Groups and Favorites

IPTVnator lets you select programs by genre. This option is especially useful for channel lists with a large number of channels. To select a program by genre, open the group selection by clicking the Groups button in the program window. The software now shows you a table with the individual genres and the number of channels available in each of them. Clicking on the desired genre opens the list of stations below it (Figure 4). Clicking on the group name again closes the selection.

Figure 4: The group function sorts channels into genres, for example, News.

For quick access to your favorite channels, IPTVnator offers a favorites function. To mark a channel as a favorite, just click on the star next to the name of the channel currently streaming above the playback window. To recall a saved channel, click Favorites. The selected channel then appears on the left. To remove a channel from the favorites list, click on the star next to the channel name again.

IPTV and VPN

Some streaming providers restrict their offerings to the country of origin and determine the approximate location of the receiving device based on the IP address. This is known as geoblocking. If the device is outside the intended distribution area, an error message appears in the playback window.

You can use a VPN to get around geoblocking. You first need to register with a VPN provider and download and install their software. Unlimited data volumes and access to all available servers of the provider are usually only available with a paid subscription. However, some providers also offer their service as a free subscription with limited data volume and restricted access to the servers.

After installing the VPN provider's client application, open it and connect to a server in the target country, (i.e., the country in which the streaming service is located). As soon as the tunneled connection is established via the VPN, you can view what are normally blocked broadcasts (Figure 5).

Figure 5: With the help of VPN access to the Internet, you can view channels that you normally can't access because of geoblocking.

Conclusions

Thanks to IPTVnator, Linux now has an easy-to-use application for streaming IPTV broadcasts. Despite the low version number, the software is already stable on several platforms, and it is suitable for users without in-depth knowledge of the underlying technology, thanks to the built-in playback software. Thanks to IPTVnator, Linux users now have an option for picking up their favorite broadcasts from the road.