With a good connection, they should be fairly similar. Some people seem to think HLS is better for slower or finicky connections. In my case, however, TS is better for me as results in faster zapping and a more consistent experience.
Do a lot of providers really even take advantage of HLS? If both TS and and HLS only offer up one choice, you lose any benefits on HLS.
Done some testing and I found that removing "&output=xxxx" at the end of the m3u URL helps with both buffering and the delay with HLS.
I personally prefer HLS streams to TS streams but it can depend on the provider and your setup as well. Try both and see which works best for you.
+1 for HLS
I think TS is better. I've tested it by having both a TS stream and a HLS stream of the same channel open. HLS always buffers more. TS has always given me the best quality with the least buffering
Edit: also do your own testing cause what works for our setups might not work for your setup
i read that if you switch your m3u playlist to end with m3u8 it becomes HLS. Is this true?
With my provider I find the HLS stream is delayed by about 10-15 seconds compared with TS which makes a difference when watching live sport.
Also with TS streams I get full time-shift and recording facilities on my Enigma2 box which I don't get with HLS streams. Apparently someone told me it's because channels via Antenna or Cable use TS so the box thinks it's a normal broadcast instead of IPTV.
YOu need to use m3u line bro and use ace stream player
Most providers that I’ve tried works with time-shifting. The only one that I can’t seem to get working is Smoothstreams.
In my limited testing (ts) works better
TS is a straight stream, you get what you get.
HLS is a wrapper that connects to multiple streams of varying quality, so it can stream better without buffering.
So hypothetically, what you would see is -
TS is faster because it just starts streaming the 2Mb stream. HLS has to kind of negotiate which stream is best for your connection. It takes a fraction of a second longer to start up, but can be better quality than TS (due to higher bit rate if possible) and more reliable than TS (due to lower bit rate if needed).
Of course, if your hypothetical provider above offers TS at 2Mb and HLS at 1, 1.5, and 2Mb, then TS is exactly the same as the best HLS without the small delay, but also without the slow connection fallback.
Every provider has a different TS/HLS setup, so these numbers are just examples!