[mythtv] "New" Feature: RTSP streaming for myth backend

[Mattias Holmlund]

On 2/21/06, Robert Kulagowski <bob at smalltime.com> wrote:
> > Also on a seemingly unrelated note is there someone out there that can
> > answer an IGMP question?  Seems like in the case of networking
> > equipment everything needs to support IGMP, linux is an easy one but
> > what about the home networking structure.  Will home switches know how
> > to pass these messages or should I start looking into other solutions?
>
> IGMP is great if you've got a full-blown infrastructure, but "poor-man's
> multicast" can just be done as broadcast - you could make the
> destination IP address 255.255.255.255; in a home-network environment
> this may be "good enough".

The difference between 255.255.255.255 (broadcast) and 224.0.0.0
(multicast) is that most Ethernet cards for a PC can do hardware
filtering of a (limited) number of multicast mac-addresses whereas
255.255.255.255 must always be sent to the CPU. So even if your
switches do not support IGMP Snooping, you are still better off using
IGMP.

/Mattias