Fortunately, we no longer need a conventional television connected to an aerial socket to be able to watch Digital Terrestrial Television. In recent years, watching these DTT channels through the Internet is an equally valid option if we are away from home or in an area where there is no such television outlet.
Among the many options that exist to watch DTT on the Internet, today we are going to combine this possibility with that of doing it with VLC Player, one of the most popular multimedia players in the world.
Options to watch DTT in VLC
VLC supports the reproduction of IPTV lists (m3u or m3u8), so this is a great step forward to be able to broadcast Digital Terrestrial Television in this way. Although there are countless lists of channels on the Internet, for trust and legality, we are going to recommend going to the TDTChannels GitHub page, a legal and free service that compiles the updated M3U links to all open DTT channels that have it available. In addition, the EPG programming is available and automatically integrated into the generated files.
The 1 in TDT via VLC
Once on the GitHub page, we go to the table where “TV” appears, and copy the address of the file in m3u8 format. If we want the radio stations as well, we download the TV + Radio to complete our possibilities and have more to choose from in DTT alternatives on the Internet. Channel URLs change often, so make sure you’re always downloading the most up-to-date channel list.
It would only be necessary to open VLC, select Media > Open Network Location (or use the shortcut Ctrl + N). In the box that prompts us to copy the URL, we paste the chosen link within those available in TDTChannels and the list of channels will be loaded directly, automatically opening the first one in the list. To access the rest of the channels, just go to the VLC toolbar and click on View > Playlist. From here we can switch between the available channels in the list.
Another option is to download the M3U or M3U8 file, in which case it will be necessary to double-click on the file from the downloaded list later or we can also right-click with the mouse and select “Open with > VLC Media Player” or from the player itself clicking on the menu button “Media > Open file”.
Watch channels in VLC for Android
VideoLAN Player also has a version for mobile devices with the vast majority of functions that the PC program has. This also includes uploading files and channel lists using IPTV.
In this case it would be advisable to download the M3u8 file from the TDTChannels repository. Once done, we open the VLC app for Android and, from the side menu, we choose the “Folders” option. We locate the IPTV list that we just downloaded (normally it is in the “Download” or “Downloads” folder) and open it.
As with the desktop version, VLC will then load the first channel in the playlist. In this case, to see and access the rest of the channels we just have to click on the playlist icon, which appears in the upper right corner of the screen.