Emby Live TV at a glance
- Requires
- An Emby Premiere subscription for Live TV and DVR
- Tuners
- M3U files or URLs, HDHomeRun network tuners, Hauppauge tuners (Windows), plus plugins
- Guide data
- XMLTV files or URLs; Emby Guide Data for the US, Canada and the UK
- Watch on
- Any device with an Emby app or a web browser
From Emby’s support documentation, checked 5 October 2026.
How it works
Emby treats your IPTV playlist as a tuner: each channel in the M3U becomes a Live TV channel. You then add guide data, map the channels to the guide, and watch or record from any Emby app. Like every media server, it needs a computer or NAS that stays on.
Add your playlist as an M3U tuner
- Open the Emby Server dashboard and go to Live TV Setup.
- Choose Add TV Source and select M3U.
- Enter the URL of your M3U playlist, or the path to an M3U file.
- Set the simultaneous stream limit if your subscription has one, so Emby doesn’t open more streams than your provider allows. See too many connections.
- Leave the User Agent and Referer header options blank unless your provider tells you otherwise.
With an Xtream Codes login, build the M3U link first with our Xtream Codes to M3U converter.
Emby reads these tags from the playlist, according to its documentation: tvg-name (channel name), tvg-id (unique ID), tvg-chno (channel number), tvg-shift (hours to shift the guide) and tvg-group (the channel’s group). See M3U tags explained.
Add the TV guide
- On the Live TV setup screen, add a guide provider and choose Xml TV.
- Enter the XMLTV URL your provider gave you, or the path to an XMLTV file.
- Optionally, set which guide categories count as films, sports or children’s programmes.
- Map your channels to the guide entries where they don’t match automatically.
You can choose a guide source for each tuner if you use more than one. Emby also offers its own Emby Guide Data for the US, Canada and the UK, but an IPTV playlist normally comes with its provider’s XMLTV link. See XMLTV explained.
Emby, Jellyfin or Plex?
| Emby | Jellyfin | Plex | |
|---|---|---|---|
| M3U playlists | Directly, as a tuner | Directly, as a tuner | Needs a proxy such as Threadfin |
| Live TV and DVR cost | Emby Premiere | Free | Plex Pass |
| Guide | XMLTV, Emby Guide Data | XMLTV, Schedules Direct | Through the proxy |
Jellyfin began in December 2018 as a fork of Emby, after Emby closed its open-source development, and offers similar Live TV for free; see Jellyfin for IPTV and Plex vs Jellyfin for IPTV. If you want a single place to clean up channels and guide data for several apps, see Threadfin and Dispatcharr.