Playing IPTV Multicast stream

[tomageeni]

Hi,

I gave OpenBSD a try as a desktop/workstation system. I'm even surprised how usable OpenBSD is after all, almost everything works as I've excepted (ok, missing a proper flash player is a bit annoying...)

However, I've couple of days been fighting to make IPTV work. My Internet connection includes possibility to watch IPTV as multicast stream. In Debian GNU/Linux it works correctly - I can watch streams via VLC player or Mplayer. Command mplayer 'udp://@<ip address>:<port>' starts playing the multicast stream on Linux, but in OpenBSD mplayer says:

Timeout! No data from host <ip>
udp_streaming_start failed
No stream found to handle url udp://@<ip>:<port>

My network router is configured properly as I can watch IPTV thourgh it on Linux.

I've tried to allow multicast connections on pf with some how-tos without success. I've even disabled pf temporarily, but that didn't work either. It seems to me that there is some thing which blocks receiving multicast streams, but that's not pf. Any ideas?

I've OpenBSD 4.7-stable installation, i386 platform.

[jggimi]

I have IPTV here at home, but through STBs, and that multicasting is on a separate subnet from the family LAN, so I've never tried it via OpenBSD or any other general use OS. Just the WinCE STBs running Dreamcast (AT&T U-Verse service).

I have used multicast on OpenBSD, though on loopback only, for use with qemu virtual machine networks. That limits my experience with it.

I don't think PF is a requirement for multicast. Sysctl settings are needed to route multicast packets, however. I don't do that here, as I don't want our OpenBSD router transiting multiple channels of HDTV.

Since I do have access to the IPTV subnet, I can certainly experiment with you.

[Oko]

My first hunch was just like yours that the problem is with PF. Then I realized that
MPlayer has been significantly updated for 4.7 release. I know that there were some problems with watching TVs. Check archives of ports and misc mailing lists. They are fixed in current. Also MPlayers wants gcc 4.xxx. Finally 4.xxx is available in current. I would suggest that you drop an e-mail at ports.AT.openbsd and check with Edd (port) maintainer. I do believe that there are some unresolved issues with MPlayer and maybe you just stumbled upon one.

VLC has also been updated to the latest version in current Edd Baret is also maintainer of VLC. I do not use it so I am not sure what is the deal with it.