Any way to cache or pre-buffer IPTV?

sappypappy · September 10, 2020 at 11:53 AM

I've been researching this for a bit. It seems using an M3U with the IPTV Simple Client is unable to assign any sort of pre buffer to the streams. It just tries to play them instantly, and if your stream isn't really robust, it will result in constant buffering because it has nothing to fall back on. This is why there is no play/pause button in the player watching streams, because its just playing straight up whatever the server is giving it. Unlike many standalone apps that handle IPTV & let's users assign buffer to handle this problem, Kodi/LE doesn't for whatever reason. At least not apparently.

Is there ANY way to accomplish or work around this? From my understanding, messing with the advancedsettings.xml is disregarded when it comes to M3U streams. But even a 3 or 4 second pre buffer would make a world of difference. Thanks!

davidsilva · September 10, 2020 at 3:28 PM

try loading your m3u into tvheadend. Itll run as pvr on kodi allowing to record, pause etc. But remember it won't improve the stream. If its a stream which freezes and locks etc it'll still do the same. There's also the video cache in advanced settings.xml might help. Its explained in the kodi wiki.

PS if its a poor stream it'll remain a poor stream no matter what settings you change.

myrpi · September 10, 2020 at 3:48 PM

For me it work better if I use:

#EXTVLCOPT:network-caching=2000

It looks something like this:

...

#EXTINF:0,Stream 1

#EXTVLCOPT:network-caching=2000
https://.....

...