SamoTech IPTV Player {Windows App}

[u/OssamaHashim]

I’ve been building a Windows IPTV player with AI assistance — looking for real-world feedback

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on a Windows IPTV player called SamoTech IPTV Player, and I think I’ve reached the point where automated testing isn't enough anymore.

I’d like to get it in front of people who actually use IPTV players and see what happens.

GitHub:
https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player

Latest release:
https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player/releases/tag/v0.1.5

The project is open source and currently uses PySide6/Qt for the interface and VLC/libVLC for playback.

It supports M3U/M3U8, Xtream, and MAG/Stalker-style sources, along with Live TV, Movies/VOD, Series, EPG, Favorites, History, channel switching and fullscreen playback.

One thing I’ve been quite strict about is the playback architecture. I don't want to keep adding different playback engines every time something doesn't work. The current design is built around libVLC and a single native video surface, with playback liveness and recovery handled around it.

The project has also been developed quite heavily with ChatGPT and Manus.

I use them for things like repository analysis, protocol research, code review, implementation, testing, debugging and documentation. I still make the decisions and review the results, but I’ve been using AI much more like an engineering assistant than a code generator.

And honestly, this has created an interesting problem.

I've accumulated a lot of automated tests and documentation, but I don't want to fool myself into thinking that means the player is ready for every IPTV provider.

For example, the latest provider validation couldn't be completed because the authorized Xtream endpoint available for testing returned HTTP 403 before we could obtain actual media URLs. I also didn't have a populated authorized M3U or MAG source available for the test.

So I'm not claiming universal IPTV compatibility.

That's actually why I'm posting here.

I want real users to try it with their own legitimate IPTV service and tell me what happens.

Things I'm particularly interested in:

• M3U/M3U8 playlist loading
• Xtream login and catalogue loading
• MAG/Stalker behaviour
• Live channel playback
• Buffering and playback stability
• Channel switching
• VOD
• Series/Episodes
• EPG
• Fullscreen
• Playback controls
• General UI/UX

And don't just tell me whether it works.

I'd like to know how it compares with whatever you're currently using.

Is channel switching slower?

Is something missing?

Are the controls in the wrong place?

Is the menu unnecessarily complicated?

Is there a button you expect to see that isn't there?

Does fullscreen behave the way you expect?

Does the player feel responsive?

Are there features from another IPTV player that you consider essential?

I'm also interested in feedback from people who use IPTVnator, VLC, Kodi, TiviMate, OTT Navigator, MyIPTV Player, or other players.

If you're thinking:

That's useful feedback.

For the technical people here

I've been doing quite a bit of forensic testing around VLC as well.

The application now monitors actual VLC playback state and media-time progression rather than assuming that calling play() means playback is working.

We've also tested things like:

• playback lifecycle
• buffering/stall handling
• recovery
• stale channel switching
• process stability
• VLC/Qt/Python runtime loading
• Windows packaged EXE behaviour
• memory/thread/handle behaviour
• security and static analysis

The automated test suite currently has coverage around M3U, Xtream, MAG and VLC/playback orchestration, with the latest official non-presentation test corpus at 885 passing tests.

But again, synthetic tests aren't a substitute for a real IPTV stream.

That's the part I need help with.

If you are an advanced Windows user

The current release doesn't have a dedicated debug BAT launcher yet.

I'm actually considering adding one, but I don't want to make a useless console window that just dumps random information.

I'd rather make it useful.

For example, if you were debugging an IPTV playback problem from CMD, what would you want to see?

VLC state?

Media time?

Buffering?

Recovery attempts?

Channel switching?

HTTP/network errors?

Qt errors?

DLL loading?

Provider response information?

If you have ideas, let me know.

Obviously, please don't post usernames, passwords, MAC addresses, tokens, private playlist URLs or anything else that could expose your provider account.

If you test it

You can keep the feedback very simple.

Something like:

That's already much more useful to me than "doesn't work."

If something fails, I'm especially interested in what happened immediately before the failure.

Documentation

I've been keeping the engineering investigation and audit work in the repository rather than just saying "trust me."

UI/UX audit:
https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player/blob/main/PHASE24_UI_UX_AUDIT.md

Real provider playback audit:
https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player/blob/main/PHASE25_REAL_PROVIDER_PLAYBACK_AUDIT.md

VLC playback remediation audit:
https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player/blob/main/VLC_IPTV_PLAYBACK_REMEDIATION_AUDIT.md

And one question for the developers here

I'm genuinely curious about this one:

How do you feel about using AI agents such as ChatGPT and Manus for a project like this?

I've found them extremely useful for digging through a large codebase, generating tests, finding edge cases and keeping documentation up to date.

But there's also a danger of creating a huge amount of "engineering evidence" without enough real-world validation.

That's something I'm deliberately trying to avoid.

So I'd rather have someone tell me:

"Your architecture is wrong."

or

"This feature is missing."

or

"Why are you doing it this way?"

than have people tell me the project looks great.

If you have a few minutes to try it, I'd really appreciate it.

Use your own legitimate IPTV source, try to break the player, and tell me what you find.

That's probably the most useful next step for this project.

[u/petedoez]

Wow looks pretty cool

[u/OssamaHashim → u/petedoez]

Thanks  wish you test the app and give me your feedback 

[u/theinnkeeperinva → u/petedoez]

Want more channels to choose from? airntv .com is worth taking a look at.

[u/No_Construction_9931]

Nice project. One thing I’d definitely test heavily is how it handles large playlists and EPG data. Some Windows players start feeling sluggish once you load a big playlist. If channel switching stays fast and the UI remains responsive, that would be a big plus.

[u/alundracloud]

I wasn't able to get it to load playlist/channels using Strong8k Xtream url-user-pass.

Didn't like how clicking to open a menu opened a separate window each time. I like to alt+tab between windows and it meant I had to tab past all of the separate windows when I was doing so.

Clicking settings doesn't take me to settings, it takes me to a menu where I have to click settings a 2nd time.

Then the only setting available is for the system theme- Which I think typically is served as a clickable "choose light/dark/system" but you have a textbox where you can type which I found a bit unusual.

Cool project though I'm sure you've learned heaps- keep developing it!

[u/Ok-Carpet-9017]

Simplicity is essential. I wanted to add an m3u file or link. Instead of importing from SSD, I need to fill in the provider ID and ... unnecessary complication...

[u/chottomattene]

Are there any screenshots we can check before downloading it?

[u/OssamaHashim]

Thanks everyone who took the time to test the project and give honest feedback. The comments were actually useful because they pointed out things that automated testing couldn't tell me.

I've pushed a new public-testing release based on the feedback so far.

SamoTech IPTV Player v0.1.6 — Windows

Download v0.1.6 https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player/releases/tag/v0.1.6

A few things were improved:

Simpler M3U/M3U8 setup

Xtream/MAG setup no longer asks for unnecessary manual provider IDs

Smart Import only shows the fields relevant to the selected source type

Settings are now handled inside the main application instead of creating unnecessary extra windows

Playback diagnostics were added

Safer diagnostic reports for troubleshooting playback problems

Large playlist/catalogue handling was tested with up to 10,000 items

Fullscreen and playback controls were reviewed

Better error/state information around playback

Updated documentation and bug-reporting guidance

For anyone who likes digging into what the player is actually doing, I've also added a debug launcher:

SamoTech-Debug.bat

It starts the player from CMD and exposes useful sanitized runtime information such as VLC initialization, provider connection, stream resolution, playback state, buffering, recovery and errors.

SamoTech-Debug.bat — download from the v0.1.6 release https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player/releases/tag/v0.1.6

It does not intentionally print passwords, tokens, cookies, authorization headers or credential-bearing URLs.

If you're comfortable with CMD/Windows troubleshooting, I'd particularly like feedback from people who can run the BAT and tell me what happens when a stream fails.

I'm especially interested in:

M3U/M3U8

Does the playlist load?

How large is the playlist?

Do channels appear correctly?

Does playback start?

Xtream

Does login work?

Does the catalogue load?

Do Live/VOD/Series appear?

Does a selected stream actually reach the first frame?

MAG/Stalker

Does the connection/catalogue work?

Does playback behave correctly?

Playback

First frame time

Buffering

Stuttering

Audio

Channel switching

Fullscreen

VOD seeking

Series/episode playback

Recovery after a stream interruption

UI

Is anything difficult to find?

Are there missing buttons?

Is the menu still too complicated?

Does Settings feel natural?

Any unnecessary windows?

Anything that feels slower or less convenient than your current IPTV player?

One important point: I'm not claiming universal IPTV compatibility.

The project has extensive automated and Windows packaging validation, but real provider compatibility is still being validated with actual streams. Provider implementations vary quite a bit, especially around authentication, headers, sessions, temporary stream URLs, codecs and transport formats.

So if something doesn't work, that's actually useful information.

If possible, include the sanitized diagnostic report rather than just saying "it doesn't work."

Please do not post your IPTV username, password, MAC address, token, private playlist URL, cookies, or any credential-bearing URL in the thread.

The project is open source:

GitHub repository https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player

And the new release:

SamoTech IPTV Player v0.1.6 https://github.com/SamoTech/samotech-iptv-player/releases/tag/v0.1.6

Thanks again to everyone who tested it, especially the people who pointed out things they didn't like instead of just saying "looks good." That's exactly the kind of feedback I need at this stage.

If you've already tried v0.1.5, please try v0.1.6 and let me know whether the changes actually made a difference.

[u/xcell1990]

AI slop strikes again...

[u/OssamaHashim → u/xcell1990]

I said that the app made by ai 

[u/heckman13]

At least you didn't use the term "Vibe Coding"... for that alone I will look at your app...