[mythtv] IPTV project - 'officially' starting

[Robert Johnston]

On 11/10/05, Jun Yu <junyuu at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am interested in the idea or GPL iptv solution but not quite sure about
> what you are referring to here. Are you talking about to use backend as
> server and stream the video to the frontend which is pretty much what mythtv
> does today? Simply enable UDP multicast isn't going anyway unless you have
> router supports multicast to MANY users with MANY video sources. You don't
> need multicast to support 2 or 3, even 4 or 5 frontends which is a lot
> comparing to what most of us have at home. Also, with mutilcast, the
> frontend would have to buffer the video so it can moving back which make it
> a recorder also.
>  I am in the process of building my home entertainment system with one
> backend with 4 tunners and 4 frontends for each TV.
>  My idea of  IPTV infrastructure would be like this: a server/backend shoot
> out video programming on different channels (AKA multicast IPs), when client
> chose a channel, it register corrordinate multicast IP with the route which
> will then distributing the stream down. But that is hardly needed by any
> family, I would think.
>  Paul, It is not my intention to shot anyone rather than sharing my 2 cents.

I think you've missed what IPTV is here, Jun.

IPTV is a system for service providers to provide television services
over high-speed internet connections (Cable Modem or ADSL2, for
example).

An example would be the UK "HomeChoice" system, where "HomeChoice"
provide a DSL line and a STB that connects to it. They then have a
smart client on the STB that requests programming from "HomeChoice"'s
content servers, which is unicast/multicasted to the STB using TCP/IP
over the DSL link. This also enables the STB to make use of the
content server's large capacity, by requesting a specific program from
a specific time to be streamed, rather than just "Live TV".

At least, I hope that's what version of IPTV this thread is about,
otherwise I have inserted my foot very firmly into my mouth on this
one. :)
--
Robert "Anaerin" Johnston