, or edit channels will result in you having to manually update your custom EPG.
And you can also integrate a service like Myepg that works great with Amber’s Strong 8K service. They have a Free 3 day trial and an annual sub is really cheap. YMMV but I found that using this really added a ton of information to the existing EPG.
I still haven’t found any answer to my question. Maybe @SoloWarrior will know. Can I use the preconfigured EPG from MyEPG on playlists other than the Strong8K? I think it should work if the channel IDs are the same but don’t know for sure.
I did answer your question. You can use any EPG you want, but the TVG-IDs may not be the same across different providers. If they don’t match, you will have to manually assign each channel to the matching one in your second EPG.
If you’re asking if the TVG-IDs are exactly the same in Strong8k as they are in whatever other provider you are using, there’s no way of knowing that.
Tx @Jayhawks659 .but I wasn’t suggesting you didn’t answer my question. What I wanted to know is if in fact the prefab EPG does help to fill in missing info on other playlists. I am aware that the channel ID’s have to be the same, but I was looking for someone who has say trex or other Playlists from Amber who could test it out. Looks like @SoloWarrior got an answer. Tx.
I find that using one of these services has worked better for me than the source from the provider. I have been using epg.best for some time now and I think it works great. When I set up a new source match to my provider, I usually go through the channels that are not matched and manually make a match. Of course, there is always going to be some channels with not EPG match, but they are usually channels that I do not use anyway. This may take a little time in the beginning, but it works automatically after that.
Here is another site that will help you fill out some epgs. This group takes a service like Strong and curates a playlist from it in IPTV editor and provides m3us of the cleaned up list. They also provide a github link for the epg of each list. Some guys really spend some time on their lists updating daily and providing the best frame rates and resolutions of channels available in their lists. Its all free but they do ask for donations if you use one part of the update process.
You can also use just the EPG link generated on the master list. They copy channels to create groups.
I signed up for free trail. It sent me two links. I downloaded to my iPad. i cannot seem to see anything. Do I need to add that link to my epg? Sorry, I’m just a little confused on what to do with the free trial.
I don’t have Apollo but if you have an EPG playlist with Apollo my guess is you should be able to enter the Mytop EPG as well as another playlist in tivimate. I use MytopEPG with the strong 8K service and it works quite well
I purchased & tried installing the EPG Top World Strong 8 K version on Downloaders browser and I get a “There was a problem parsing the package” error.
My guess is that somewhere I need to allow for the install somewhere?
Google and AI was of no help as it talks about the Android OS on a phone.
Thanks in advance
Just to add I did set Downloader to install unknown apps.
Not sure what you are trying to do. You add an epg in your IPTV app. Downloading will allow you to read the xml file but not install or use it. For instance, the following is an EPG and you enter the entire address into your preferred IPTV player under settings>EPG>EPG sources>“add source” , without the brackets though. Then you can enable it or add it to a playlist by opening the “playlist” settings in your player click on your playlist then click EPG sources and enable it.
[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/acidjesuz/EPGTalk/master/guide.xml]
Percent!!! 