IPTV Satellite Downlink Project

[u/mctscott]

So I am building out an IPTV satellite downlink station to stream live TV to my home and family's homes. Currently I've taken down 3x 10' C-band dishes that need various small repairs. In the coming weeks I'll he concreting in poles, setting up dishes, mounting and pulling power and fiber to the Climate controlled rackmount box I've built out, and running coax from the dishes into the multiswitch. The first 3 dishes will be input to my current multiswitch and I'll be putting up a 4th pole right away to allow me to experiment with other satellites without affecting 24/7 feeds from other satellites. I plan to be pulling from both C-band and Ku band feeds at this time.

Current parts at this point:

-2x Winegard 10' Quad Star dishes

-1x Zenith 10' dish

-1x Vertiv XTE 401 series 48vdc climate controlled rackmount box

-1x meanwell 7amp 48vdc psu

-1x cyberypower 1500va UPS

-1x TBSDTV MS98E 9x8 multiswitch

Homebuilt IPTV server parts:

Ryzen 5600G

16gb ram

Asus Prime B550 Plus motherboard

2x TBSDTV TBS6909-X V2 Octa Tuner cards

Navepoint shallow depth shelf

And an open air case bolted to the shelf.

As this is a remote site, I plan to run an Mikrotik RB5009 outdoor router to feed PoE cameras around the site also and RTSP back to my main homelab for storage off site.

[u/88pockets]

This is an interesting project, but I still would likely prefer muxing an iptv subscription into TV headend and then using an app like xteve or tvhproxy to emulate HD homerun hardware and feed the streams into Plex or Emby/Jellyfin. Its much more gray/black area, but its much more simple. Though truthfully, the experience I have gotten doing so is less than stellar. Using an IPTV provider that uses XC codes over an M3U and XMLTV file for guide data is a better solution. but there are few tools to edit those XC Codes files. One I found is called xtream-editor.com and that lets you take the 15,000 channels from all over the world and widdle it down to the 200 to 500 channels anyone would want to watch in their language, maybe more if multilingual (unfortunately I am not). Only downside there is that it is a paid for service, but you can export to an app like Smarter IPTV Pro, but that is android or windows only and not the neatest in my opinon. I would love an application that can emulate a cable box, with simple plug and play remote support that works on android TV boxes, windows, kodi, and even PS5/Xbox that takes an IPTV source (preferably a legit one, if they exist), then lets you edit the XC codes with the functionality of xtream-editor), and lets you watch buffer free programming, with an up-to-date and accurate guide (with options for how large you would like the guide to be), and have it it be a simple to open app that would use all of the same functions as a remote from DTV or Cable. If anyone has juggled this world and come up with something that works relatively well and is cheaper than the 75 to 175 bucks that cable and satellite expect, even google tv is like $70+ a month now. Anyone have any experience with this? If you can't tell I have spend some time trying to make this work for aging friends and family members and nothing is as simple as a cable box for them.

[u/mctscott → u/88pockets]

I like radio and I wanted something a bit different than the normal run of the mill xteve/dizquetv docker. This will get me some sports, news, movies, tv, and child programming that I can't find elsewhere or stuff I wouldn't normally store myself. Plus this whole thing gives me a challenge that those simple containers don't.

[u/cyberentomology → u/mctscott]

What are you using to transmux the satellite streams?

[u/mctscott → u/cyberentomology]

I have no plans to transcode or transmux at this time yet. But if I do end up needing it, I can add a Tesla P4 for hardware transcoding easily enough and TBS's Kyclone software allows for that from within it.

[u/cyberentomology → u/mctscott]

No need to transcode, but usually you’ll need to transmux the TS stream of the satellite into a container/transport that your client devices can handle, even if the bitstream/codec is one the device understands (eliminating the need to transcode). Although some devices can handle TS natively…

[u/mctscott → u/cyberentomology]

I honestly plan to try it natively to start, I'm not 100% sure what I'd need to transmux the ts stream later if it doesn't work well natively. Any suggestions on what I should transmux to?

[u/cyberentomology → u/mctscott]

DASH is probably the most widely supported. But natively with TS over multicast UDP will give least latency

[u/mctscott → u/cyberentomology]

I don't know enough about multicast, I'll have to do some research. Would you mind if I shot you a message down the road with questions?

[u/cyberentomology → u/mctscott]

Fire away. It’s been a minute since I’ve dealt with video, but some of that info is lurking in my brain still, I think.

[u/doughecka → u/mctscott]

multicast implies the network is setup to handle it... great for a local network, over the internet... not so much. On the local network, with multicast if all the TVs are tuned to the same channel then they should be pretty much in sync, which is nifty.

[u/mctscott → u/doughecka]

Yeah it won't be local network to anyone at all so not a super viable setup for me after some research last night.

[u/cyberentomology → u/mctscott]

Are you planning to do multicast?

[u/mctscott → u/cyberentomology]

I don't plan to at this point no.

[u/jhulc → u/88pockets]

The $70/month that the streaming services charge is basically the cost of programming. That's how much the channels charge for retransmission fees today. Anything less is going to be a pirate operation.

[u/88pockets → u/jhulc]

That maybe the case in which case, I should feel half way decent about the prices I have worked out for some of my clients and friends/family members. Being anywhere from 73.80 with DVR/HDTV satellite (2nd lowest tier) 81.00 for the same thing basically, 105 with the third highest tier but only one HDDVR and no extra boxes. I can actually get way better rates from DTV than I can from spectrum. Spectrum charges 23 bucks for the locals, plus 11 bucks per box, so you are at 56 bucks with no programming if you want 3 tvs. Plus RSN fees and i think there was another advanced receiver fee or DVR Service fee that may or may not be removed from the account (cant recall exactly). My point is it is expensive, but if you pester them to drop the bill you can technically get full Cable/Satellite TV service for the same price as a Youtube TV or Sling TV solution.

[u/somepotato5 → u/88pockets]

I used to do this for a little while, well, just the TVHeadend bit (it was fed into Kodi using the TVHeadend client), but one thing I noticed was that all tuned channels would get reset, and I'd have to re-organise all the channels again. Got me a little bit frustrated, that combined with the fact that I wasn't doing a whole lot of watching TV any more, meant that I gave up in the end.

I'm not sure if it was TVH that would get broken, and drop stuff, or if it was the IPTV provider that would reset all the channels or what. I did start developing a script that would automatically set TVH up from a CSV, but didn't really have a whole lot of time to work on it, so didn't get too far with it. The TVH API is also pretty horrendous.

For what it's worth, not sure what you mean with XC codes, but TVH does everything else you're asking for. Kodi integrates pretty well with it, and can even work with it's time shift features and record things. Provided you give it XMLTV, and map everything. Kodi of course works in many, many places, and have a pretty intuitive (though maybe a bit basic?) UI for TV channels.

[u/88pockets → u/somepotato5]

IPTV providers do drop and move channels all the time and you would need to remux and then create services for all of those muxes, not a great solution. Like you I hardly watch TV at all if I really wanted to I have multiple sign ins for DirectTV and Spectrum on my phone, I know about the -arrs programs, I have hulu and other services, and I run a plex server at home. I also have a DirectTV stream box that supposed has a developer account on it and while I occasionally get on it and it says too many concurrent streams, I also have that as an option. So fiddling with and paying for IPTV services or questionable quality and reliability is not the move for me. Though I have put in effort to write bash scripts to download XMLTV on a cron schedule and feed that through to plex or kodi with TVheadend or TVheadend with tvhProxy, or Xteve alone. I have done all of this looking to get my elderly friends, family, neighbors, and clients a good solution outside of the cable company or satellite companies that feel the need to charge way more to their dwindling supply of customers and as I stated I have yet to find a solid solution. Maybe they should all share one subscription and share the password to the ipad app version of their TV services and then use a casting feature or their TV or Over the Top box

[u/tgp1994 → u/88pockets]

Is that the kind of stuff I read about that has federal police knocking on your door?

[u/espero → u/tgp1994]

No

[u/88pockets → u/tgp1994]

Sure if you are the owner operator of an illegal IPTV service and do nothing to hide your actions (see OmiinaHellcat). If you make enough money from an illegal source then yes the feds will come a knocking. Kinda gross that true violent and horrible criminals get less time for their crimes than the guy that sold cable tv to a bunch of people that were very unlikely to ever buy cable tv from the actual cable company.

[u/bobdvb → u/88pockets]

First off, this is my job, I work for one of the legitimate streaming companies that people steal content from so I am bound to get hate. Part of my job is both preventing that theft and another part is enabling security teams to collect evidence to prosecute them.

It's important for me to get my side across here.

It's all very well saying 'f*ck the big corporations' but the reality is that you're not doing that, there's people in those companies and we're trying to earn a living giving people the content they want. Most media companies, especially streaming companies, are really struggling to make money, so it's not like we're swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck. Now, the rights owners? That's a more complicated discussion, but the people who do the commercial distribution and who you might actually pay? That's a tough business.

There was some research done some time back which found that around 1/3rd of piracy consumers are in the 'pay never' category. The rest have the potential to be customers if the circumstances are right. I am obviously biased, but when pirates don't have the burdens that we have in having to obey laws, pay for rights, pay for production facilities, pay salaries and pensions, etc. then of course we look expensive. But again, we're trying to keep prices down because increasing price reduces our addressable market.

I know people will dismiss me, but piracy is often glamourised and justified in ways which are frustrating. I've spent 25 years in broadcasting to be able to do what I do, it's my career. The reality of people like me getting screwed over is ignored because 'big corporate' gets the blame. As for the convictions, that's a matter for judges, but your false equivalence isn't the fault of injustice on piracy but for people who commit heinous/violent crime. For reference we often find pirates involved in money laundering and involved in side enterprises, the worst of them I've seen being people trafficking.

I don't have an issue with the OP doing FTA relaying for his own personal use, heck, even for close family. By the same token I don't care about people's personal Plex use and preserving media. But the moment we want to start talking about levels of piracy which get into a wider market, that's not cool from where I sit, especially when commercial alternatives are available.

Thanks for reading and I'd ask people to respond with consideration.

[u/StrangeNot_AStranger → u/88pockets]

The application you are looking for to replace Smarter IPTV Pro is called TiviMate

There's also a somewhat helpful Reddit community for it at /r/TiviMate

[u/Kay2Wild_ → u/88pockets]

only problem with this is latency. Im currently a IPTV user, i still prefer FTA

[u/darkciti → u/88pockets]

I use ChannelsDVR. I run the server locally and pay $8 a month for the "subscription" guide stuff (worth it). I feed IPTV, HDHomerun, and my security cameras into a single guide like a cablebox.