Catch-up TV and timeshift on Apple TV, explained

Live TV moves on whether you're watching or not — and the game, the news bulletin or the season finale you meant to catch is gone the second it ends. Catch-up TV fixes that. OneTV Connect brings IPTV catch-up on Apple TV right into the guide you already use: scroll back, tap a programme that already aired, and it plays. No separate app, no manual URL building. Here's exactly how it works and what your source needs.

What catch-up and timeshift are

"Catch-up TV" and "timeshift" describe the same idea from two angles. Your IPTV provider keeps a rolling recording of each channel — often the last few days — on their servers. Catch-up is the viewer-facing feature: replaying a specific past programme. Timeshift is the mechanism: asking the server for the stream as it looked at a given start time and duration. In OneTV Connect the replay lives exactly where the live programme would be, inside the EPG. There's no "Catchup" tab to hunt for — you simply travel back through the same guide and press play. That's the whole point: replay IPTV from the EPG, in context, with no source switching.

What your source needs

Catch-up isn't something the app invents — it depends on metadata your provider ships. OneTV Connect supports the two standards that cover almost every provider, natively:

• M3U catchup-source templates. If your playlist is an M3U file, catch-up rides on the standard catch-up attributes: catchup="default" | "vod" | "flussonic" | "shift", a catchup-source URL with placeholders like ${start}, ${duration}, ${timestamp} and ${utc}, plus a catchup-days value. Whatever syntax your provider uses, OneTV parses it and computes the replay URL from the programme's start time.
• Xtream Codes timeshift. Xtream providers expose /streaming/timeshift.php with your username, password, stream ID and a start time. When you tap a past programme, OneTV builds that URL automatically — correct authentication, correct stream, correct time format — so IPTV timeshift works out of the box.

One thing both approaches share: they need EPG data. The replay URL is computed from a programme's start time, so the app has to know what aired and when. That means an XMLTV guide, Xtream auto-EPG, or a portal EPG feed. Our companion piece on the best EPG sources for IPTV covers how to get accurate guide data.

How to watch a past programme

Once your source declares catch-up, replaying something you missed takes a few taps:

1. Open the EPG guide. On a live channel, bring up the EPG from the player overlay or the channel list.
2. Scroll back in time. Move left through the guide to yesterday, or two or three days ago, until you land on the programme you missed.
3. Select the past programme. Highlight any programme still inside the replay window — the catch-up affordance appears on it. Programmes outside the window simply don't offer it.
4. Press play. OneTV Connect builds the timeshift or catchup-source URL for you and starts the replay immediately, in the same player you use for live.

Because it all happens inside the guide, there's no context to lose. You're not leaving the channel — you're just rewinding it.

How many days back you get

The replay depth is set by your provider, not the app. You typically get up to 7 days of replay depending on your source. M3U playlists usually declare a catchup-days attribute — commonly 3 or 7 days. Xtream providers vary: some keep 24 hours, others a full week. OneTV Connect reads that metadata and only shows the catch-up button for programmes still inside the window, so you never tap into a dead link. If a programme aired before your window, the guide shows it without a replay option — a clear signal rather than a silent failure.

Reminders and iCloud sync

Catch-up handles what already aired; reminders handle what hasn't. For a programme still in the future, set a reminder from the guide and OneTV Connect schedules a local notification. The reminder syncs across your iPhone, iPad and Apple TV via iCloud, so setting it on one device covers all of them. When it fires, tapping the notification deep-links straight into the channel — no searching, no scrolling. Between reminders for upcoming shows and catch-up for past ones, the guide covers the whole timeline in both directions.

Tips

A few habits get the most out of catch-up:

• Feed the app a real EPG. Catch-up is only as good as your guide data — if a programme isn't in the EPG, there's no start time to replay from. Point OneTV Connect at a solid XMLTV source.
• Check your provider's window. Ask what catchup-days your subscription includes; a 7-day window is far more forgiving than 24 hours.
• Use reminders as a safety net. If your replay window is short, a reminder on an upcoming programme means you don't have to rely on catch-up at all.

That's catch-up TV on Apple TV, end to end. Grab the app from the App Store, dig into the details on the catch-up TV page, and if anything misbehaves the support page has the full checklist. It also runs beautifully on Apple TV.