@Paddyman123wrote:Hi all
I've managed to get my hands on a small Meraki stack (MX64, MS220-8P, MR33) from the CMNA course.
I've attempted to replace the MX64 with the BT Home Hub. However I have run into a snag with the BT YouView channels not working.
As soon as I swap in the MX64, we lose connectivity to the IPTV channels (BT Sport/Comedy Central etc, terrestrial works fine) from the BT TV Youview box. Internet connectivity is stable and works well. It is just the IPTV box subscribed channels that stops working.
Has anyone had any experience with replacing the MX series with a BT TV Home Hub and getting the IPTV channels working correctly?
Thanks
Hi
The good news is that the switch handles it OK.
The bad news is that the MX doesn't handle the BT flavour of source specific multicast that BT uses for its premium channels.
The UltraHD box works for the broadcast digital and online digital channels, along with the various BBC/ITV/channel4 Netflix etc apps, but not the encrypted stuff from BT itself.Ironically, the BT engineer who made sure that the STB would function correctly once deployed now works for Meraki in London.
The easy way to test is by using conehead (VLC Media Player) and try opening the unencrypted BT test channel (Media >> Open Network stream) rtp://109.159.247.1@234.81.130.4:5802 , if everything is functioning you will get sound and images. on a workstation/laptop.
This is a cultural issue as much as anything else.In East Asia and Europe, that I know of, this form of multicast is in widespread use. Every cheap ISP givaway router can handle it, it isn't difficult. But most US network hardware suppliers ignore it, which is dumb because the managed services businesses are screaming for it, along with the VoIP phones, native IPv6, IKEv2 and a few other things such as better O365 integration.
In the interim, I am considering using a Draytek V2862LN-K to handle these issues, but it is expensive. I am already using a Draytek Vigor 130 modem which is great, but one can't configure the uplink on th MX to access the status info on the 130, which is a PITA as my local exchange keeps resetting the SNR and reducing the throughput to a prostate induced widdle, which stops the 4k.
Nobody at Meraki is owning this problem.
@uberseehandel
@lxLondon wrote:
Will raise a ticket with the Meraki support to get the MX software improved.
Good luck with that.
@uberseehandel
@lxLondon wrote:Hey, yes, basically connect the BT TV box directly to the BT modem (not through the Meraki device).
MX Security Appliances will forward IGMP traffic for a single broadcast domain. It does not forward multicast traffic upstream or between VLANs. The BT paid channels like BT Sports or CNN use multicast traffic.
MX Security Appliances do not handle multicast traffic as originating from content providers.
All Internet Multicast traffic comes from the 224.0.0.0/4 domain, regardless of provider.
Cisco has routers capable of running an IGMP-Proxy, but not Meraki. It is just one of the ongoing inadequacies of the MX range, and despite frequent requests for this and other missing features, nothing changes.
To deal with this problem, I have installed a second network that does handle multicast traffic properly, and the Meraki network uplinks to the other network. At the end of the day, overall, I have more secure network.
I am curious when you say you have connected the playout box directly to the modem. Are you using the (usually blanked off) second LAN port on the modem?
@uberseehandel
@lxLondon wrote:The BT Smart Hub has 4 ports in the back. Port 1 is used for the MX64 and Port 2 for the BT TV Ultra HD box.
It's a simple solution with the downside that the TV box is not in the Meraki network.
I asked if you were using the second LAN port on the modem as you claimed to have attached the BT TV Ultra HD box to a "BT modem".
However, it transpires that you have actually attached it to a BT HomeHub router.
As you say, what you have done "works", but, unless BT has upgraded the HomeHub recently, you may have potential Double-NAT issues.
I am not quite sure what the downsides are in connecting the STB to the BT HH compared to attaching it to the MX/MS stack.
In our analytic network, we have dual stacks.
- The BT STB is connected by Ethernet to a switch on the non-Meraki stack (which supports IGMP-Proxies and Snooping).
- The STB is connected to a TV by an HDMI 2.0 cable.
- The TV is connected to a switch on the Meraki stack using an Ethernet cable.
This is a rock solid arrangement. We are not interested in how much bandwidth the STB consumes, we have "plenty", and the statistics are available on the third-party dashboard, we do check it to ensure that there is no multicast traffic leakage.
It would be interesting to know if the BT HH reflects multicast video steams out all the LAN ports.
@uberseehandel
