One of the most common uses through the Internet is the possibility of watching television from our computer. Many Internet companies allow us to watch their television channels, if we pay for them, through the Internet. Most public television networks also broadcast over the network so that users can watch them from their browser. There are even users who “share” their broadcasts with other users over the Internet. And all this is possible thanks to the IPTV protocol.
Internet Protocol Television, IPTV, is a technology that takes advantage of the TCP / IP protocol to transmit video almost in real time over the Internet. Although they are different technologies, this term is often used to refer to OTT TV or P2P TV, although IPTV ultimately uses other techniques to ensure a certain level of service quality.
In order to make use of this protocol, it is necessary, on the one hand, for someone to offer the broadcast through this protocol. This someone, the server, can be a television network, our ISP, a friend or a stranger. And on the other hand, we, as clients, will have to use a suitable program for the reproduction of this content through the Internet.
Next, we will see what are the best programs to watch television through the Internet, IPTV, from Windows. All these programs are 100% legal, since they do not download or facilitate lists of il-legal channels through the Internet. Simply we must put a link, or a list in m3u8 format, to reproduce the channels. What we see with them will be ours.
The Best IPTV Applications for Windows
5KPlayer, IPTV supported simple multimedia player
5KPlayer is a free IPTV player as well as a multi-functional media player to play local videos up to 4k/8K, 360 degree videos, LAN streams through AirPlay and DLNA. In case of feeling bothersome on video buffering, 5KPlayer switches itself as video downloader to save online video and music for offline playback.
To play IPTV link with 5KPlayer, click the “Live” icon on the interface, input the URL and hit “Play” button. Regarding to downloaded .m3u or .m3u8 file, we can directly drag it and drop to 5KPlayer to start watching IPTV on Windows.
We can download free 5KPlayer from the official website.
VLC, the quintessential Opensource media player
When we talk about media players, surely one of the first ones that comes to mind is VLC. This media player is characterized by being completely free and open source for all users. In addition, it is capable of playing any type of content without installing any additional codec or program. VLC simply works.
This media player is capable of playing videos from the Internet through different protocols. And one of them is the IPTV protocol. To do this, all we have to do is open this player and go to the ” Medium> Open network location ” section. We will enter the URL of the channel we want to play and voila, this program will take care of everything.
If we have a playlist of IPTV channels, we can also play it as another playlist. Each time we select one of them the channel will be automatically played.
We can download VLC for free from the following link .
SimpleTV, an improved version of VLC for watching TV online
VLC, although it serves as an IPTV player, has some quite important limitations. For example, it does not place the channels in categories when we load them from a playlist, something that for many is very annoying.
SimpleTV is an alternative to VLC specially designed to play all types of IPTV channels. This media player is based on the latest version of VLC, but includes a number of improvements to facilitate the reproduction of this type of content. Among many other improvements, one of the most important is that it allows you to load categories from playlists, one of the things that users complained about most.
In addition, it has a large number of addons and plugins to provide the tool with more features.
We can download SimpleTV for free from its website .
Kodi, the controversial application for IPTV
If we have ever been interested in IPTV, we have surely heard of Kodi. This media player is completely free and open source, and its great flexibility allows it to adapt to any use. One of the most interesting uses of this application, and the most controversial, is the reproduction of IPTV content.
Kodi does not come by default with any channel list or any channel. It is a simple multimedia player designed for each user to adapt it to their needs. It can be a bit complicated to use at the beginning, but as an option to watch Internet TV is excellent.
We can download Kodi for free from its main website .
MyIpTV Player, to download from the Microsoft Store
Of course, you could not miss an alternative for Windows 10 in the Microsoft Store. Within the Windows store we can find many applications to play television through the Internet. However, one of the most interesting and that we liked the most has been MyIpTV Player.
This tool works as a multimedia player with EPG to easily play all types of IPTV channels. It also has a search engine, with filters and a series of additional features that will undoubtedly make it open up among your essential applications.
