Affiliate disclosure · IPTVDB may earn commission on some links — it never affects rankings. Q2 2026 test cycle · 18 services tracked

How we test IPTV services

Every provider in our directory runs on dedicated testing hardware for 30 continuous days across four regions. Here is exactly what we measure and how.

What we measure

Six metric buckets, tracked every 60 seconds across a 30-day cycle.

The six measurement buckets

  • Uptime — percentage of 60-second polls where the primary M3U or Xtream endpoint responds.
  • Buffering — count and duration of playback interruptions during continuous stream tests.
  • Channel retention — percentage of channels claimed in the M3U that actually play.
  • App quality — install + setup time on each of 8 device platforms, by hand.
  • Support response time — median hours to first human reply to a test ticket.
  • Price stability — weekly snapshot of the public pricing page; we flag changes >2%.

The test rigs

Each of the 4 regions runs on dedicated hardware: two Fire TV Stick 4K Max units, one Apple TV 4K, one Android TV box (Nvidia Shield), and one Samsung Tizen 2022 QN85A. Streams play continuously except for a 2am UTC nightly reboot. Cloudflare Workers poll every rig's player telemetry via a Zabbix endpoint every 60 seconds.

The four regions

  • North America: Virginia (CenturyLink fibre, 1 Gbps), California (Sonic fibre, 500 Mbps).
  • Europe: Frankfurt (1&1 fibre, 1 Gbps).
  • Asia-Pacific: Singapore (Singtel fibre, 1 Gbps).

What we do NOT test

  • We do not use VPNs during measurement. VPN-routed results are not representative of normal subscriber experience.
  • We do not test streams behind geoblocks — if a provider explicitly gates channels to a region, we only test from inside that region.
  • We do not publish individual test logs for our own infrastructure security, but aggregate CSVs of polling data are available on request.
Test duration
30 days continuous per service per cycle
Polling interval
60 seconds per rig per channel
Rigs per region
5 (Fire TV × 2, Apple TV, Android TV, Samsung)
Regions
4 (2× NA, 1× EU, 1× APAC)
Test cycle
Monthly; results published 3 days after cycle end
Raw data access
On request (methodology@iptvdb.info)
Measurement cycle currently pending
Our first full measurement cycle runs from 1 May 2026 to 31 May 2026. Until then, all provider scores in our directory are marked "provisional" and are based on public data, community sentiment, and vendor-declared capabilities.