iptv settings

[me160]

does anyone know what settings for iptv i need in order to continue getting bluecurve tv through the xb6 and xi6 tv boxes if i put the xb6 into bridge mode to use my own router, from the last 3 hours I've spent reading posts here and on other forums it appears to be possible but anyone who claims it works for them don't provide any info for the iptv settings they have in their router, does anyone know what they (vlans, ip's, udp proxy port, etc.) are that i might need to make this work?

fyi i will be using an ASUS rt-ax58u for my router if it matters at all

[mdk]

@me160 --  any info for the iptv settings they have in their router

Your IP-enabled TV is no different than any other wired/wireless device that you can connect to your own router, namely that the TCP/IP setttings should automatically be provided by your router.

If you have an Ethernet cable between your router and your TV, it should be 100% automatic.

If your TV uses WiFi, you will need to use the TV's controls to connect to the SSID supplied by your router.

Power-off the cable-modem, your router, and your TV.

Power-on the cable-modem, and wait for it to fully restart.

Power-on your router, and wait for it to fully restart.

Power-on your TV, and it should automatically connect via the Ethernet cable, or, to your preset WiFi values for the SSID for your router.

Note that your BlueCurve uses one communication protocol for the Shaw XB6/XI6 boxes, and the Ethernet protocol to connect to your router. So, no matter what you do with your Ethernet settings, the BlueCurve should still connect to the Shaw boxes.

[me160]

so just to clarify a bit, your saying that even if i put my shaw xb6 gateway in full bridge mode (ive been told this is done by calling tech support and having them put it in bridge mode) then all i should have to do is reconnect the xi6 tv boxes to the new wifi network from my new router and it should just work regardless of whether iptv is supported or enabled or not on my router? or does it only work if i put in "half-bridge" (as ive seen it referred to here) on my end of the xb6 settings, ive read that that way it still transmits the signals for the xi6 boxes but doesn't manage the wired network portion allowing my router to do that

[mdk]

@me160 -- a "smart TV" is just another device on your home network, using TCP/IP and a wired/wireless connection to your cable-modem to stream content directly to apps (e.g., Netflix) that are installed on your TV.  So, you get "TV" over "IP".

Normally, the Shaw "XI6" boxes communicate with your BlueCurve device, to allow the BlueCurve device to distribute the same content to each XI6 box as you get on a TV directly-connected to the BlueCurve device.  So, the question is what protocol is being used between the XI6 and the BlueCurve? It may use WiFi signals as the "carrier", or is may use IP packets as the "carrier" of the protocol.

So, what is your definition of "IPTV" ? A smart-TV with Internet access to receive content NOT going through Shaw's TV lineup of channels? 

I don't know enough about the technical details of how the XI6 communicates with the BlueCurve, nor the protocol that the BlueCurve uses to "talk" to the Shaw TV distribution system.

[me160]

sorry for the confusion, i am talking specifically to get the shawTV service available via the BlueCurve xi6, i am not talking about connecting a tv to my network, but specifically getting the xi6 boxes to work on my new router and still provide the shawTV service. as far as the bit of digging into this that ive done iptv seems to be a protocol that shaw (or telus, comcast, etc) uses to deliver the TV service over the internet. 

correct me if i am wrong but i was under the impression that shaw refers to "bluecurve" as the entire ecosystem of xb6/7 gateway, and xi6 tvbox, as well as the companion freerangeTV service, but you are saying only the gateway is the bluecurve?

[shaw-daniel]

@me160 Our BlueCurve wireless players Xi6 and Gateway modems (XB6/XB7) are complementary to one another. Using third-party wireless routers with the Xi6 cloud PVR/IPTV players isn't currently supported.

[rstra]

@me160 

I have read posts on another site that claimed that it is possible. I haven’t tried this but apparently, when you setup the xi6, it looks for ssid’s and all you have to do is choose the one you want and enter the password. 

Probably not supported, but wouldn’t hurt to try. 

[me160]

yes i think we have read the same ones, but they dont say *how* they got it to work just that they did. especially if @shaw-daniel says that it wont work, but customers report it does work.....conflicting stories do not make recreating it easy, especially if people withhold information or explain. i would love to just give it a go and see but unfortunately i cannot as im trying to set this up for my parents as i have a self hosted private cloud for them hosted at their house and have hit problem after problem getting it work properly, and when i did it worked for 3 months and stopped working 2 weeks ago even though nothing has changed except maybe an update to the xb6. they are willing to switch and use the router i mentioned in my original post but only if i can guarantee they will still have the same tv functionality with the xi6 boxes and not have to go back to paying for cable and use the old cable boxes

my aim here is to try and find out whether it actually is possible or not before i go and possibly waste a day trying to get it to work to find out at the end that it wont, and unfortunately i do not have the time to try it for **bleep**s'n'gigs, but if i can find out if it is possible, and how exactly to do it then i can try to make time to make it work

[mdk]

@me160 -- especially if @shaw-daniel says that it won't work,

No, the statement was that it was "not supported". I interpret that to mean that if you ask Shaw for assistance on such a setup, they will decline to offer any assistance/support.

but customers report it does work

Good. But, for example, after replacing the engine in your automobile, do not expect to get any "factory warranty" support, even though you can keep using your (modified) automobile.

conflicting stories do not make recreating it easy, especially if people withhold information or explain.

Quite true.

i would love to just give it a go and see 

Well, if Shaw is not offering any "support" for such a configuration, all you can do is to do the experiment.

it worked for 3 months and stopped working 2 weeks ago even though nothing has changed 

A "stopped working" statement withholds information.

Please, if you want any help from the volunteer contributors on this forum, then please explain your setup.  Tell us what hardware you have, and how it is connected (wired? wireless?) to your ASUS router (or the Shaw modem/router). After "half-bridging" the cable-modem, and restarting everything, what is the IP-address on the "WAN" side of the ASUS  router? The IP-range handed-out by the ASUS router to the clients on your network? The IP-address active on each device on your network?

[me160]

sorry if i caused some confusion here, the current setup is unraid nas running nextcloud and swag ==>wired to shaw xb6 in normal out of box (albeit with custom wifi ssid) with the xi6 wireless bluecurve tv box also on the xb6, as per factory.

when i setup the nas for my parents (as this setup is at their house, not mine) in December i ran into port forwarding issues, where shaw seems to have removed port forwarding and replaced with port opening. either way, after countless hours playing with port mappings both in unraid for the docker and on the xb6 router i ended having to change the http and https port (80/443) to access the unraid web ui so i could set that port to swag and secure my moms nextcloud access. and then everything worked. she could access the nextcloud both on the wifi and data as well as anywhere she went (i reverse proxied it to her own domain). worked fine till 3 weeks ago when she said she couldn't access it anymore, after a bit of time troubleshooting and testing it turned out it was only INACESABLE on the wifi, it worked fine for me in another city, as well as when she tried turning her wifi off and used data. that weekend when i was back in town i narrowed it down to at some point shaw updated the xb6 without notice and changed hairpin nat settings, or removed some dns lookup tables for the local lan.

if anyone has ideas on that that would be great, otherwise my solution was to get a new router (the ASUS one i mentioned, as i picked it up awhile ago on sale and have it laying round after some of my own testing i was doing for other things at my house) and put the shaw xb6 in bridge mode so the asus was handing all the wifi, dns resolution, ip tables ect. but hopefully still having the xi6 cable boxes function properly whether its still connected to the xb6 or to the asus router (unfortunately the xi6's cannot be wired due to placement and  being an old house we don't want to run cat5 everywhere). as this is my current solution, i sleuthed the forums and found a handful of people in the same boat, want their own router but don't want to loose the wireless cable boxes. and even fewer (i think i found 3 people who posed about it) who said it worked for them, but they did not provide any information further than "it works for me", and there is no information in the posts.

from my sleuthing i found that the xb6 may or may not use their own wifi ssid that's hidden for the xi6 cable boxes(did not find any info on that past this),. and that they seem to be using the iptv protocol with witch works like a Vlan on the shaw network potentially with dual ip (apparently shaw can issue up to 2 public ip's to home users, so maybe this is why? one for the tv and one for internet?). All this has been speculative and hearsay so i made this post to try and gather the missing information, as well as clear up what Shaw is actually doing  (regarding the com. protocol for the tv) and whether the iptv settings don't need to be set or if just enabling it in the asus router and leaving it default will work as i cannot just go over to my parents and try it because i don't want to have to sit on hold with shaw tech support forever to put their xb6 in bridge mode or take it out of bridge mode, and reset the router and make them reconnect all their devices.

i hope that clears up any misunderstandings, as for why i said it "just stopped working", that's exactly what happened, was working, then it wasn't when nothing was manually changed and i have a similar setup at my house (although i only have internet, so im using an older modem and use pfsense as my router, and have a lot more running on my unraid server) and i have never had an auto update to unraid, a docker, or program on it break a service but only on the lan side of the network, so it cannot be a problem with the server and the only other thing is the xb6 router, so that logically has to be the problem, especially given that the url for her nextcloud works on data, and for me both on my data and on another wifi, but not on their local lan or wifi, so it works on the wan side but not lan side....that points to either a dns lookup was deleted from the router and its not being re-entered, or dns rebinding/nat hair pining settings were changed and wont alow it to connect on the lan.

i really hope this rambling helps you guys help me help my parents. and if this could be a post actually figuring this out I'm Shure it would help a lot of people with similar problems and at least make it easier for some