Better formatting of channel lists, favourites etc

I have been heavily into the satellite (Enigma2/Openvix) setup for several years now but decided on a new challenge – Kodi. I have removed Android from a S905 device and am happily booting up Libreelec (Kodi Krypton 17.1 at the moment).

It has a lot going for it in regards to front end configurability and is probably better as a media centre than Enigma 2. But for me Kodis major let down is channel lists (IPTV source) and how they are displayed. In the Enigma2 world there are much better channel list that are structured and easily to navigate rather than being presented with a single list of 100’s of channels.

I have noticed that an IPTV list from an external source more than likely presents itself as an .M3U playlist file. Then if you decide to save a channel as a favourite it stores the link in an .XML file. But all this is rather flat i.e. who actually wants a list of 100’s of channels without subcategories such as UK, Domestic, FTA, Documentaries, etc. I have tried the add-on ‘Super Favourites’ which makes it possible to create sub folders and pop your favourites in there but this is so laborious as you have to cut and paste individual channels. Note – I am only endorsing the use of FTA channels here.

So my question is: ‘is there a way of easily taking an .M3U source file and converting it to Kodi’s prefered .XML format and create substructures on the way to try an create a channel structure’ so it is something similar to an Enigma2 channel list?

Huh