Catch-up and live rewind on IPTV, explained

Where the programmes come from

Nothing is recorded on your TV. Many IPTV providers keep what their channels broadcast on their own servers for a while, often a few days, for some channels and not others. That store is the archive. When you ask for a programme that aired yesterday, the player asks the provider’s server for that channel from that start time, and the server sends it like a film.

So catch-up can only reach as far back as the provider keeps, and only on the channels it archives. ZiroTV marks the channels that have an archive, and only offers programmes that fall inside it.

Catch-up: watch what already aired

Catch-up is for the film that started before you got home, or last night’s match you missed entirely. In ZiroTV on a TV:

1. Open the TV guide. Hold OK while a channel plays, or use the guide button if your remote has one.
2. Move left, back in time, along a channel’s row. In the channel list, channels with an archive carry a small clock.
3. Select a programme that has already aired. The Catch-up list opens for that channel, with what it can replay, newest first and sorted by day.
4. Select a programme to play it from the start.

A catch-up programme plays in the same player as a film, so you can pause it and skip through it. The list reaches back as far as your provider’s archive for that channel. If it says Nothing recorded yet on this channel, the provider has no archive for it at the moment.

Live rewind: go back in what is on now

Live rewind, sometimes called timeshift, is for the moment you just missed: a goal, a line of dialogue, the start of the news. It works on the channel you are watching, while you watch it:

1. Press left, or the rewind button, to go back 30 seconds. Press it again to go further, or hold it to go faster; the presses add up, and the picture jumps once you stop.
2. The information bar shows how far behind live you are, as a minus time such as −2:30.
3. Press right, or fast forward, to move back towards live.
4. Press play/pause to pause and resume, and Back to return to live straight away.

Switching channel always starts the new one at live. How far back you can go depends on the channel’s archive: as many days as your provider’s server announces for it.

Can you pause live TV?

Once you have rewound. Behind live, the play/pause key pauses the picture and resumes it, and Back returns you to live. At live, play/pause only shows the information bar, so to step away, rewind a moment and pause there, or open the programme from catch-up once it has aired, where pause works as it does for a film.

What catch-up and live rewind need

• An Xtream Codes login, or an M3U playlist with catch-up tags. With a login, ZiroTV builds catch-up requests from the login itself. An M3U playlist needs tags your provider writes on each channel, or once on the #EXTM3U line for all of them. A channel gets catch-up from a catchup-source address, alone or with a catchup (or catchup-type) type of default or append; from the type shift or timeshift, or a timeshift or tvg-rec day count without a type; or from the type flussonic or xc, when the channel’s live address has the shape of a Flussonic or Xtream Codes server. The day count, from catchup-days or else timeshift or tvg-rec, sets how many days back it reaches; with none, ZiroTV counts one day. A channel without these tags has no catch-up or live rewind. With an M3U playlist, the catch-up list shows only the programmes your TV guide still still holds, while live rewind reaches back as many days as the playlist gives. Xtream Codes vs M3U explains the difference.
• A provider that archives the channel. Not every service keeps an archive, and those that do rarely keep every channel.
• A TV guide. Catch-up is picked from the guide, so the programmes need a schedule. How the IPTV guide works.
• ZiroTV on a TV or computer. Catch-up and live rewind work on Fire TV, Google TV, Android TV, Windows, Mac and Linux, and in the phone edition too.

When catch-up does not play

If a programme in the list will not start, the provider’s archive for that moment may be missing or still being written, which is common for the last few minutes of live TV. Try an older programme, or wait a little. If no channel plays from catch-up at all, ask your provider whether your subscription includes it: some services switch the archive off or keep it for certain packages.

Guide times that are off by an hour make catch-up start in the wrong place, because the request uses the guide’s times. Check your device’s time zone first; the EPG guide shows where.