Xtream Tuner — turn your IPTV subscription into a full Emby Live TV

[Firestaerter 4]

I've been building a plugin that connects any Xtream-compatible IPTV subscription directly to Emby as a first-class citizen — Live TV with a proper guide, *and* your VOD content as a native movie and series library. Just one DLL, no extra dependencies.

What you get

•   - IPTV movies as a real Emby library — synced as STRM files with full metadata, posters, and ratings matched via TMDB. Emby treats them exactly like local files.
•   - IPTV series with proper episode structure — seasons and episodes organised as Show Name / Season 01 / S01E01, matched against TVDb and TMDB for automatic metadata.
•   - Flexible folder organisation — one flat library, per-category folders, or a fully custom mapping for both movies and series.
•   - Category filtering and name cleaning — pick exactly which content to include, and strip provider tags like |UK| or |FR| from titles automatically.
   

Extra for Dispatcharr users (https://github.com/Dispatcharr/Dispatcharr)

• Fast channel switching — the plugin reads stream stats pre-populated by Streamflow and passes codec and resolution info directly to Emby, suppressing the stream probe entirely. Channels open immediately with no black-screen delay.

• Graceful fallback — if Dispatcharr is unreachable, the plugin automatically falls back to direct Xtream URLs so playback keeps working.
   

Setup

Drop the DLL into your plugins folder, restart Emby, enter your Xtream server URL and credentials, pick your channel categories, and you're done. The plugin handles the rest — initial sync, incremental updates, duplicate detection across categories, and cleanup of removed content.

Updates

The plugin checks for new releases automatically and shows a banner when one is available. There's a beta channel in the config if you want updates earlier.

Releases and docs: https://github.com/firestaerter3/emby-xtream

Happy to answer questions — and if something doesn't work with your provider, bug reports are very welcome.

Edited Friday at 01:51 PM by Firestaerter
update

[drahmed86 4]

am rlly enjoying using it but dunno how to use streamflow ? is it necessary for all or just live tv ? TIA

[lorac 118]

• I find that the folder names are not clean (ie. 4K-A+ - before the show name) despite the clean option being enabled.
• If I change the server URL various check boxes become unchecked, if i check them again it gives me an error of 'failed to save configuration'. The dashboard also says 'Xtream: Not configured' despite the fact I was able to sync after I changed the server URL

[kikinjo 290]

great plugin !

[Firestaerter 4]

On 2/27/2026 at 7:58 PM, drahmed86 said:

am rlly enjoying using it but dunno how to use streamflow ? is it necessary for all or just live tv ? TIA

Only for Live TV: will accelerate channel switching, by having 'pre-probed' the video meta data of all channels.

[Firestaerter 4]

19 hours ago, lorac said:

• I find that the folder names are not clean (ie. 4K-A+ - before the show name) despite the clean option being enabled.
• If I change the server URL various check boxes become unchecked, if i check them again it gives me an error of 'failed to save configuration'. The dashboard also says 'Xtream: Not configured' despite the fact I was able to sync after I changed the server URL

Thanks for the report — two separate things going on here.

Folder name prefix not being cleaned (4K-A+)

The clean option is working, but it only strips `┃UK┃` / `|EN|` style pipe-bracket tags automatically. Plain dash-separated quality prefixes like `4K-A+ - Show Name` aren't covered by the automatic patterns yet.

Workaround Go to Plugin Config → Settings → Name Cleaning, make sure cleaning is enabled, and add the prefix to the Remove Terms box (one per line):

```
4K-A+ -
```

That will strip it from folder and file names on the next sync. Better automatic pattern matching for quality prefixes is on the list.

---

Failed to save configuration" after changing the server URL

A few questions to help track this down:

1. What Emby server version are you on and what version of plugin?
2. Can you open the browser console (F12 → Console tab) and share any errors that appear at the moment you hit Save?
3. Does the checkbox issue happen immediately when you type the new URL, or only after you save and the page reloads?

On the "Xtream: Not configured" message — if sync was working after the URL change, the config 'is' saved correctly. That indicator just checks whether the URL and username fields are non-empty, so it may just need a full page reload to update.
 

[Apotropaic 42]

I'm just testing out some of the functionality and so far it's been very positive, a great project so well done!

One query I have is, what if there is a scenario where you don't want to enter the upstream credentials and only want to use dispatcharr? I've entered my dispatcharr account in the initial Connection Settings but I have not enabled the dispatcharr integration.

Does the plug-in know I am using a dispatcharr server so I get those benefits, or am I not using this as designed?

Just for info, if I do enable the dispatcharr integration and I enter the same credentials the connection test fails with "✗ Login failed (HTTP 401). Response: {"detail":"No active account found with the given credentials"}"

[lorac 118]

On 01/03/2026 at 05:36, Firestaerter said:

Thanks for the report — two separate things going on here.

Folder name prefix not being cleaned (4K-A+)

The clean option is working, but it only strips `┃UK┃` / `|EN|` style pipe-bracket tags automatically. Plain dash-separated quality prefixes like `4K-A+ - Show Name` aren't covered by the automatic patterns yet.

Workaround Go to Plugin Config → Settings → Name Cleaning, make sure cleaning is enabled, and add the prefix to the Remove Terms box (one per line):

```
4K-A+ -
```

That will strip it from folder and file names on the next sync. Better automatic pattern matching for quality prefixes is on the list.

---

Failed to save configuration" after changing the server URL

A few questions to help track this down:

1. What Emby server version are you on and what version of plugin?
2. Can you open the browser console (F12 → Console tab) and share any errors that appear at the moment you hit Save?
3. Does the checkbox issue happen immediately when you type the new URL, or only after you save and the page reloads?

On the "Xtream: Not configured" message — if sync was working after the URL change, the config 'is' saved correctly. That indicator just checks whether the URL and username fields are non-empty, so it may just need a full page reload to update.
 

Thanks for the info on cleaning. Seems to have helped a lot but one thing I noticed is for movies as part of a numbered list are hardware to clean up.

ie. Original name EN-TOP - 01. SR (1993) 

I can take out the EN-TOP - but then i'm still left a movie name with numbers in front of them.

Using v1.4.26.0 with emby stable 4.9.3.0

What I've discovered is the information is saved but it is not always reflected right away. If I navigate to the emby dashboard and then back to the plugin page everything looks normal.

I tested on a different server with 1.4.39 and I don't see that issue. 

Edited 18 hours ago by lorac
Further question

[grizlyadams 19]

I currently have IPTVBoss set up to create M3U files on the server and emby set up with an M3u TV Source and and XMLTV guide data source.

It works, but it pretty horrible and clunky.

I was just about to install dispatcharr when I cam across this (on reddit) 

Why would I need this AND dispatcharr rather than just dispatcharr. I get the streamflow will make channel changes quicker.

Does this reduce emby's "chattiness" that can get it blocked from some streams/providers? or is that another reason for installing this alongside dispatcharr?

I haven't installed wither yet, so forgive me if my questions seem a bit novice like.

[Apotropaic 42]

I’m sure everyone will have an opinion on this but I’ll give you mine!

Regardless if you use this plugin or not I would install dispatcharr.

It gives you the ability to group multiple streams into one single channel. So only one channel instance is exposed to emby/users but dispatcharr in the background will pick the stream that’s working and will automatically switch to another. You can also reorder the streams in order of preference too, resolution, bitrate, audio codec etc.

This method also gives you static channel numbers that are easy to move around and insert new channels inbetween. You can also rename the channels however you wish. The whole channel management is amazing.

If you have multiple accounts or sources then these can all combined with ease.

Selecting/De-delecting groups is easier. I’ve used IPTVBoss too.

The chattiness issue…dispatcharr does expose some of the underlying streaming options so there is more control over it, but I can’t say just out of the box it will be better. Dispatcharr can also work as a proxy which you may or may not like the idea of…

So now to why you may want both this and dispatcharr. For me it’s the strm generation for VOD content. It’s the best solution I’ve found so far, everything else is as you say very clunky. But I’ve not tested it throughly yet.

If you only use Live TV and apart from the fast switching that you’ve mentioned there is no compelling reason to use this and dispatcharr.

I’m not using it as yet, I’m still pulling in a M3U from dispatcharr into emby as a M3U tuner.

I’m planning on doing some testing in the next week or so. I just don’t want to break the system I have for live tv!

[monstresticator 2]

I am having an issue with getting sync to not fail with movies and series. Whenever I check /xtream/Shows or /xtream/Movies there is no data in either directory. I have posted a screenshot below of my series result. Also, what does "Danger zone" mean?

[grizlyadams 19]

Thanks for your input Apotropaic.

I've installed dispatcharr now but done nothing to it in terms of config yet.

So, from what you're saying, dispatcharr won't do VOD stuff like series and movies - I thought it did doo that.

There's some concern on the /reddit that this is vibecoded and TBH I'm not sure how I feel about that, it is open source so surely same rules apply as to all open source i.e. those non-coders amongst us trust that the coders amongst us have us covered.

I'll take a look properly tomorrow.

Thanks again

Edited 12 hours ago by grizlyadams

[Apotropaic 42]

11 minutes ago, grizlyadams said:

So, from what you're saying, dispatcharr won't do VOD stuff like series and movies - I thought it did doo that

No worries, as for Dispatcharr and VOD - yes you’re right it is supported in terms of it can be imported and proxied/streamed in the same way as Live TV. The only caveat is it doesn’t support a M3U output of VOD, although it is a requested feature.

There is a dispatcharr plugin recently coded (in a similar way to this plugin) that supports a strm output for VOD and depending on your setup its either ideal for emby or a pain to keep updated/in-sync.

That’s why this plug in is great as it pulls it from the emby side and has some advanced sync capabilities. For me it also provides custom category folders when creating strms. The dispatcharr plugin puts everything in one folder.

[monstresticator 2]

I can't seem to edit my post, but anyway, disregard. I'm a big dummy. I didn't have the correct permissions set on my xtream/Movies and xtream/Shows directories. Seems to be working great now. 

Nice plugin!

[fuske 0]

Nice plugin!

But I cant get the categories to sync. It keeps saying.
Failed to load categories. Save your connection settings first, then try again.

Connection is there and says it connected. Status Active, 0/1 active streams.

Any ideas?