Subscriptions

The first one is added on the Connect screen. Every next one in Settings (⌘, or Ctrl ,) > Subscriptions > Add subscription:

• Name is what Mr. Streamer calls it, such as "Holiday house". Leave it empty to go by the server's host.
• Enter the server address, username and password, or choose Use an M3U link.
• Add checks the login with the provider first. Nothing is saved when the provider rejects it.

Its channels join the lists first, then its guide, movies and series. What you're watching plays on meanwhile. The same account can't be added twice: adding it again updates the one you have.

Open a playlist subscription in Settings and choose Map beside Groups. Choose each group's use: Live TV, Movies, Series or Skip. Picks apply immediately. A playlist without mapping stays live TV only.

Groups come from group-title or #EXTGRP, with semicolons for several memberships. An #EXTGRP group applies to following entries until an empty directive or explicit group-title resets it. See the category compatibility matrix for supported conventions and fixture sources.

Explicit mapping accepts up to 100,000 entries, 64 MiB of unpacked text and 10,000 groups. A larger playlist still loads and plays as unmapped Live TV. Expanding its Settings row, opening its mapping or making its first pick explains the mapping limit and saves no choice. Once a playlist is mapped, a refresh over a limit fails and keeps its previous lists.

Movies and series need supported finite files. HLS movie and episode addresses with a path ending in .m3u or .m3u8, or m3u8 in the query, are left out with a reason; HLS remains supported for Live TV.

Once you map a group, new groups wait for your choice. An entry in groups with different choices stays out. Left out shows every omitted entry's name, groups and reason, in pages. Stream addresses are never shown there.

Series entries need one clear episode token, such as S01E02 or 1x02, with a series name before it. Season zero is supported. Ranges, multiple episode numbers and uncertain names stay out with an explanation. Episodes follow the playlist's order, even across seasons. When it lists several files for one episode, the episode menu lets you pick the exact file.

Movie and episode progress belongs to the exact source file, including its entry's attributes and stream headers. Reordering keeps that progress; replacing a file, rotating its source address or changing an attribute such as its logo address creates a new version which starts from the beginning. After a restart, the app needs to read the playlist to recover playable addresses. A failed refresh keeps the previous lists; a successful empty import clears them.

• Live TV lists the channels of every subscription, in the order you added the subscriptions. Categories that are named the same, in the same country, are one category.
• Movies and Series show a film or series that two subscriptions offer once, when both give the same TMDB id for it. Mr. Streamer never joins two titles because their names match.
• Favourites, recently watched channels and Continue watching are one list each. Reorder arranges favourites from different subscriptions among each other.
• Watchlist is one list too. A film or series two subscriptions offer is one entry, saved for both when you press Save; see Watchlist.
• Search finds channels, programmes, movies and series in all of them.

Where two things read the same but come from different subscriptions, each says which one it is from: a channel both list, or two different films with the same name and year. Everything else shows without a name beside it.

A channel is never joined across subscriptions. The same channel from two providers is two rows, each named for its subscription, because each plays on its own connection and may differ in quality.

Channel numbers stay each provider's own. When two channels share a number, typing it goes to the first one in the list.

Mr. Streamer plays one thing at a time, across all subscriptions. Starting a channel, movie or episode from another subscription stops what was playing first, so playing never takes a second connection from a provider.

From 0.0.23, now in Nightly, a recording uses a connection of its own, beside what plays. Mr. Streamer starts one only while the subscription has a connection free: as many as an Xtream account allows, and one for a playlist. It can't see other devices using the same account.

Nothing switches to another subscription by itself. When a channel or a film doesn't play, Mr. Streamer says so and leaves the choice to you.

When several subscriptions offer a film or series, the arrow beside Play lists every version with the subscription it comes from. Automatic plays the one that suits your language. Pick another and that title plays it from then on.

• A series lists the seasons and episodes of the subscription that plays it. Another subscription may have more, or fewer.
• How far you got belongs to the subscription you watched in. The same film from another subscription is another file, so it starts from the beginning and keeps a position of its own.
• Continue watching carries on in the subscription you were watching.

Settings > Subscriptions lists each one with its kind and how it stands: when it ends, or the days left in its last month, and what plays from it. Click a row to see its account, its login and what was loaded from it. Opening a row only shows it. It never changes what the rest of the app shows.

• Edit changes the name, and the password or the playlist link when you type a new one. The server and username can't be changed: another server, username or playlist is another subscription, which you add.
• The refresh buttons beside Channels, Guide and Movies and series fetch that list again, for that subscription alone.
• Guide says where that subscription's channels' programmes come from: how many from its own guide, from each of yours in Settings > Guides, and how many have none. Guides there opens Settings > Guides, and Map gives a channel the guide channel you pick; see Guides from other addresses.
• Retry shows on a subscription whose provider didn't answer, with the time it stopped answering. Its lists stay as they were then, and the other subscriptions carry on. Live TV says the same in one line above the channels.
• Enter password, or Enter link, shows on a subscription whose saved password or link your system no longer gives back. What was loaded from it still shows; it plays again once you've entered it. See troubleshooting.

A subscription's programme guide comes from its provider, or from the guide its playlist names. Settings > Guides adds XMLTV guides of your own, such as a paid guide service's. Every subscription reads them after its own guide, in the order listed.

• Type an address in the field and choose Add, with a name beside it if you like, such as "United Kingdom". Plain XML and gzip both work. It is saved at once and downloads in the background, and its row says how far it got: downloading, reading, then ready, with how many of your channels it supplies, how many programmes it has, how far ahead they run and when it was last updated.
• A guide goes by its name, or by its host without one, in its row, its buttons, a subscription's Guide and Map. The pencil renames it in place: Enter or clicking elsewhere keeps the new name, Escape keeps the old one, and an empty name goes back to the host. Two guides that would read the same, as two from one host without names, or two given one name, each add the first characters of a random code the app gave the guide, such as "epg.example.net 3f9a", which stay with it when it moves. A name can't hold an address: it is kept as you typed it, not encrypted.
• For each channel, the first guide with programmes for it supplies all of them. A subscription's own guide comes first, then yours from the top. The arrows move a guide up or down, and the cross removes it with what it downloaded.
• The address is kept like a password. It often holds a key, so it is encrypted on your computer and never shown again: Settings shows only its host, and the fields start empty once it is added. An address starting with http:// travels unencrypted, key included, and the field says so before anything is sent.
• Nothing falls back. When a guide's server stops answering, or answers with something else, its row says why in red and since when, with Retry, and the programmes it last downloaded stay in use. Guides are downloaded again about every six hours.
• Times follow the offset each programme carries, such as +0200, and count as UTC without one. They show in your computer's time zone. There is no setting to shift them.

A guide that isn't XMLTV, stops before its end, lists no programmes still to come or is larger than Mr. Streamer reads fails the same way, and the programmes it had stay in use.

After updating from a version before 0.0.13, a guide address you gave a subscription there is in Settings > Guides, with the channels you mapped to it. The same address given to several subscriptions is one guide there. It downloads again straight after the update. Until then it uses the newest of what your subscriptions had downloaded, and a channel you mapped to what only an older download listed shows programmes again once that download is in.

Channels without programmes

A channel shows programmes when the guide id your provider gives it is one the guide lists, exactly. Mr. Streamer never matches by name: two channels called the same are often not the same channel. Map, beside Mapped channels, is for the rest:

• The left list has your channels: those without programmes, those you mapped, or all. The field searches them by name or number.
• Pick a channel and the right list has the guides' channels, its own guide's first, each with its name, the name of the guide it is from and its id. Its field starts with the channel's name; change it to search by another name or by id.
• Map gives the channel that guide channel's programmes, at once, in Live TV, on Home and in search. A mapped channel uses its mapping alone, and moves from the channels without programmes to those you mapped. Restore, on the Automatic row, takes it away again.

The arrow keys move through either list. Enter goes from a channel to its guide channels, and maps there.

Mappings stay through restarts, new channel lists and a new order in Settings > Guides. If the guide stops listing a channel you mapped to, or your provider stops listing the channel, the mapping is counted as unresolved and shows no programmes, rather than another channel's. Removing the guide you mapped a channel to counts its mapping as unresolved too, and the channel reads the guides in order again until you map it again or restore it.

Open its row and choose Remove. Mr. Streamer asks first, and says what happens:

• What plays from it stops. What plays from another subscription carries on.
• Its login, its lists and its own guide are deleted from this computer, with the channels you mapped. The other subscriptions keep theirs, and the guides of Settings > Guides stay.
• Its favourites, watchlist, history and progress stay, and come back when you add the same account again. This includes channels in your custom lists. Tick Also delete… to delete them too, along with saved subtitles. Your custom lists themselves stay. A title on the watchlist that another subscription saved as well stays there either way.
• Removing a subscription also removes its programme reminders. Finished downloads stay; unfinished downloads are cancelled.
• From 0.0.23, its recording schedules are removed and what it records stops, keeping what was recorded. Its recordings stay until you delete them.
• Removing your only subscription returns to the Connect screen.

From 0.0.24, Also delete applies to the source's viewing data in every viewing profile. If one profile cannot be erased, removal reports the failure and keeps the subscription available to retry. Data already erased from another profile stays erased. Finished local copies stay on the computer.

Versions before several subscriptions know one: the first you added. Going back to one of them shows that subscription alone and leaves the others on your computer untouched, so they are there again after updating. A version from before 0.0.13 shows each subscription's own guide and not those of Settings > Guides, which stay on your computer for when you update again. If you removed that first one since, the older version asks you to connect. An account you connect there that you had added here shows once after updating, with its favourites, watchlist, history and progress.

Versions 0.0.19 and earlier do not show custom lists or programme reminders. Also delete there leaves custom-list membership rows on disk. When you return to 0.0.20 or later, the app purges those rows before displaying lists, even if you added the account again in the older version. That is cleanup on returning, not immediate erasure by the older app.