What is EPG (Electronic Program Guide)?
EPG is the TV-guide overlay in your IPTV player. Here is what it is, where it comes from, and why yours might be empty.
EPG (Electronic Program Guide) is the "TV guide" view in your IPTV player — the channel-by-channel grid showing what's on now, what's next, and what aired yesterday. It is a separate data feed from the video stream.
The XMLTV format
Almost every EPG feed uses the XMLTV format — an XML file listing channels (with id attributes) and programmes (with start time, end time, and title). IPTV players download this XML every 12–24 hours and cross-reference it against your M3U channels to render the grid.
Where EPG comes from
- Your IPTV provider (easiest — Xtream Codes auto-loads, M3U users paste a separate URL).
- epgshare01.online — a free community-maintained EPG covering UK, US, CA, AU. 7-day.
- epg.pw — free, pan-European, especially strong on DACH and Nordic.
- iptv-org/epg on GitHub — 200+ countries, requires manual channel-matching.
Why your EPG is empty
If channels play fine but EPG is blank, the tvg-id in your M3U does not match the channel id in your XMLTV. This is the single most common EPG problem.