v0.22 is one of the biggest IPTVnator releases so far. The embedded MPV player expands from macOS to Windows and Linux, detail pages for movies and series got a full redesign, and the app can now enrich your VOD & series content with TMDB metadata — posters, cast, trailers and more. On top of that: a built-in desktop updater, global search across all your sources, and a reworked live EPG timeline.
✨ Highlights
- Embedded MPV player now available on Windows and Linux (experimental)
- TMDB metadata enrichment (opt-in): plots, cast, trailers, similar titles, actor pages
- Redesigned VOD & series detail pages with a browse ↔ watch layout and season tabs
- Desktop auto-updater — the app now updates itself from GitHub releases
- Global search across all sources, including M3U playlists
- Live EPG panel reworked into a timeline with an optional vertical list view
- Catch-up/archive playback improvements for Xtream
- Custom title bar with window controls on Windows and Linux
- Extensive Electron security hardening
🎬 Embedded MPV Player — now on Windows & Linux (Experimental)
The embedded MPV player introduced for macOS in v0.21 is now available on all three platforms:
- Windows: libmpv rendering directly inside the app window (bundled, no extra install)
- Linux: playback via the system mpv player embedded into the app window (X11/XWayland; requires mpv on PATH)
- Series navigation (next/previous episode) inside the embedded player
- Switch to embedded MPV directly from the command palette
- Stability hardening across the board: EOF detection, safer polling, better error visibility, and the display no longer goes to sleep during playback
The macOS embedded player also received a round of fixes and polish based on v0.21 feedback.
🎞️ TMDB Metadata Enrichment (opt-in)
Movie and series detail pages for Xtream and Stalker portals can now be enriched with TMDB data:
- Plot, genres, ratings, director and cast with photos, artwork and YouTube trailers
- "Similar" rail: TMDB recommendations matched against your catalog — across all your portals
- Trending on the dashboard: a TMDB-powered trending rail with enriched hero artwork
- Real episode names, descriptions and stills for each season
- Actor pages: click any cast member to see their bio and filmography, linked back to your catalog or portal search
- Localized to your app language (falls back to the original language when a translation is missing), cached locally
Enrichment is off by default and requires a personal TMDB API key (free registration at themoviedb.org). Enter your key and enable the feature under Settings → Metadata (TMDB) — titles are sent to TMDB for matching.
📺 Redesigned Movie & Series Detail Pages
Detail pages now have two states:
- Browse: hero section with poster, metadata and actions, episodes below
- Watch: the hero collapses, the inline player takes the full content width, and details move below the episodes
- Season tabs with smart auto-selection (jumps to the season you're watching or resuming)
- Grid/list toggle for episodes, remembered across sessions
- Esc or "Close player" returns to browse without losing your place
🔄 Desktop Auto-Updater
- IPTVnator now checks GitHub releases and can update itself — no more manual downloads
- Release notes for the current version are shown in the settings
- Fixed a crash in the packaged updater (#1103)
🔎 Global Search
- New workspace-wide search across all your sources — Xtream, Stalker and M3U playlists
- Fixed live search (Ctrl+F) opening the wrong channel or category
🗓️ EPG & Catch-up
- Live EPG panel reworked into a horizontal timeline under the player
- New optional vertical list view for the live EPG panel
- EPG sources can now be scoped per playlist
- Compressed XMLTV responses are now decoded correctly
- Catch-up (Xtream): active archive playback state shown in the EPG, timeshift URL variants resolved automatically, stream output format auto-selected, active archive program highlighted
- Catch-up "Watch" button now works from the unified live tab, with clear errors when a stream can't be resolved
🏠 Dashboard
- Configurable dashboard rails — choose what you want to see
- New "Recently added" live channels rail
- New "Trending" rail powered by TMDB (when metadata enrichment is enabled)
- Faster startup and rail loading
📡 Xtream & Stalker
- Sort and filter the VOD/series catalog by IMDb rating
- New "all channels" grid for Live TV
- Improved compatibility with more portal variants
- Stalker: full playlist loading for authenticated routes
- PWA: Xtream connection details are now saved properly
🖥️ UI & Desktop
- Custom title bar with window controls on Windows and Linux
- Live channels sidebar no longer shares its width with the navigation panel
- Sources page visual polish
🔐 Security
- Extensive Electron hardening: stricter renderer isolation and navigation rules
- Scoped trust controls for EPG sources
- Blocked private-network redirects for portal probes
🧰 Under the Hood
- Large test-coverage push (unit + E2E) and CI now enforces lint and file-size limits on every PR
- Major internal refactorings: typed Electron bridge contract, split EPG/player services, dead code cleanup
- Dependency updates: Angular 21.2.17, axios 1.16.0
- Remote control: volume now applies to built-in M3U players
Full Changelog: https://github.com/4gray/iptvnator/compare/v0.21.0...v0.22.0
