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Knowledge document #1608
FRITZ!Box 6591 Cable
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Watching TV with Kodi

Kodi (formerly XBMC) is free media center software available for many operating systems and device platforms. Besides allowing you to organize, display, and play media files (photos, music, videos) that are stored locally, Kodi also offers a "live TV" function that can receive and play back TV content from a TV server software ("PVR backend") as an IP stream.

Since the FRITZ!Box also streams TV channels over IP (Internet Protocol) into your home network, Kodi can use the FRITZ!Box as a TV server without additional software. Together with a smart TV or media center (for example Android TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, Raspberry Pi), this gives you an elegant and inexpensive way to watch the TV program in rooms where no cable wall outlet is available.

Requirements

1 Creating a channel list for Kodi

Downloading lists of SD and HD channels

The FRITZ!Box saves TV channels in two separate channel lists: one for SD resolution, and one for HD resolution, the respective format (M3U playlist) of which is also supported by Kodi. Download both channel lists to your computer via the user interface.

  1. Click "DVB-C" in the FRITZ!Box user interface.
  2. Click "Channel List" in the "DVB-C" menu.
  3. On the "SD" tab, right-click the link "Generate channel list".
  4. Select "Save destination to" or "Save link to" from the context menu and select where they should be saved.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 on the "HD" tab.

Combining lists of SD and HD channels

Since you can only configure one channel list in Kodi, you must merge both channel lists so you can play both SD and HD channels:

  1. Open the files "tvsd.m3u" and "tvhd.m3u" with a text editor (for example WordPad).
  2. Delete the entry "#EXTM3U" at the top of one of the two files (for example "tvhd.m3u").
  3. Mark and copy the contents of this file, and then paste the contents to the very bottom of the other file.
  4. If you want to change the order of the stations, you can cut out the entry for the respective station and paste it to the desired location. The entry for each channel always consists of three lines.

    Example:
    #EXTINF:-1,hr-fernsehen HD
    #EXTVLCOPT:network-caching=1000
    rtsp://192.168.178.1:554/?freq=114& [...]

  5. Save the file as an unformatted "plain text document" under a different name (for example "Kodichannellist.m3u").

2 Configuring the PVR add-on in Kodi

If you want to use Kodi's "Live TV" function to select and view the FRITZ!Box's IP streams, you must enable and configure the Kodi add-on PVR IPTV Simple Client:

Note:If you are using Windows, the add-on PVR IPTV Simple Client is already included in the default installation of Kodi.

Enabling the PVR IPTV Simple Client and configuring channel lists

  1. In Kodi, select "System" and then "Settings".
  2. Select "Add-ons" and then "Disabled add-ons".
  3. Select the entry "PVR IPTV Simple Client" in the "Disabled add-ons" window.

    Important:If the add-on is not displayed here, then it is already enabled and listed under "Enabled Add-ons".

  4. Select the option "Configure" in the "Add-on Information" window.
  5. Select the entry "Local Path (include Local Network)" for the "Location" under "General".
  6. Click "M3U Play List Path" and select the channel list you merged (for example C:\Users\Fritz\Downloads\Kodichannellist.m3u).
  7. Click "OK" and then "Enable".
    • Now the TV channels from the channel list are displayed in Kodi's main menu under "Live TV" and you can watch TV.

      Important:If "Live TV" is not displayed in the main menu, you must first enable this function in the settings for Kodi under "Live TV > General".

Configuring an electronic program guide (EPG)

The PVR IPTV Simple Client cannot evaluate the EPG information contained in the IP stream of the FRITZ!Box and only supports program information in XMLTV format.

To receive EPG information in Kodi about the TV content made available by the FRITZ!Box, you must retrieve it from an external XMLTV provider and integrate it into the PVR IPTV Simple Client. There may be costs associated with accessing XMLTV because EPC content is copyrighted in some countries (for example in Germany).

Note:We successfully tested the EPG from TV Movie (Clickfinder) in combination with the Clickfinder to xmltv software.

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