My first 5 days with Players Klub, IPTV, Dreamlink T1+

by striker1211

I am checking out IPTV for the first time and decided to get a really cheap provider. I am using Verizon Wireless for my ISP. I did a data usage calculation based on my usage while streaming various channels and it looks like IPTV requires between 3 Megabits per second and 6 megabits per second at the most for sports (but I hate sports). I just reset my data usage on my router's WAN port, let the TV stream for 5 minutes on each test channel, and did the math. I tried multiple programs: ProgTV/DVB, Perfect Player, Kodi w/ official add-on+Simple IPTV Client, and now finally yesterday I started using a Dreamlink T1 Plus.

Comments:

ProgTV (windows): Would not play streams at all on the ProgTV 5 foot interface.


ProgDVB (windows): Played fine for about 30 minutes at a time and ended up glitching and freezing often. EPG was ugly as hell.


Perfect Player (windows): I got the EPG and channels to download but they would never play.


Kodi with official PK addon (windows): This bothered me because I had to allow installation from unknown sources. Worked really well for playback "speed" but would crash every now and then. Also certain channels had no audio. The only common theme here I found was that the higher the quality the channel the less likely audio worked. It probably had something to do with Dolby. The stream just acted like I stopped it and it went back into the previous Kodi menu. VOD worked FLAWLESSLY on my FireTV stick as well as my i3 HTPC with passive Nvidia HDMI graphics card (i cannot recall the exact card model).


Kodi with Simple IPTV Client (windows/firetv stick): I determined that you can use just the IPTV Simple Client and did not actually need to use the repo provided by PK. I just entered the M3u and EPG URLs, restarted kodi, and it worked fine. This of course had the same problems as the official PK add-on for live TV because they are one in the same.


Dreamlink T1 Plus Review: Got this for $89 shipped on AZ. I had to input my MAC on PK to get it to work but it worked instantly after I clicked submit. OH. MY. GOD. Amazing! Channel changing is SO MUCH FASTER. I do not like the VOD/catchup menu as well as I like the official Kodi add-on. The EPG only shows 4 channels at a time so the font is big, but this should be configurable. To that affect the EPG would sometimes show "No Information". This could be because of the way the T1 caches the EPG. On Kodi I never had the issue but I think Kodi only downloads the EPG once a boot and the T1 does it on the fly because it is a Stalker protocol client. As for recording it works fine. PK does not block recording shows. I had to format my HDD to exFAT with windows because there are no on-box format facilities and the Dreamlink cannot read NTFS. It can use FAT32 but the filesizes will be limited to 4GB and idk how it would handle large .ts streams.... my gf loves the box compared to kodi because she doesn't have to use a mouse and keyboard, but the T1+ includes a mouse "button" on the remote that will show one on the screen that you can move left or right for web browsing etc.


Players Klub Service Review: All in all, now with the T1, it has been a pleasant experience for $5 a month. The problems I have had are: The EPG is straight up inaccurate on SOME channels and fine on others. Some channels will be 2 hours ahead. Some channnels will be 5 hours ahead. One channel (CC) was accurate, then an hour later it was 12 hours off! The lack of reliable EPG make it unusable for my girlfriend and therefor unusable for me. I am trying a few other stalker services (lol) because giving up on IPTV but if I cannot find a reliable EPG there is no point. I don't like 3/4 of the shows I see when I am flipping through (which is why I don't have satellite anyway) and the only use I feel I am getting out of it is the music video channels.

BitIPTV

Nice Review, man. Very detailed and thorough! I think for US/Can ... The best EPG you are going to find is either EpicStream close to 100% or IPGuys. The rest are just mehhh.

I didn't know Dreamlink was that good. I really need to get one myself and try it now that they have the New T2s out.

iambert00

Thanks for writing this review. It made me think about the Grandma test. Where's the best place to get a T2? I have a Grandma ready to go. :)

Preet04

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101-KvSR

What is the channel list and how does one join?

ChillyWilly8819

You need to check out Gears TV. I used to be a member of the Players Klub but their TV Guide is horrible and some channels were in UK rather than USA. I have been using gears tv since May and it works great. I used promo code gearsred10 and got 10% off. To subscribe to Gears TV, go to www.gearsreloadediptv.com you can get Gears TV starting at $16.