Architecture

EasyPlayTV ships as three packages around a shared runtime:

1. Video addon — plugin.video.easyplaytv, entry point default.py. Invoked by Kodi on every listitem click and every directory navigation. Short-lived, stateless, fast: its job is to take a routed URL like ?action=resolve_vod&provider=my5&... and turn it into a Kodi ListItem with the right setup_dash_item() props set. Playback and sign-in only — no service code, no database access.
2. Service addon — service.easyplaytv, a long-lived Kodi xbmc.service (server role). Vendors the platform-agnostic easyplaytv_service runtime and drives it via lib/kodi_service.py: generates the PVR files, configures pvr.iptvsimple, and serves the PVR files over HTTP for client boxes.
3. Standalone service — easyplaytv-service. The same runtime, run outside Kodi as a systemd/Docker process configured by config.yaml. Writes directly to the Kodi video database while Kodi is running.

The Service addon and the standalone share the same easyplaytv_service runtime — the standalone is canonical, and the Service addon vendors a byte-copy at build time. Inside Kodi, the plugin and the runtime run in the same Kodi Python interpreter (separate LanguageInvoker threads); the video addon's resources/lib/ holds "things the plugin needs" (fast path, UI listing, DASH setup), while the runtime holds "things the service needs" (slow path, network fetches, TMDb lookups, DB inserts).

Request flow

1. User clicks an episode in the Kodi library

Kodi starts a fresh Python interpreter for the plugin, invokes default.py with argv like ?action=resolve_vod&provider=my5&episode_id=a-family-christmas&... and the script's if __name__ == '__main__' block dispatches on action:

args = dict(urllib.parse.parse_qsl(sys.argv[2][1:]))
action = args.get('action')
...
elif action == 'resolve_vod':
    vod_kwargs = {k: args[k] for k in args if k not in ("action", "provider", "episode_id")}
    _resolve_vod(args.get('provider'), args.get('episode_id'), **vod_kwargs)

_resolve_vod() populates a ListItem with display labels (skin-friendly "1x01." prefix comes from setInfo season/episode) and calls the per-provider resolver (e.g. my5.resolve_vod()). The resolver returns after calling setup_dash_item(), which sets the inputstream.adaptive properties on the listitem for MPEG-DASH + Widevine.

Kodi then takes that listitem, hands the manifest URL to inputstream.adaptive, opens the Widevine session with the license URL we set, and starts playback.

2. User opens Movies → Genre → Family (Kodi's own library view)

The addon does not expose its own browse UI for Movies and Series — Kodi's own library is the only browse entry point. All the catalog metadata (genre, year, plot, cast, posters) was written into the DB by library_sync at sync time, so Kodi's library windows show it natively.

The addon's plugin:// browse UI only contains a single tile: Live TV. Opening the addon from Kodi's Add-ons menu calls default.py with no params → list_main() → one directory item linking to ?mode=live_tv → list_live(). The live-TV channels then resolve through the per-provider resolver modules (bbc.py, sky.py, itvx.py, c4.py, my5.py, stv.py, blaze.py).

3. Service runs a sequential sync batch

The runtime's scheduler.py runs a batch pass on its interval: providers sync one-after-another (e.g. C4 when its turn comes), each calling library_sync.sync_provider("c4") → sync_series_direct(provider_filter="c4"). After all providers the pass refreshes PVR (channels + EPG), then repeats, capped by the sync interval. Each provider sync fetches every series listing, calls TMDb to enrich the metadata, then issues raw SQL INSERT INTO tvshow / episode / files / seasons / uniqueid to populate the Kodi DB. A successful sync concludes with prefix_existing_tvshows() and a targeted UpdateLibrary(video, ...) so Kodi's window refreshes.

Module dependency graph

   plugin.video.easyplaytv (video addon)      service.easyplaytv / easyplaytv-service
                 default.py                              lib/kodi_service.py (or main.py)
                     │                                            │
          ┌───────┬──┴──┴───────┐                       easyplaytv_service.runtime
          │       │             │                     ┌───────────┬───────────┬────────────┐
     livestream resolve_vod  login actions            │           │           │            │
          │       │             │                     │           ▼           ▼            │
          │       │             │                pvr_manager      scheduler   http_server
          │       │             │                     │           │
          │       │             │                     ▼           ▼
└───┬───┴──────┬──────┴──►  resources.lib.__init__   vod_sync.library_sync
               │          │             (setup_dash_item, load_provider_map, get_ua)
               ▼          ▼                                            │
     per-provider live modules    resolve-only VOD helpers            ▼
     bbc.py / itvx.py / c4.py /   (video addon plays them at    vod_sync/providers/
     stv.py / blaze.py / sky.py /   resolve time; the full      bbc_vod / itvx_vod / c4_vod /
     pluto.py / greatplayer.py       catalogue scrapers live    my5_vod / stv_vod / blaze_vod /
                                      in the service runtime)   uktv_vod / greatplayer

State files in addon_data/

The service runtime keeps its working state in the video addon's profile (addon_data/plugin.video.easyplaytv/), and PVR output in the Service addon's profile (addon_data/service.easyplaytv/pvr/). Shared files:

Concurrency notes (sharp edges)

Per-provider network endpoints (one-line summary)

Full comparison lives on the Provider matrix page.