the dream IPTV server would be reliable, High bitrate @1080p. As many private streams as possible rather than re-streams.

As for channels, depends who your market is. UK will want UK channels, US will want US.

Either way, pretty much everyone will want worldwide sports (UK, US and others)

Yup, high quality 1080p at extremely high reliability, the obvious holy grail of iptv. To achieve that I would be using x265 not the ancient and outdated x264 (all current providers could be offering much better bitrates if they were using x265, and without increasing bandwidth requirements at all!!). Being in the uk, i would want all the uk channels (particularly fox, comedy central, amc, sky atlantic, sky F1, sky cinema), plus major ppv events.

I would also want the channels organised in a sensible way (like Ace did, not like Epic), and a good and complete EPG. If it was really good I would consider paying $15 for it, if it was really REALLY good then I might go as high as $20, but that would make it the most expensive out there. Anything above $20 would not be worth it, for me it becomes easier to just get a proper subscription at that point, even at $20 it would need to be virtually identical to a proper tv company in terms of reliability and picture quality and nobody is near that yet (but again, they could be if they used x265!).

A provider with 8k 5D content.

The most important things for me these days are picture quality and reliability.

Personally, I'm not particularly concerned with all the bells and whistles like thousands of channels, EPGs, VOD/catchup etc. I watch live sport on my PC and that's all I need from IPTV. An m3u playlist so I can watch on VLC is nice, but watching through a website or Kodi is also fine.

Most existing providers probably already have all the sports channels that make up 99% of what I watch - Sky, BT, NBC, TSN, Sportsnet, Fox, Eurosport, ESPN, Bein. So a 'core sports package' with all that would be ideal for me. But all the channels need the combination of a high bitrate and high frame rate for a sharp, smooth picture (and preferably x265, 1080p). Generally, it seems to be one or the other - most of the American/Canadian streams are smooth, but there's a 'softness' to the overall picture quality and vice versa for the UK channels.

Whether that's a limitation in how things are broadcast, or in the technology, I'm not sure, but there are times when you get the best of both worlds. Sadly, those channels never seem to last for very long. The Le Sports channels for EPL were brilliant quality and exactly what I'd love to see for everything, but they only lasted a month or two (they returned, but at lower frame rate/quality).

Then of course, there's the stability of the streams. Obviously things will never be perfect and for major outages beyond the providers control, you just have to accept that. It's the little freezes/pauses that sometimes occur that can be more annoying, especially if they happen say at the start of a big football match, when you know it's probably down to a surge in demand. Or if the service is doing things in the background to try to mitigate blocks like you get with EPL matches - I'd rather have a service that says up front 'VPN required', so they didn't have to use their resources trying to deal with things like the blocks. In a perfect world, each channel would have backup streams on a separate server, in case of issues with the main ones.

I'd certainly pay a premium for all that, but it's just a pipe dream of course. Not only because of how specific/niche I am (lots of people are after full packages of channels, VOD and device compatibility). Plus all the work that would have to go in the background for it that we don't see and whether it's technically feasible anyway. Obviously I'm ignorant of how the whole thing works from the providers point of view. But you did ask for your 'dream IPTV'!

TLDR: Small selection of the main sports channels, that are stable, high bitrate and high framerate.

I just want the high quality Sky Sports channels back. Since a couple of months the quality has taken a big hit (especially Sky F1). :(

720p 50fps sky sports and bt sports. That's the dream. I'll pay €20 a month for that, as that as it's reliable.

US/CA/UK for sure International options $10/month 1 connection

1080p 60fps sports 6k+ bitrate full epg aslong as the popular usa channels are there im fine 10-25$ if its stable

As long as Celtic TV for live games is stable I'm a happy chappy.

60 FPS

Good quality streams, perfect EPG, very reliable, USA/Canadian Channels

Lots of south asian channels (Indian/Pakistani) + US/UK channels and others

everything but EPL, there are people who don't care about the EPL and it seems it causes problems with every service.

One that works during ppv any resolution would be a dream

one tat does NRL , f1 and v8 supercars , can a reseller give us a trial if they do all of the above

I’ll echo the above. But I think reliability is a huge thing. Buffering issues have been plaguing me (I know I’m not solo on this) and constant messages from the provider saying “We’re working on it” have become the norm.

I agree that depending on the location, you’ll get varying desires for a channel line up. Ideally, I’d also like an EPG that is reliable as well.

A good $30 a month that is not oversold and controls resellers. I'm fine with reliable 720@50.