IPTV Deck vs TiviMate: why IPTV Deck is the better player
TiviMate made its name on Android TV. IPTV Deck does what TiviMate does there, and then keeps going: onto every screen in the house, onto one account, and into the services you already use. Here is where the difference shows.
Every screen, not just Android
TiviMate runs on Android: Android TV, Google TV, Fire TV, phones and tablets. IPTV Deck runs on all of those and on the rest of the house: iPhone and iPad, Apple TV, Mac, Windows and Linux. One account covers them all, so the bedroom Apple TV and the laptop on the desk are part of the same setup as the living-room box.
A new TV in a minute
On a new television, or after reinstalling the app, IPTV Deck shows a code. Scan it with your phone and you are signed in, with your playlists, favourites and history already there. Nothing to type with the remote. TiviMate Premium can back its setup up and restore it on another box, but that is a copy taken at one moment: a favourite added later on one box does not reach the other.
Set it up from a computer
Sign in at iptv-deck.com in a browser and manage playlists, categories, favourites, profiles and the settings of each device with a keyboard and a mouse. The change reaches the television within seconds. In TiviMate every playlist, group and setting is entered on the box, with the remote.
Your phone and the television, together
Find a film on the phone, press Watch on TV, and it starts on the television from where you stopped, decoded by the television itself. If the box is asleep, the same tap wakes it. Lost the remote? The phone becomes one, with a D-pad, play, pause, seek and channel up and down. IPTV Deck also casts to a Chromecast with its own controls instead of mirroring the screen.
Streams that refuse one player play in another
IPTV Deck carries three ways of decoding under one player: ExoPlayer, an FFmpeg software decoder and VLC. When a stream fails on the first, the next takes over by itself, so HEVC and AC-3 channels that other apps call unsupported still play.
Everything stays in sync
Signing in on a second device carries over your playlists, favourites in the order you arranged them, your own groups, the watchlist, watch history and the second you stopped at in a film or an episode. Pause on the television, finish on the phone. Provider passwords travel encrypted end to end, and you choose which kinds of data leave the device at all.
A profile for everyone
Every person in the house gets a profile with their own favourites, history, watchlist and look, and a profile can be locked with a PIN or set up as a kids profile with locked categories. TiviMate has a parental PIN, but no profiles: everyone shares one set of favourites and one history.
Trakt, TMDB and OpenSubtitles built in
Connect Trakt and what you watch is checked off there automatically, on every device, with IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes ratings on the title page. TMDB fills in plots, cast, trailers and actor pages, so even a sparse playlist gets a full page for every film. A film without subtitles? IPTV Deck finds them on OpenSubtitles from inside the player. Jellyfin, Emby and Plex libraries sit next to your playlist. None of these are in TiviMate's settings, Premium included.
Films and series that feel like a streaming app
Every title shows its quality, size, audio and subtitles before you press play. Series pick up at the next episode, watched marks follow a title across playlists, and a whole season downloads in one go for when the internet is slow.
Multiview, and more on the desktop
Both players show up to nine channels at once. IPTV Deck adds a picture-in-picture layout, and on Windows and the Mac you drag a channel out of the grid into its own window and put it on a second screen.
Very large playlists
IPTV Deck keeps the catalogue in a local database and never loads it into memory as a whole, so searching, filtering and opening a category stay responsive on a playlist past a hundred thousand channels, on cheap hardware as much as on a fast box. When you add a playlist you pick the categories you want, and the rest is never downloaded, which keeps small TV sticks fast. The guide takes several XMLTV sources at once, matches channels automatically and lets you fix the times of a single channel.
Price
IPTV Deck is free for four days with everything unlocked, then 2.99 USD a month, 12.99 a year, or 32.99 once plus VAT for lifetime access. Premium belongs to your account and covers up to four devices of any kind, so the phone, the television, the Apple TV and the computer can all be on it. Family Devices adds four more for 12.99 once. TiviMate Premium also covers several devices, but only Android ones.
A player, not a provider
IPTV Deck is a player and nothing else. It carries no channels, films or series, and it provides, hosts and sells none. You bring your own playlist, an M3U link or an Xtream Codes account from a provider you already have the right to use.
See for yourself
The four days are the whole app, and nothing is charged when they end. Add your biggest playlist, open the guide, scan the code on a second screen, and compare.