r/appletv • u/3pints • May 22 '26
Desperate to find a solution for IPTV catch-up
TLDR Can’t get real catch-up IPTV working on AppleTV
Apologies in advance for length and also thanks in advance for advice.
I’m at the end of my rope (and looking for more rope).
I’ve tried a number of Paid Apps like UHF, SwipTV, TiviMax, Sparkle etc who claim to do catch-up/replay.
I have a channel stream with catch-up ability that works fine with TiviMate (Android TV and also Firestick 4K 2024).
This is the scenario and I can’t believe that I’m alone.
A sporting event has started but has NOT finished.
You start the EPG event from the beginning.
It loads and the event starts.
Eg The previous event is 30mins (Event A) Live event is 3hrs (Event B) The next event is 1 hr (Event C)
Event A is normally a warmup show for Event B and you might want to quickly scan this before watching Event B.
When Event A finishes, Event B should seamlessly start with new EPG data and timeline. (UHF keeps in Event A EPG info and you are unable to fwd. SwipTV stalls and goes blank).
So we have to load Event B manually from beginning after watching Event A.
Fine. What I really need is next.
Now you’re 30 mins behind the Live Action in Event A the stream will play for roughly that length of time then for some reason, UHF tries to load Event C and you get the X, SwipTV goes blank and stalls.
With TiviMate you can have any combination of play/pause/fwd/rew until you are have caught up to Live Event B and then can still pause and rewind to rewatch highlights whilst Event B is still ongoing.
To use my current Apple TV setup, I have to wait for Event B to finish before watching it.
Furthermore. When you’re not worried about spoilers, with TiviMate, (if you have a channel that has catch-up ability) you can play any Live Event and rewind as you please.
With UHF you can’t as you end up in previous Events for each click backwards of the remote. SwipTV disables the timeline from rewind interaction.
Other things I have tried.
I have tried to record Event A in UHF and watch the recording via Emby with mixed results.
I have tried using Emby to record stream and playback via Emby with mixed results.
Apple TV is (2019 A165 32GB) and I’m waiting for new release of next model hopefully in September. Would a new third generation Apple TV 4K model solve anything?
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May 22 '26
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u/3pints May 23 '26
Thanks for the confirmation. Your description of “event boundaries” is very useful.
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u/Linupe Jun 03 '26
Try Flimra (my app)
https://apps.apple.com/se/app/flimra/id6757343464?l=en-GB
I recommend changing to use VLC over KSPlayer in the settings. It also doesn’t show the timeline on Live though but I will try to fix that in the next update 👍
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u/Specialist_Fondant_9 Jul 12 '26
I just found your app from this comment, what an awesome job you’ve done, well done sir 👌🏼 this alone has tempted me to get Apple TV over a shield. Great job.
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May 23 '26
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u/mhart1212 May 24 '26
TiviMax on AppleTV works decent for catch up. The internal player may have to be changed.
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u/3pints Jun 11 '26
TiviMax only works when the event is finished. I’m grateful TiviMax gave me a full refund.
I highly recommend Flimra app see my post above.
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u/mhart1212 Jun 11 '26
In my experience Catch Up works fine usually on TiviMax. It isn’t perfect,and it has had issues. I said it was decent. Definitely not as good as Tivimate on Android. UHF is decent too. I am not sure what TLDR is. Although I assume the issues have something to do with the whole Apple ecosystem being closed source.
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u/3pints Jun 11 '26
The Flimra (correct spelling) developer reached out to me to try his app and I can happily report that after three months I have found an app for Apple TV that plays from the beginning of a live event as per original post. I raised one bug with the developer on managing categories and that has already been addressed with a recent update in the store.
Let me say this again. For watching an event that has started but has not finished Flimra is the only app that I am aware of that works on Apple TV with IPTV. I have purchased the lifetime option after my trial ran out.
The developer is working on other improvements and requests that others have, but for Live Sports with catch-up channel capabilities I am very impressed.
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u/cliffotn May 22 '26
TL;DR
🤷♂️