Neo 4K by Xtream, M3U or MAG portal

One subscription, three ways of handing it over

A Neo 4K subscription is not a file, a box or an app. It is an account on a streaming server, and everything you receive after paying is simply a way of pointing some piece of software at that account. There are three such ways, you pick one at checkout, and the pick determines what actually lands in your inbox.

This is the field on the order form that gets least attention and generates a disproportionate share of the first-day support messages, almost always in the same shape: somebody chose one format, owns hardware that wants another, and concluded the subscription was broken. It is not a difficult decision, but it is one worth making deliberately.

Xtream credentials: the default, and usually the right one

Pick Xtream and what arrives is a trio of values: the streaming host at http://71x.info, plus the username and password issued against your order. Software that speaks this protocol interrogates the server instead of simply pulling a static list down, and that single difference is why we steer people here.

Because the player is talking to an API, it can fetch the live channels, the film and series libraries and the programme guide as separate, structured things, and it can come back later and ask for an updated version of any of them. Categories arrive already grouped. Series arrive with their episodes attached. When the line-up changes at our end, the player picks that up on its own.

Unless you own a portal box, this is the format to choose. The Neo4K app expects it, and so does every mainstream third-party player.

M3U: a flat list, and the limits that come with it

An M3U delivery is a single URL. Open it and you get a text playlist: channel names, group labels, stream addresses, one after another. Give that URL to a player and it can play every channel on it.

What it cannot do is anything structural. A playlist is a list and nothing more, so there is no API behind it to ask for a series broken into episodes, no on-demand library as a browsable thing, and a programme guide only where the player is separately configured to fetch one and match it up itself. Everything the player shows you, it has inferred from the text of the list.

Choose M3U when you already know your software takes nothing else - some older smart-TV applications and a few pieces of niche playback software are in this category. If your player offers both, there is no reason to prefer the playlist.

MAG portals: the box identifies itself

MAG and Formuler style boxes work on a different principle, and it catches people out because nothing about it resembles the other two.

You are not given a username and a password to type in. The box is given a portal address - the server host with /c on the end - and it then announces itself to the server using its own MAC address, which is printed on the underside of the unit and which you supplied when you ordered. The MAC is the credential. There is nothing else for the server to recognise.

Two consequences follow, and both matter. First, a MAG order genuinely cannot be provisioned until we have the right MAC, so a mistyped one means no working line until it is corrected. Second, the subscription is bound to that specific box. Replace the box and the binding has to be moved, which is a support request rather than something you can do yourself. This is the one delivery method where a wrong choice at checkout is properly inconvenient to undo.

Matching the method to the hardware you own

The short version, by device:

• Fire TV Stick, Android TV box, Android phone or tablet. Xtream, into the Neo4K app or a third-party player of your choosing. This covers the large majority of customers.
• Windows PC or laptop. Xtream, into the Neo4K app from the Microsoft Store, or into any desktop player that accepts the format.
• Samsung or LG smart television. Xtream where the app you are using supports it, M3U where it does not. This is the category where checking before you buy genuinely pays, because the built-in app stores vary a great deal by model year.
• MAG, Formuler or another portal box. MAG, with the box MAC address to hand at checkout.
• iPhone or iPad. Xtream, into a player from the App Store.

If your household has several of these, choose the method that suits the main television. The credentials work on every device you own simultaneously up to the connection count your plan carries, so the other screens are not constrained by the choice - only by that number.

What you actually receive, and where to keep it

Once payment clears, the line is created on the Neo panel automatically and the credentials are sent to the email address on the order. They are also stored against the order inside your account on this site, which is by a comfortable margin the better of the two places to look for them in eight months' time.

Make a note of them somewhere sensible now rather than relying on finding the email later. Nothing about a Neo 4K line is tied to a device, an app or a phone number - the credentials simply are the subscription, and whoever holds them holds it. That is what makes moving to a new television trivial, and it is also why they should not be passed around.

If it does not play

A full channel list that then refuses to play anything is an account authenticating perfectly well while the route to the stream fails, and what that almost always comes down to is the server host your player is holding. Change that first; it is the fix in most cases, and [changing the server host](/guides/change-host) walks through it.

When nothing loads at all, including the list, the credentials are not being accepted. Check for a transposed character, confirm you are using the format the line was issued in, and if it still refuses, send us the order number and the pack. Somebody can open the line on the panel and see what it is doing, which is a great deal faster than guessing from your end. The rest of the common symptoms are collected in the [help centre](/help).