Possible DVB Multicasting System Using Routerboards

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

I am going to give this one a go in the near future. I’ll have all the pieces to hand, and the system seems viable, so I just thought I’d run this by the forum.

We have a need to multicast television programmes broadcast over the UK DVB-T terrestrial system. From what I can see the following is possible:

  1. DVB-T miniPCI cards are available, and these are compatible with Linux (AverMedia M103).
  2. Debian can be installed on a RB, if net-booted from another system (possibly even another Routerboard, but I think we’ll keep it simple). Instructions exist on the web for this one.
  3. VLC can of course be installed on Debian, and the processor power of an RB433AH seems quite enough to multicast out the 18Mbps stream of a single multiplex (no encoding would be required, just a bit of number crunching to re-encapsulate the data – something the Atheros CPU was made for – and push it out the network port – something the RB was made for).
  4. It could well be possible to run 2 or even 3 of these things on a single RB potentially.

If it works, it would represent a very powerful and cost-effective TV distribution system.

Note that no actual video encoding would be necessary at all – just a bit of stream manipulation (take the stream, cut it into the individual PIDs, encapsulate in UDP, multicast out).

Anyone tried anything like this before? Would anyone be interested in a final solution?

2

not with installing linux on routerboard. but if you go with solution that you use something like VLC as streaming server, you can stream form whatever platform is supported by VLC. and mentioned RB433AH is capable to stream even more traffic that you are mentioning, thus supporting more channels.

Also, consider wireless limitations for multicast, if you are planning to use wireless links in your multicast distribution network.

Only hard part in your plan will be installing VLC on RouterBOARD, because it has a lot of x11 dependencies.

3

It’s possible to install VLC in a RB433AH, and still using that RB as AP?


this is a short graffic of what i wanna do


(Unicast Stream Video) --Wireless–> (AP RB433AH With VLC)–UTP Multicast streaming—> (Wired PC1..2…n)

Anyone has tryed?

Is possible to do this?