IPTV through Macbook Pro (Magnet)

smcelhinney

Hi all,

Been searching and googling for days on this. I dont know if Im being overly naive, but Im wondering, is there anyway that I can pick up the stream from my Magnet IPTV on my MacBook Pro? Do I need extra hardware for this?

Something that essentially emulates the set-top box sitting beside my TV.

Any thoughts?

stephen

SouperComputer

its a good question. In 98.88% sure there is encryption involved that would put a spanner in the works though.

The simplest method would be to get a traditional TV card and connect it via SVideo or Composite.

preilly79

i have magnet too and i've been thinking about this myself. i spoke to the magnet helpdesk and while they couldn't answer all my questions, i was able to garner information to form two scenarios ...

1. anything on the LAN side of your network should be capable of recieving the stream, however i dont know of any way to change channels or enter the menus.

2. the MAC address of the Amino set top box specifies the device that the magnet network will stream IPTV to. this is probably the more likely scenario because they don't use cards in the set top boxes and so there must be some way that they control who receives what. they identify devices by their MAC address and stream content to this address only.

best thing is to give them a call, but as you probably already know, first line tech support will probably be of no use to you. second line tech support will know what you're up to and probably wont give you the info as this would technically count as multi-room viewing and may want to charge you.

smcelhinney

thanks for the reply guys.. very helpful.

preilly79 wrote:

1. anything on the LAN side of your network should be capable of recieving the stream, however i dont know of any way to change channels or enter the menus.

Yeah I figured as much. Im presuming (and I dont profess to know a lot about IPTV or IGMP) that the stb accesses various URLs for different streams? You ever get that dodgy windows-esque modal dialog that says "No <something> at this URL".. That would lead me to believe that.

Presumably then, if you got the list of URL's from different streams? You could set up your own little software-driven remote control..

preilly79 wrote:

2. the MAC address of the Amino set top box specifies the device that the magnet network will stream IPTV to. this is probably the more likely scenario because they don't use cards in the set top boxes and so there must be some way that they control who receives what. they identify devices by their MAC address and stream content to this address only.

damn.. scuppered my plans for IPTV domination. Hmm, wonder if the STB has routing capabilities then? (searches frantically for firmware update..)

All in all, I reckon Im paying enough for the service without having to pay extra for a superfluous STB in every room? Is it pure bandwidth then?

It never ceases to amaze me why operators like Magnet dont have 2 or more levels of user support, ie. me ma who just wants to make sure that Dev is not up to his old tricks in Corrie, and me, who would like to simulcast United scoring their 8th goal against Everton in every televsion in the house to humiliate my brother.

Cmon for fe€k'$ sake!!

preilly79

smcelhinney wrote:

Yeah I figured as much. Im presuming (and I dont profess to know a lot about IPTV or IGMP) that the stb accesses various URLs for different streams? You ever get that dodgy windows-esque modal dialog that says "No <something> at this URL".. That would lead me to believe that.

Presumably then, if you got the list of URL's from different streams? You could set up your own little software-driven remote control..

what you could do is set up a linux based router in bridging mode and place it between the router and set top box. make sure dhcp forwarding is enabled. you could then capture the streams and forward them, or multicast them, using something like VLC. a VLC client on the Mac would allow you to capture these streams. again, you run into the problem of how to control the streams. in its most basic setup you would probably only be able to view what the set top box was currently receiving.

as for the different urls for different streams ... i have no idea. i would assume they're streamed from the same URL. the channel you request is the one that is streamed to you from that URL. could be wrong though, i'm just guessing!

anyways dude, if any of this leads to something that works let me know!

SouperComputer

more info on IPTV, havn't got time to check their quality or relevance however......

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/IPTV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iptv
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/osx/2006/09/04/mediacentral-v2/