How to watch live TV and satellite TV on Apple TV – AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)
Some people may have their Apple TV set up in a room where the TV in question isn’t attached to an aerial or satellite dish, in which case they may be looking for a way to watch and maybe record live TV.
It is possible to watch live TV on the Apple TV, although in our experience the quality isn’t as good.
There are a few apps you can use.
On the newer Apple TV models you can download an app called TVPlayer from the App Store. This app offers a TV schedule that makes it easy to select the channel and programme you wish to watch. It also offers an OnDemand service – but note: this is not UK channels, and it is a premium service that you will have to pay extra for.
However, it’s no Freeview swap-in. The channel line-up includes BBC 1, 2 and 4, as well as Channels 4 and 5 but there’s hardly any of the extra channels offered – no ITV 2 or ITV 3, for example. Notably, you don’t even get the same range of channels as you do by streaming live TV for free at the TV Player website or on the TV Player iPhone/iPad app, where the selection more closely mirrors Freeview. We’re guessing this is because of licensing issues, something that comes with the postscript that this situation is likely to change.
Some top-name premium channels are available via the TV Viewer app, such as History, Discovery and Cartoon Network, although to access them you’ll need to pay £4.99 a month. This will also unlock the Catch-up feature, although this is limited to a handful of the aforementioned premium channels and doesn’t feature the likes of BBC or ITV programmes.
Alas, even if you pay-up, you’ll find all the channels are streamed in standard definition (SD). In other words, they look slightly fuzzy on HD tellies that are the norm in most living rooms nowadays (although some tellies cope better with the lack of definition than others). This is true of the live streams as well as catch-up. Incidentally, it’s streaming-only within the app, and there’s no option to download content, which can help avoid buffering if you’ve a slow net connection.
How to watch live TV with the TVPlayer app
To watch live TV using the TVPlayer app on the Apple TV follow these steps:
- Download and open the TVPlayer app on your Apple TV.
- Along the top of the interface you will see the following options: Live TV, Catchup, Channels, Guide, Account. Scroll over to Live TV.
- Scroll through the list of UK channels to pick the one you want to watch.
- If you want to consult the guide first, scroll across to Guide and select that.
- Find the programme you wish to watch (you can’t select something in the future or past).
As we noted, we found the streaming quality to be poor.
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https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/apple/how-watch-live-tv-satellite-tv-on-apple-tv-3694472/
AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)
