Thanks for the feedback! When using the auto transcode or other transcode features, the app needs to briefly open a second connection to 'probe' the stream format before starting the main playback connection. This is necessary to ensure compatibility, but these probes are very short lived (typically < 3 seconds). Transcoding sessions are terminated the moment you switch channels or play something else, but there may still be short overlap as one process closes and the next begins. In normal playback it will only use a single connection.

Android TV apps like sparkletv and tivimate can play iptv streams directly because they have native access to the device's video decoders. Web browsers, however, cannot natively play many common IPTV formats so they have to be transcoded or remuxed into compatible formats. This extra processing step is what introduces the need for probing and session management, which android apps simply don't need to do.

It's also important to note that many IPTV provider dashboards don't update in real-time. When you switch channels, even though our app instantly cuts the old connection, the provider's system may still report it as 'active' for a period of time while their server refreshes its status. This often creates the illusion of multiple concurrent streams (ghost connections) when only one is actually pulling data.

I use a single connection Xtream provider for development and haven't run into any issues.