[mythtv-users] simultaneous viewing

[Brian J. Murrell]

On 12-04-12 07:30 AM, tortise wrote:
> 
> multicast somewhat takes over
> the LAN,

This statement doesn't make any sense.  You clearly don't understand how
multicast works.  Multicast generates no more traffic than a single
unicast stream (i.e. one listener).  That is in fact the *entire* point
of multicast.  The stream is sent out onto the "LAN" (to use your term)
once and any "listeners" that want to use it just use it, with each
"listener" using the exact same single stream.

Multicast is the IP network equivalent of "radio broadcast" where I use
the term radio here as the generic use of radio that includes of course
the television band.  A stream is just "spewed" out there (one copy only
of course just like each television watcher doesn't get their own copy
of an OTA broadcast) and anyone who wants to "tune in" just does.

> The best approach I am aware of to do this (after much help from a
> number of people to understand the issues) is to write an app which
> reads the master frontends position/recording and tell the second one to
> mimic the master frontend and pull it in a coordinated fashion from the
> backend.

This is the approach that would "take over the LAN" as you end up with
each frontend creating duplicate network streams.

I guess what would be neat is for the myth streaming protocol to just
use multicast for all streams (even for single FEs since it's no more
taxing on the network than a unicast stream anyway), all of the time and
then have an option in the FE to "join" existing playing FEs.

b.

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