They buy subs via satellite tv cards and then they restream via servers.
Every now and then I will play a channel with a watermark I know from certain reddit sports streamers, so there are even cases where they are just snagging someone else's stream. But of course the bulk of them are how the others have described. They pay for them and just restream to subscribers.
I'm sure some channels are coming from services like ps vue or through some local cable providers web players.
I've noticed before when I started a local news channel stream through my cable provider that they pass a stream link into some client side player they use. It was pretty easy to inspect the XHR requests in chrome's network tab and find the m3u8 link they passed into my browser http://hls.iptv.optimum.net/news12/nipadlive/index_new.m3u8?callsign=N12NJ_CENTRAL ..
I'd imagine someone could automate this to get thousands of channels. To go just a tiny bit further if say i collected a hundred of them I could host them all in a folder on a linux server running nginx.. I could use a proxypass setup to make it look like im hosting each stream. Then I could create an m3u playlist out of that stream, No capture/encoding cards necessary.
Theres enough EPG providers out there to justify where that xml channel programming data could be routed from. If you want more advice for the learning experience the keywords you need to type into google are "sniff m3u8". I feel like I've probably already said too much
Yup they use capture cards that can support up to 4 channels I think, not 100% on the hardware but they just convert all those streams into links and make a GUI that you can use as a TV guide.
Im also intrigued by the back end workings of IPTV but I always assumed it was don't ask type of thing. Like I wouldn't ask my dealer how he gets it how is it transported how it crosses the border who gets paid.
Well you only need knowledge and littlebit of money for cable/satellite subs. Example you can buy an CI+ card for cable and you can fetch all streams one by one via PC and re-stream those easily, you just need correct programs for it, enough bandwidth and knowledge. Also it´s good to get offshore streaming server where you stream your channels and it handles rest of it. It aint so hard after all if you know what you´re doing. VOD service is easy.
I get how each individual channel is captured, but how are they all gathered by a sub provider then served out to us subscribers? There must be a massive server for each provider. The sub I have has such a huge array of channels, how on earth is it done?
They all come from my basement closet.. its magical in there. Haha
Nice try officer