Most of us have common doubts about what actually is IPTV. If you haven’t heard the term IPTV, it generally stands for Internet Protocol Television. Technically speaking, the process of delivering television programming and other on-demand content using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite is called IPTV.
To put it simply in an understandable way, IPTV is a technology that lets users watch live TV channels, movies, or TV shows through their standard Internet connection. As IPTV sends videos in unicast format, it enables users to select programs and stream whatever they want.
IPTV uses different types of protocols to send content over IP networks in order to provide high-quality service. The major protocols used by IPTV services are listed down below.
- UDP (User Datagram Protocol)
- HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
- RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol)
- RTSP (Real-Time Streaming Protocol)
- IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol)
- HLS (HTTP Live Streaming)
If you are clear with the meaning of IPTV, let’s move on to the discussion about how IPTV actually works.
How Does IPTV Work?
- Content Preparation – There are several IPTV Providers online. They actually encode channels movies, TV shows, and other on-demand content into IP-compatible formats like MPEG-2, MPEG-4, or H.264/AVC and then they store it on their servers.
- Content Delivery – When a user subscribes to the service, the IPTV Provider offers an M3U URL, Xtream Codes, or other type of IPTV playlist formats.
- Content Streaming – After getting the playlist link or file from the provider, you should upload the playlist on any IPTV Player of your choice. Like providers, there are tons of IPTV Players available for different devices. These players decode the data packets and display the content on the device screen.