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What is XMLTV? How it is related to IPTV EPG?

XMLTV is a set of instructions to process Television listings and assist you in managing your TV viewing. The storing listings save in an XML-based format. Internet Protocol Television providers use XMLTV as the base reference template in their systems. According to the business demand and needs, IPTV providers extend it internally.

The key features of XMLTV

There are four key features of XMLTV that are described as follows:

  1. It is a very blockbusting XML based file format used for describing Television listings
  2. It is an interface contract between programs of emitting guide data and consume program
  3. It is a module that assists to create XMLTV formatted documents
  4. It is a set of tools to extract, manipulate, and search Television Listings
What is XMLTV? How it is related to IPTV EPG?
XMLTV screenshot from file

Types of records in XMLTV file

There are two types of records in the XMLTV file:

  • Channel records
  • Program records

Channel records store information about channels whereas Program records store information about individual episodes.

XMLTV Electronic Program Guide

In many countries, the Live DVR/TV feature comes with Plex. The Plex Pass subscription comes with EPG data for TV lineups. But some specific countries might not offer the availability of guide data. So, if you wish to have your source data, you have to look for another resource. This sort of dilemma solved by ‘XMLTV’ and it will be handy to resolve this issue.

XMLTV is primarily used in describing TV listings and is in an XML-based file format. You can have the option to specify XMLTV data when setting up a new DVR with Plex. It can be used instead of any specific guide data
otherwise provided by Plex.

In real world, there are many applications that use XMLTV-formatted files. The major examples are guide viewers and PVRs. Some of the guide viewers are gShowTV, OnTV, skXMLTV, XSLTv, TV-Browser, Free Guide TV Guide
etc and some of the PVRs are Freevo, MythTV, SageTV, Showshifter, J. River Media Center, Meedio, Media Portal etc.


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