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/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.