IPTV glossary: the words you meet from setup to 4 a.m.

Written by Televixy Team · First published September 19, 2026 · Revised October 1, 2026

Most IPTV vocabulary describes one of two things: how you get signed in, or how you watch something at a time that suits you rather than the broadcaster. This glossary is arranged around the second idea. Instead of A to Z, the terms appear in the order you tend to meet them across a single day of viewing at irregular hours: the setup you squeeze into a free afternoon, the search for something to watch at 03:00, the program itself, and the small repairs you make without waking anybody.

Each stretch of the day has its own handful of words. Read the one you are in, or read straight through.

1. Setting up, in whatever hour you have spare
2. Finding something to watch at 03:00
3. Once something is playing
4. Fixing things quietly while the house sleeps

Setting up, in whatever hour you have spare

People on rotating shifts rarely get a calm Saturday morning for this. Setup happens in a gap: the afternoon before a night shift, a day off between rotations, the hour after the school run. These are the words on the screen during that gap.

Free trial

A short test login, 24 hours long at Televixy. It is worth starting it so that it covers the hours you really watch, so a night-shift viewer gets a fair look at 03:00 rather than at lunchtime.

Activation

The moment your account is created and the login is sent to you. Ordering happens in a WhatsApp chat, activation takes under 15 minutes, and the desk runs 24/7, so it does not have to wait for office hours.

Xtream login

Also called an Xtream Codes login. It is made of three fields: the server URL, your username and your password. Most player apps accept it and fetch live channels, films, series and guide data from it in one go. The server URL often ends in a colon and a port number; leaving that off is a classic reason for a refused sign-in. Our Xtream Codes page shows where each field goes.

M3U link

The same account written as a single long web address, used by players that expect a playlist rather than three separate fields. Because the username and password sit inside it, sharing the link is the same as sharing the account. The M3U playlist page covers loading it.

Player app

The software that turns your login into a channel list. TiviMate, IPTV Smarters Pro, Smart IPTV and others all start empty and show nothing until a subscription is entered. On Apple devices the free Smarters app is called Smarters Player Lite.

Sideloading

Installing an app from outside the device’s own store. On Fire TV this is done with the Downloader app, and only on models running Fire OS. Developer Options are hidden there: open My Fire TV, then About, and press select 7 times on the device name. The Fire TV Stick 4K Select runs Vega OS and cannot sideload at all, and Roku has no sideloading either. The Fire TV guide goes through it.

MAC address

A hardware ID that some apps use instead of a username. Smart IPTV, for instance, links your playlist to the TV’s MAC address on the developer’s website. It is in the Samsung store for 2022 and later TVs on Tizen 6.5 or newer, and it needs webOS 3.0 or later on LG. Reset or replace the TV and the address, and the link, may change.

Connection

A single screen in playback. Plans come with one, two, three or five, and the login can be installed on as many devices as you like; only simultaneous playback is counted. In a home where one person watches before dawn and another in the early evening, a single connection covers both, because their hours never overlap.

Term and expiry date

The term is the length you paid for: one, three, six or twelve months. The expiry date is the day it ends, usually shown in the player’s account screen. Televixy plans do not renew by themselves, so when that date passes every device stops together, which looks like an outage but is just the calendar.

Finding something to watch at 03:00

The household is asleep, the shift is over, and the question is simple: what is there? These words describe the tools for answering it.

EPG

Electronic program guide: the grid of listings inside the player, built from schedule data delivered with the channels. At odd hours it is as useful looking backward as forward, because scrolling back to 20:00 tells you what aired while you were out.

Guide offset

A setting in some players that moves the listings by whole hours. If the guide says a program started at 02:00 when it plainly started at 03:00, typically after the clocks change, this is the setting to look for, if your player offers it.

Catch-up

Programs kept on the server after they air, so you can play them from the guide later. Only the channels that carry it have it, and how far back it reaches varies, so check the channels you care about. Players commonly mark them with a small clock or rewind symbol.

VOD

Video on demand: the library of films and series, 120,000+ titles at Televixy, which has no schedule at all. When catch-up does not have the program you missed, this is where the hour gets filled.

Channel groups

The folders a channel list is sorted into, usually by country and then by type, such as news, sport or children’s. With channels from 60+ countries, a group can be the fastest way to find somewhere whose evening programs are airing during your night.

Favorites

Your own short list of channels, so you are not scrolling through 25,000+ of them with a remote at 03:00. In TiviMate the favorites list and hiding groups are Premium features; other players handle them in their own way.

Search

Typing a name instead of browsing. Many players keep separate searches for live channels and for the film and series library, so if a title does not show up, try the other section.

Continue watching

A row or list in many players showing films and episodes you started and did not finish, with the point where you stopped. For anyone who watches in forty-minute pieces across several nights, it is the most used screen in the app.

Once something is playing

These terms belong to the program itself: controlling it, hearing it without waking anyone, and keeping it for later.

Timeshift

Pausing or stepping back through a live channel while you watch. It depends on both the player and the channel, so it may be there on one and absent on another. Catch-up is its cousin: timeshift works on what is airing now, catch-up on what has already finished.

Recording

Saving a program to storage so it stays after catch-up has moved on. TiviMate Premium adds recording on the devices where it runs; you need space on the device or an attached drive to hold the files.

Multi-view

Several channels on one screen at once, useful when two matches overlap in the middle of your night. TiviMate Premium includes it. Each tile pulls its own stream, so check how many connections your plan has before opening four.

Audio track

Some channels and many films carry more than one soundtrack, for example a second language. The player’s audio menu switches between them while the picture keeps playing.

Subtitles

Text on screen, carried as a separate track. With subtitles on, the volume can stay at its lowest while someone sleeps in the next room. Films and series carry them more often than live channels do.

Bluetooth audio

Sending the sound to wireless headphones paired with the phone, tablet or TV device. The pairing lives in the device’s own settings, not in the player app.

Sleep timer

A countdown that stops playback or turns the screen off after a set time. Some players include one, and most TVs have their own in the system settings, so look in either place if your player offers no such option.

Resolution tags

The 4K, FHD and HD labels in channel names. The same channel can appear with more than one tag, each a separate version of the feed, so a tablet in bed and a large TV can each take the version that suits them. The 4K page explains what Ultra HD needs.

Latency

How far a stream trails the live broadcast, usually a matter of seconds. It is why a score alert on your phone can arrive before the goal reaches your screen, and why following a match later means muting those alerts first.

Fixing things quietly while the house sleeps

When something stops at 04:30, you want words that point at a fix you can make in a few minutes with the sound down. Support is on WhatsApp 24/7 as well, but most of these take less time than writing a message.

Buffering

The pause, usually with a spinning circle, while the player waits for more video. If only one channel does it, the problem sits with that feed; if every channel does it, look at the device or the home connection first.

Buffer size

How many seconds of video the player stores ahead of the moment on screen. TiviMate exposes it in its playback settings, and a few other players do too. A bigger reserve smooths over short hiccups in the connection; the price is a slightly longer wait each time you switch channel.

Decoder

The part of the player that unpacks compressed video. In hardware mode the work goes to the graphics chip built for it; in software mode the general processor does it instead. When one channel shows sound but no picture, switching between the two is a quick test.

Clear cache

Emptying the temporary files an app keeps. On Android and Fire TV devices it lives under the app’s entry in the system settings. It often sorts out a player that has grown slow or stuck, without touching your login.

Playlist refresh

Telling the player to download the channel list and guide again. Players do this on a timer, but a manual refresh is the first thing to try when a channel name or listing looks out of date.

Connection limit message

The warning you see when more screens are trying to play than your plan allows. Often a device in another room has been left running; stop it and press play again.

Uptime

The share of time a service is up and serving streams. Televixy states 99.9% uptime. It describes the service side, so it says nothing about a router that has dropped its connection in the hallway.

Where these words get used

None of this needs memorizing before you sign up. In practice three words do most of the work on the first day: the Xtream login you type in, the number of connections you paid for, and the guide, which appears by itself a minute or two after the first sign-in. Everything else earns its keep at particular hours, catch-up and timeshift when you have been away, subtitles and Bluetooth audio when someone is asleep, buffer size and the decoder when a channel misbehaves.

The fastest way to see them in context is the 24-hour free trial, started so that it covers the hours you really keep. The device-by-device setup guides show the same terms on real menus, and the pricing page lists every term and connection count.

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