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IPTV queries


Vellu

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Hi

Now that local operators are moving from DVB-T into DVB-T2, I was searching for new digi-tv cards and USB-sticks for my PC and I ran into this site:

http://www.digital-devices.eu/shop/en

They have (quite expensive) network tuners, which are very tempting solution for me, e.g.
http://www.digital-devices.eu/shop/en/networktuner/network-tv-tuner/275/dd-octopus-net-v2-a8i-max-satip-networktuner?c=163
and
http://www.digital-devices.eu/shop/en/business-tv/network-tuner/264/octopus-net-mc-a-12/08-multicast-ip-streaming-server

Shortly: the devices offer IPTV on your own home network.

One device offering service for multiple solutions that I have, one of them being DVBViewer on my PC with Windows 10.

Some of the techniques are pretty familiar to me (UDP) and some aren't (RTP,SPTS). And some are basically known to me on theory level, but not in practise in IPTV environment.

Since I'm a total newbie with IPTV and I didn't find much info about this kind of solution, I'll start a discussion here, hoping to get some responses from those who have such config already or know about these things.

Which of those features would I need with DVBViewer? Which of them aren't supported?
Would either of those devices work just fine with DVBViewer?
Would SPTS (http://www.etherguidesystems.com/Glossary/singleprogramtransportstream.aspx) give some benefit? Or would it just increase network traffic?

And if you have any recommendations, suggestions, hints or warnings about DVBViewer and IPTV, I would be happy to get the info.

Thanks,
Vellu

 
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I got a response on DVBLogic forum that the first one (A8i Max) would work with DVBLink with their TV Source, so that would be my preference at the moment (even though the other model still interest me if there is some advantage with it).

 

Anyway with A8i Max that IPTV might not be the correct question now. I think the tuners that A8i Max have should appear somehow as (virtual?) tuner hardware in DVBViewer.

 

Based on the statement on DD pages DVBViewer works well with those DD network tuners. But if anyone has any real experience with those particular tuners, or any network tuners, I'd like to hear their experience on them.

 

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Not sure if this helps, but I'm using DD Max A8 -- not A8i, but I believe they're pretty much the same except for ISDB-T support that the latter has -- with DVBViewer and Recording Service. It works great.

 

You can also pair it with expansion card like DD Octopus Twin CI to enable pay channels.

 

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You don't need special hardware for IPTV in your home network. The DVBViewer Media Server (19,- €) running on a Windows PC will do. It uses DVB TV cards / USB sticks in the same way as DVBViewer does and provides TV/Radio streaming to clients like VLC or devices like Android/iOS/Windows phones and tablets. It includes a RTSP and HTTP server and a web interface for remote access with any browser. You may want to first give it a try before buying expensive hardware.

 

RTSP is implemented in DVBViewer according to the Sat>IP standard (that also covers DVB-T/C). It uses a TCP connection (similar to HTTP) allowing the client to send commands like SETUP and PLAY to the server. In return TV/Radio data is sent as UDP/RTP to the client. Using DVBViewer as Sat>IP RTSP client basically requires setting up virtual RTSP devices in the hardware options that represent DVB hardware tuners on the server side. It's just a way to access remote DVB hardware over a network.

 

If you prefer Digital Devices OctopusNet.as hardware solution: It is well supported in DVBViewer and the DVBViewer Media Server and even shipped with a simplified DVBViewer OEM version. However, I wouldn't use the OctopusNet Multicast Streaming Server. It looks like a professional solution that is oversized for your purpose (unless you are running a hotel or something similar...).

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Thank you very much for your answers.

 

The thing is that I will need some new hardware (DVB-T2) to replace the old (DVB-T) that I currently have (e.g. in my own windows 10 computers). And DD devices seem to be a good alternative for that purpose, although very expensive. On the other side, they would offer the DVB-T2 services for multiple clients and that is a really big plus for me. So IPTV is not the thing that I really must have. It is something that may come along when I get some new HW. Currently DD A8i Max looks like a winner for me.

 

I live in a semidetached house and the my internet connection is shared to the other household as well. I have gigabit wired network on my side of the house and the cabling to the other side just leads to a hotspot (with wired 100M input and 802.11g output) on the other side. How much constant traffic would that generate? I suppose you can direct the traffic to be shared withing a smaller part of the home network (e.g. 192.168.0.1/28 subnet and ensuring that the clients are having the IP address on that range), is that correct assumption?

 

I have 2 Synology NAS with recording clients. Originally I had 1 Hauppage 292e on both, but now I have moved those 292e USB sticks on one of them and the other does not have any tuner in use. I have an Android 6.0 mediabox with Kodi, I suppose it will support DD as well. And a few Android 5.0 and 6.x tablets and phones, which I suppose will support this as well with some application. And of course Windows XP and 10 computers on my side. On top of those my neighbor has Mac. So running a hotel is not too far from being a real scenario ;-) Anyway that's just to explain (and justify) the network tuner being a solution to cover more than one scenario.

 

I currently don't have any pay channels, but who knows. This might push me over the edge..

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2 hours ago, Vellu said:

I have an Android 6.0 mediabox with Kodi, I suppose it will support DD as well. And a few Android 5.0 and 6.x tablets and phones, which I suppose will support this as well with some application. And of course Windows XP and 10 computers on my side. On top of those my neighbor has Mac.

 

Finding good player software that supports Sat>IP compliant RTSP is not that easy. Of course you will find some software for each target OS, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you will like it.

 

The DVBViewer Media Server is more flexible in this respect because it also provides TV/Radio via UPnP and HTTP. You can even play it in the browser, and there are quite a lot of players that can handle HTTP live streams (e.g. VLC, MXPlayer and BSPlayer under Android). Additionally there are Add-Ons for connecting to the Media Server, particularly the DVBViewer Controller for Android and the DVBViewer add-on for Kodi.

 

So setting up a server PC with the DVBViewer Media Server and Digital Devices cards like the Cine C2T2 could be an alternative. Since the DVBViewer Media Server is able to work as RTSP client and pass the received data on it can also be used in combination with DD OctopusNet.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just got the A8i and connected to my network and found out how to take those new tuners into use.

So now I see a couple extra tuners (RSTP network device and RSTP network device 2).

 

For some reason one channel group has poor reception on the network tuner. I tried to disable the channel group from those RSTP devices, but they just reappeared. I also tried to delete those devices. After I deleted them, I clicked Apply once, and nothing happened, all the buttons stayed as they were. The second time I clicked on the Apply, then it went grey and the OK button was activated, and I clicked on it. I closed the DVBViewer and started it again and the devices were there again :o

I also tried to restart my computer, but it didn't affect, those settings couldn't be removed or changed anymore.

 

I haven't yet tried to shut down the network tuner, but that's the next thing to do (after a recording is completed :-P ).

If you have any tricks how to solve this, I'd be very grateful. I can create a fault report and upload symptoms at some point, but if this  is something that can easily be corrected, I'd like to try that first.

 

I will surely consider those Addons at some point. The channels groups are changing here in about 9 days, so I'm not in a hurry. I have to retune all devices after that anyway.

 

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Another thing that I got to think about: Is there a way to change the source tuner of a channel, either manually or create a preference(list) for each channel? You can see the used device, but can you change it? It would be great.

 

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Ok, one issue solved, I don't know yet if it solves all the issues, but let's see.. I had 2 instances of DVBViewer installed. 5.5 on C:\APPS\ and 6.0 in C:\Program Files\. I didn't yet switch the DD-A8 back on.

 

And I found the configuration folder and edited manually those hardware settings at first.

 

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15 hours ago, Vellu said:

Another thing that I got to think about: Is there a way to change the source tuner of a channel, either manually or create a preference(list) for each channel?

 

Yes, by using channel groups. Each channel or category can be assigned to a group A..H (channel editor -> right-click a channel or folder -> set channel group). The default is group A.

 

On the other side you can configure tuners / devices for handling certain channel groups (see Options -> Hardware). By default tuners are configured for handling all groups. If you don't want a certain tuner to handle certain channels, just untick the corresponding group checkboxes. With other words: DVBViewer will never use a tuner with A unticked for group A channels.

 

Please note that some assignments are already handled automatically. You don't need to make DVBViewer understand that it shall use a DVB-S device for satellite channels / a device with "Has CI" checked for encrypted channels / a DVB-T2 device for DVB-T2 channels. The channel groups are designed for channel -> device assignments based on conditions that DVBViewer doesn't know.

 

If you are in trouble with your configuration and need help please create a support.zip, in case of separate client and server PCs one for each.

 

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I have used channel groups to group the channels per frequency. But the thing is that if I have e.g. 3 tuners and 4 channel groups (A, B, C and D), and there are 3-6 channels in each group. And If I tune to channel MTV3, and don't get a picture or I get a poor picture and I see that it's using Nebula TV-Card, is there a way to change the tuner without having to change the channel groups? The logical place for this would be the in the area which shows signal strength meter etc. Left click on the area cycles through the options (remaining time, signal strength, used tuner). Using right click there to immediately switch to another tuner tuned to the same channel (MTV3) would be something I am currently missing. So I would like to keep the channel lists as they are (4 of them currently, based on the transponder frequency) and all tuners serve them all (if they are able) and user ability to switch the tuner of the viewed TV-program quickly (between the available tuners).

 

Yesterday the problem was that whatever I did, did not stay on the settings (I guess because I had 2 instances of DVBViewer, my bad). So I tried to change the channel groups, but every time the changes were immediately lost (or actually never applied). So I was trying to do as you suggested, but failed.

 

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Usually all the channels within the same transponder (frequency) have either good or bad reception on some (or all) tuners, so it's easy to force them off from one tuner. I have 2 PCI/PCIe cards (Nebula and AverTV dual tuner) on my compute. I also have PCTV 292e, (but not on this computer right now) and now the DD A8 on the network. AverTV has slightly better reception in general. And AverTV is able to handle some frequencies that Nebula isn't, and PCTV292e and DD-A8i are able to handle DVB-T2 frequencies as well.

 

Basically that was what I was trying to do (disable a transponder on a certain tuner), but it failed at first because I had 2 instances of DVBViewer installed...

 

But when I'm viewing the TV on DVBViewer main window and tune into e.g MTV3 (where the reception was poor a couple of days ago), it would be great to switch easily to another tuner while staying on the same window, without having to go to menu, submenu, checking and unchecking boxes etc). It would also be good for checking and ensuring that all the tuners are working well. If I have 3 tuners and want to check if all of them are receiving the signal and working well, I have to uncheck all channel groups from 2 tuners and keep them checked on one tuner, go through all the channels on screen and then do that again for another tuner. If there was a way to switch between the (available) tuners directly on the DVBViewer main window, it would be lot easier to check if a particular channel (or any/all of them) has problems via any of the tuners.

 

DVBViewer already shows the used tuner on the bottom row. While such indicator is visible, alternate menu could have an option to switch the tuner. Or long leftclick. Or divide that indicator to 3 parts (arrow left, status, arrow right) and arrows would cycle through the tuners in either direction.. Ok, just giving the ideas what I think would be great. I hope they get in at some point ;-)

 

Now the situation should be easier for me, having enough tuners for all the transponder frequencies that we have.

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I was finally able to set it up again from scratch and now everything is working quite nicely. 

 

Only thing that I am currently bit concerned about is the signal quality meter on the bottom. With the normal PCI/PCIe tuners, the quality of the picture is good when the meter shows above 50%. With the SAT-IP tuners the quality shows less than 10%, even though the picture quality seems to be similar as 50% or more on PCI/PCIe tuner. I checked a couple of recordings and there didn't seem to be any faults in the short stream (I used VideoReDo to check it, no errors). I compared it agains DVBLink signal meter and it showed much better signal quality for the channels (on various transponders).

 

But that's not a big deal as long as the video quality is as good as it is.

 

Anyway, within a week all the channels are redistributed between the transponders here so I have to tune the channels again. It was a good practice run for that.

 

I will try to add the CAM module and tune into the encrypted channels, but that will be another story.

 

Thank you for your help, it could have taken much longer time for me to decide what to do and actually doing the things without your comments.

 

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