Accessible IPTV Client

A vibe-coded, keyboard-first IPTV player for Windows and Linux, built to work well with screen readers and reliably load large playlists and EPGs.

Have a question, hit a bug, or want early word on new releases? Join the SerrebiProjects Telegram group — the community hub for Accessible IPTV Client and my other projects, and the fastest place to get help.

Screenshots

The main window: playlist groups on the left, the channel list on the right, and the now/next guide entry plus the stream URL for the selected channel underneath.

Typing in the filter box narrows the channel list as you type; the guide panel follows the selection.

What's on Now (in the EPG menu) lists everything airing across every channel, with its own filter box, and can play a programme's channel or schedule a recording.

The built-in player (libVLC) with keyboard-reachable controls, or hand the stream to an external player instead.

Sources are managed in the Playlist Manager (Ctrl+M), which takes M3U files, URLs, Xtream Codes logins, and Stalker Portal details.

Features

• Screen reader friendly (NVDA, JAWS, Narrator, Orca).
• M3U/M3U+ playlists, Xtream Codes, and Stalker Portal sources.
• Built-in player (libVLC via python-vlc) or an external player (VLC, MPC-HC, MPV, etc.).
• Channel groups, fast channel search, and EPG search.
• XMLTV EPG support (.xml and .xml.gz), including large multi-million-row guides.
• Catch-up/timeshift playback for channels that support it.
• Account status under File > Account Info — expiry date, days remaining, trial flag and connection limits for Xtream Codes and Stalker Portal accounts, including accounts detected automatically from a playlist or stream URL.
• Casting support, plus optional system tray minimize.
• Multilingual interface (14 languages) with automatic OS-language detection and a manual selector under Options > Language.
• Built-in updater on Windows that verifies SHA-256 and Authenticode before applying an update.

Download and install

Grab the latest build from the Releases page.

See the changelog for release-by-release changes.

Windows installer (recommended)

1. Download AccessibleIPTVClient-Setup-vX.Y.Z.exe.
2. Run it and approve the elevation prompt. It installs to Program Files, adds a Start Menu entry, and updates itself in place.

Windows portable

1. Download AccessibleIPTVClient-vX.Y.Z.zip (or IPTVClient.zip).
2. Extract it anywhere and run IPTVClient.exe — no installation required.

Debian and Ubuntu (.deb)

1. Download accessible-iptv-client_X.Y.Z-1_all.deb.
2. Install it with apt so the dependencies come along: sudo apt install ./accessible-iptv-client_X.Y.Z-1_all.deb
3. Start it from your desktop menu, or run accessible-iptv-client.

The package is architecture-independent and runs the app with the system Python, so apt supplies wxPython, python-vlc, the VLC plugins, and ffmpeg. It is built and install-tested on Debian 13 (trixie); other apt-based distributions work as long as they ship python3-wxgtk4.0 and python3-vlc.

Casting is optional there, because Debian's python3-pychromecast is older than the app needs and pyatv is not packaged at all. Everything else works without them; to add casting:

pip3 install --user "pychromecast>=14" "async-upnp-client>=0.38" "pyatv>=0.14"

There is no built-in updater on Linux — install the next .deb over the current one. Where your data lands on Linux is existing app behaviour that the package does not change: iptvclient.conf and scheduled_recordings.json go in your home directory, while the EPG database (epg.db), the playlist cache, and the EPG debug log go in your temp directory — so an imported guide is cleared whenever /tmp is, typically at reboot. Point TMPDIR somewhere persistent before launching if you want the guide to survive.

Other Linux

No package yet — run it from source (below).

On Windows, installed builds keep your settings, EPG database, schedules, and cache in %APPDATA%\AccessibleIPTVClient. Portable builds keep the settings file (iptvclient.conf) next to IPTVClient.exe and fall back to the same %APPDATA% folder for everything else. Uninstalling leaves your data untouched.

Run from source (Windows or Linux)

1. Install Python 3.11+.
2. Install dependencies: pip install -r requirements.txt
3. If you want the built-in player, install VLC 3.0+ (python-vlc loads libVLC from your VLC install).
4. Launch it: python main.py

Keyboard shortcuts

Main window

• Ctrl+M — Playlist Manager
• Ctrl+E — EPG Manager
• Ctrl+I — Import EPG to database
• Ctrl+Shift+A — Account Info
• Ctrl+Q — Exit
• Enter — Play selected channel
• Context Menu / Apps key — Channel options (including Catch-up if available)

Built-in player

• Space — Play/Pause
• Up / Down — Adjust volume (2% steps)
• Ctrl+Up / Ctrl+Down — Adjust volume (5% steps)
• F11 — Toggle fullscreen
• Escape — Exit fullscreen
• Tab — Navigate between controls

EPG notes

• During EPG import, a detailed log is written to iptvclient_epg_debug.log — in %APPDATA%\AccessibleIPTVClient on Windows, or your system temp directory elsewhere.
• .xml.gz guides are supported and go through a safe download/verify workflow.

Built-in player buffering

The internal player sizes its network buffer dynamically. You can tune it in iptvclient.conf:

• internal_player_buffer_seconds (default ~2s)
• internal_player_max_buffer_seconds (default ~18s)
• internal_player_variant_max_mbps (HLS quality cap in Mbps, 0 = no cap)

Lower values start faster; higher values are more tolerant of jitter.

Languages and translations

The interface is translatable with GNU gettext. By default the app follows your OS language and falls back to English; override this under Options > Language. The choice is saved to iptvclient.conf (language) and applies fully after a restart.

Bundled languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese (Brazilian), French, German, Russian, Turkish, Italian, Polish, Hindi, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, and Hungarian. Most were produced with AI assistance and have not yet been reviewed by native speakers, so wording may be imperfect.

Found a translation mistake, or want a language added? Please open an issue or contact the maintainer with your fixes and they will be added. New languages are welcome too — human-translated, AI-translated (just ask and they can be generated), or submitted by anyone. Every release keeps all catalogues in sync automatically, so corrections and additions ship in the next build.

Translations live in locale/<lang>/LC_MESSAGES/iptvclient.po. The tooling is pure Python — no GNU gettext, Babel, or polib required:

python tools/i18n_tools.py extract   # refresh locale/iptvclient.pot from the source
python tools/i18n_tools.py update    # merge new strings into every .po (keeps translations)
python tools/i18n_tools.py compile   # compile every .po -> .mo

To contribute a new language:

1. Run python tools/i18n_tools.py update (or copy locale/iptvclient.pot) to create locale/<code>/LC_MESSAGES/iptvclient.po, then translate the msgstr lines.
2. Run python tools/i18n_tools.py compile.
3. Add (code, "Native name") to _LANGUAGE_LABELS in i18n.py so it appears in the menu.
4. Open a pull request. Keep every {placeholder} exactly as it appears in the English source.

Hungarian translation and screen-reader testing contributed by the community (see issue #2).

Building

See BUILD.md for the full release pipeline — PyInstaller packaging, Authenticode signing, and the Program Files installer.

build.bat build       # build the app
build.bat dry-run     # preview the next version bump and release notes
build.bat release     # bump version, build, sign, zip, tag, push, and create a GitHub Release

Release prerequisites: gh CLI authenticated (gh auth login), and a code signing certificate installed with signtool.exe available (or set SIGNTOOL_PATH).

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. If Accessible IPTV Client has been useful to you, open a PR with a fix or feature and I'll review it.

Community and support

Report bugs and request features in Issues. For questions, feedback, and release news, join the SerrebiProjects Telegram group.