How to set up KODI to watch free (and legal) TV on Android

The mobile is used for a lot of things, including watching videos and multimedia content. In today's tutorial we will see how we can configure the KODI player for watch television online, free and live from Android. Take good note because this post has no waste.

Is it legal to watch TV on Android?

Most free-to-air channels broadcast their signal over the Internet. What we are going to do with KODI is use the official online broadcast of these channels to view them centrally on the mobile. We talk about the television networks that broadcast Free DTT and that we can see freely on our television, so they are totally legal.

It should be clear that we are not adding any payment channel, private, or that requires a subscription to view it. The apps that offer this content are obviously not legal - apart from being a perfect gateway to infect ourselves with malware - and we will not find them in this repository for KODI.

Also comment that if we are only going to watch a couple of channels, it may be convenient for us to download the official app of these channels (RTVE a la carte, Atresmedia Player and the like), since they are the ones that usually work best as a general rule.

How to watch free and live TV from your mobile with KODI

To be able to watch TV from our Android, either tablet or mobile phone, we will use a list of public IP channels. This is a list that is updated frequently in order to always remain active.

1. Download the KODI app

KODI is a local and online media player. It is open source and open source, managed by the XBMC Foundation. A completely legal application that we can download without any problem from the Google Play Store.

Once we have installed the application, we will proceed to download the list of free DTT channels that are currently operating. No need to download any add-on additional for KODI.

2. Download the IPTV list of broadcasts through the Internet

To be able to watch TV for free from our Android, we will have to download the list of corresponding channels and then associate them with KODI. It is a file in M3U8 format that we can download from THIS Github repository.

Here we will find several playlists (TV, Radio, TV + Radio and EPG Programming), each one of them compacted in different formats: browser, json, m3u8, m3u, enigma2, w3u. As we mentioned, the format that interests us is M3U8, so if we are accessing from a computer, we will right click with the mouse on the list that interests us, in this case, the M3U8 link corresponding to the TV channels and we will select «Save as«.

If we are accessing from a mobile or a tablet, to complete the download, just keep your finger pressed on the link that interests us and select "Download link”. The m3u8 file will appear in the folder “downloads”.

3. Load the list of TV channels in KODI

The last step is to upload the M3U8 file to KODI. As we mentioned, this is the file that contains the configuration data to be able to watch TV for free and live from the player with 0 complications. Come on, we have nothing left!

• We open KODI.
• In the side menu click on "Add-ons"And select"My Add-ons”.

• Click on "PVR Clients -> PVR IPTV Simple Client"And we enter"Configure”.

• We are going to "General -> M3U Play List Path”And select the M3U8 file that we downloaded from Github.

• We press "OK".
• We return to the main menu of PVR IPTV Simple Client. Click on "Enable”.

With this we will have already loaded all the data, so we will only have to go to the main KODI menu, access the TV section and select any of the channels to be able to watch them comfortably from our Android phone or tablet.

Some data to keep in mind to watch DTT online from Android without complications and legally

It is important to emphasize that public IP relay channels are changing. If we drop the signal on any channel, it is advisable to go back to Github and download the latest M3U8 (they tend to update the repository frequently). In that aspect there is usually not much problem.

Another interesting fact that they comment on the Github repository is that some channels can only be viewed when they are visited from Spain, because they broadcast geolocated content. Nor do they broadcast at certain times when they do not have the rights to broadcast the content outside of Spain or over the Internet.

This tutorial is dedicated to Spanish TV channels. If we want to watch free-to-air television from other countries (Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, USA) the process to follow will be the same. We will only have to look for a repository on the Internet that collects the list of public IP channels M3U8 with the official broadcasts of our country.

Do you have a Chromecast? Now they can also watch TV from any screen

Now that we have all the TV channels configured in our KODI, the idea of ​​sending all this content to the Chromecast that we have connected to the screen of that old television that we have at home, or to the screen of the monitor in our room.

As many of you already know, KODI is not yet officially compatible with Chromecast. However, there is a little trick to connect the app with the Chromecast device and cast the playback.

The mechanics consists of installing the application LocalCast to bridge the gap between KODI and Chromecast. It's a pretty straightforward process, but it also requires us to download a little script. If you are interested you can see all the details of the configuration in THIS POST.

Finally, remember that this type of streaming content consumes many megabytes, so do not forget to connect to a good WiFi, or use an app to save data.