LG / entertainment / IMPLAYER IPTV PLAYER
REVIEW
iMPlayer is the playlist-loader power users reach for first.
A long-running webOS/Tizen IPTV brand built around per-user playlists, an EPG that actually parses XMLTV correctly, and a settings menu that respects people who know what they want.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 10, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
iMPlayer has been on smart TVs long enough to know what its audience wants. The app does not pretend to be a streaming service, does not bundle a channel list, does not push subscriptions of its own. It is a player — viewers arrive with a paid IPTV playlist URL in hand, paste it in, and the app does the rest. On LG webOS, that arrangement is increasingly rare; most of the discovery section is taken up by free-ad-supported services and storefronts. iMPlayer is the tool for the audience that already pays elsewhere.
What sets it apart from the half-dozen near-identical playlist players in the LG Content Store is depth. The EPG parser handles XMLTV files that other apps choke on. Multiple playlists can coexist, each with their own guide source, their own favourites, their own user-agent. Catch-up support reads the metadata correctly when the provider exposes it. None of this is marketed loudly, and the UI does little to surface it — but for the power user who maintains two providers and a third backup, this is the player that stays installed when the others get deleted.
The cost of that depth is a settings menu that takes a weekend to learn and a UI that prioritises information density over readability. Newcomers should expect a learning curve; veterans will appreciate that the curve actually pays off.
iMPlayer treats the viewer as an adult — paste a playlist URL, get a guide that works, configure the parts that matter.
FEATURES
iMPlayer is a bring-your-own-playlist IPTV player on LG webOS. The app ships no channels of its own — the viewer pastes an M3U or M3U8 URL (or uploads a file), points it at an XMLTV EPG source, and the app builds the channel grid, the now-and-next strip, and the category browser from that data.
Playlist management is the strongest part of the product. Multiple playlists can sit side by side, named and switched without re-entering credentials, and the player remembers per-playlist EPG bindings so a sports-heavy list and a movies-heavy list don't share the same guide. Channel groups parse out of group-title tags cleanly, and the favourites list is its own playlist that survives provider changes.
The EPG renders as a horizontal grid with adjustable time-spread, with a now-playing strip on the channel-list screen for quick browsing. Catch-up and timeshift are supported where the upstream provider exposes them — the app reads the standard catchup-source and catchup-days attributes from the playlist and surfaces a calendar selector on supported channels.
Settings cover the things power users actually care about: aspect ratio per channel, audio-track selection, subtitle language defaults, parental PIN, user-agent strings for awkward providers, and a buffer-size slider for unstable streams. The Magic Remote pointer works in the channel grid; standard directional navigation works everywhere.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The EPG handling is what separates iMPlayer from the generic playlist players. XMLTV files with unusual timezone offsets, multi-language program titles, or sparse metadata get parsed without complaining — competing apps either truncate the data or fail silently. The now-and-next strip stays in sync with the actual stream rather than drifting an hour off after midnight.
Multi-playlist support is the second genuine strength. People who pay for two providers (one for live sports, one for movies) can keep both loaded, switch between them with two clicks, and not lose favourites when a provider rotates URLs. The per-playlist EPG binding means the guide always matches the channel set, which is the bug that breaks most cheaper players.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The UI is dense. Settings menus run several screens deep and the labels assume the viewer already knows what an HTTP user-agent or a buffer size is — newcomers will need a guide. The default theme is dark-on-dark with small type, and the contrast doesn't hold up at sofa distance on smaller LG panels.
Playback recovery after a network blip is slower than the better-tuned competitors. The buffer fills, the stream resumes, but the EPG strip sometimes stays frozen for thirty seconds before re-syncing.
CONCLUSION
Install this if you maintain more than one IPTV subscription, or if your provider's EPG has tripped up other players. The depth of the settings menu and the multi-playlist architecture pay for themselves quickly. Casual single-playlist viewers will find a simpler, larger-button alternative more comfortable; iMPlayer is built for people who want to tune the player as carefully as they tune the provider.