[mythtv-users] IPTV in .23

[Greg Mitchell]

> And a followup question to my last email: do you also need as many NICs 
> in your backend as IPTV streams you wish to record, or do you either 
> create "virtual" network cards or just use the same network card that 
> connects your backed to your network?

I guess it depends on your provider.  I think you could probably get 
away with one NIC if your provider has multi-tuner IPTV boxes.

> I seemed to recall reading a document where someone had configured 
> MythTV to record IPTV stream and they had to give a NIC the same MAC 
> address as the STBfrom the provider.

That's what I've done.

I'm on Sasktel, which has a howto on the wiki (created by Robert 
Johnston, who has chimed in on this thread) which is likely what you 
remember reading.

I am able to record 2 SD or one HD stream with a single NIC set up with 
the MAC address from one of the HD boxes I got from Sasktel.  I have a 
second backend set up with a second NIC spoofing the second box - as 
Robert said, unfortunately you can't tell Myth what NIC to use for 
tuning/recording, so the only way to expand is to have multiple backends

That said - with two backends, I'm able to record two HD streams, or 1 
HD and 2 SD, or 4 SD streams at once.  Beyond that, my provider won't 
give me another HD box anyway - at least the last time I checked, they 
were limited to two HD boxes per household.

I have on occasion been able to coax it into recording 3 SD streams, or 
1 HD and 1 SD on the same NIC, but it's far too unstable, so it seems 
like there's some configuration on the provider end that's limiting me 
like this.

Greg