Just because something isn’t necessarily practical doesn’t mean that I am often any less enthused about it. Things that are neat demand exploration, and I’m thankful for dev warriors out there making sure I can use my emulation handheld in ways likely never considered by their manufacturer. Enter Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).
For anyone not familiar, IPTV channels are, in a nutshell, traditional radio tower, television, or cable broadcasts, fed out over the web. By implementing this functionality with retro handhelds, you’ve got yourself a device that can swap between playing NES and watching live sports, shows, or broadcasts from around the world while you’re stuck in the airport.
For our younger readers who may scoff at the idea of watching broadcast television period when a world of content is on-demand at any time, this may seem like a foolish pursuit. Let me say this to you: leave me alone and get off my lawn.
Whether it’s the ability to tune into live events, the passive nature of channel browsing to see what’s on, or just the cool factor of using a device in a way other than intended, IPTV is a fun addition to your compatible handheld.
If you watch Zu’s latest video on muOS Pixie, you’ll see his highlight of IPTV functionality and what it looks like in action.
Background Info
IPTV History: Video broadcasts via the internet are nothing new, but aligning them with traditional broadcasters has seen a lot of growing pains along the way. All the way back in 2007, networking giant Cisco released an industry white paper that outlined how they believed IPTV to be the future of television. The paper outlines how Cisco rolled out IPTV video broadcasts through its own internal networks, and later to the world. The document outlines how traditional video production and broadcasts could be simultaneously rolled out via the internet to supported end clients. It’s an interesting read if you’re interested in the history of the technology.
An early demonstration of IPTV c/o Cisco
Handheld Compatibility: For our purposes today, we’re exploring IPTV support on Anbernic XX devices via the H700 chipset. This, however, is not the only way to explore IPTV on handhelds. Knulli offers support for the same lineup of devices and adds in TrimUI support. Handhelds that have Wi-Fi access running a popular CFW like ArkOS can also explore IPTV broadcasts via Kodi. Android, of course, is supported via any compatible media player, like VLC.
| Supported via MuOS |
|---|
| Anbernic RG28XX |
| Anbernic RG34XX |
| Anbernic RG35XX 2024 |
| Anbernic RG35XX PLUS |
| Anbernic RG35XX H |
| Anbernic RG35XX SP |
| Anbernic RG40XX H |
| Anbernic RG40XX V |
| Anbernic RGCUBEXX |
M3U files: The .M3U file format is a text file that instructs media software where and what files to play. Those who remember the days when MP3 music was King might recall an album of MP3s including an .M3U file. This was just a playlist that told Winamp (it really whips the llama’s ass) which order to play the tracks in to listen to the entire album in the intended order.
With IPTV, the .M3U files act as a channel link, or playlist of channel links. Each M3U file contains instructions for the media player to go out and locate a specific television stream. The file format can even be extended to include metadata such as program information.
How-To Set Up IPTV
- On your muOS device’s SD card, create a subdirectory under your ROMs folder and call it something like TV or Television.
- Head over to the IPTV-Org GitHub to browse through any playlists you might be interested in. You can sort through the offerings by category, country, language, etc. You can also view the full IPTV database.
An example of grouped playlists by category
- For files that are ready to go on the devices listed above, you can head over to the IPTV-Shortlist from community developer SneakyStarling. These handy links can be dragged and dropped right into the TV folder we created on the SD card.
You can open any one of the ready-to-run channel files from the shortlist for an example of how to make any custom links yourself from the database. Any single channel can be yours on demand by following the same formatting and saving the file in the .M3U format as seen below.
An example of a channel link
- Once you have assembled all the channel files you’d like to have access to on the device, remove the SD card from your PC and re-insert it into the handheld.
- In MuOS, click on Explore Content just as you would if you were launching a game.
- Scroll down to the TV directory that we created earlier.
- Select the .M3U file you wish to watch. On first play, you will be required to assign a core to launch the playlist. Choose MPV.
Choose the MPV core for your M3U playlists
- Launch the file with the newly assigned core.
- Grab a snack and experience what it was like when you had to watch whatever was on.
Final Thoughts
Like so many of my other hobbyist pursuits, how much use I’ll end up getting out of having IPTV functionality on my handhelds is still up in the air. I may find myself in a situation where it’s wonderful to have, and in a practical world, I may never really use it at all. The important part is, though, that it’s there if I need it. I can sleep safely knowing that should the need for live TV on a handheld arise, I’ll be ready to watch the tube.
Cooking segment on IPTV
If you’re interested in exploring more about the world of IPTV outside your retro handhelds, you can head over to the aptly named Awesome IPTV GitHub. This curated list gives you all the information you could hope for on platforms, broadcasts, software, links, and much more.
What did you think of this article? Would you like to see similar content about setting up Kodi or other media streaming options? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!
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