New Digital TV Boxes and IGMP Proxy

[dolatyler]

Hello, this is a question for fellow home nerds and any telus reps looking at the forum.  I have a Unifi Dream Machine pro router in my house and take pride in managing my own network. I'm able to completely remove the Telus router from my network and instead I am using the Unifi alone with an IGMP Proxy enabled on a separate VLAN. I have my current Arris Optik boxes and the PVR on my managed switches and don't need another network in my house.

With that being said, I have just filled out the form for the new Digital TV boxes that will replace these in a few days. Does anyone know how these work compared to the old ones? I'm thinking they're now just "smart" devices that connect  to the internet and don't need some IGMP proxy and firewall rules to allow them to talk to the PVR in my basement? There is no more home PVR, so it should be less of an effort.

Bottom line, I hope I don't need to blow the dust off my Actiontec T3200M for these new boxes.  If anyone knows in advance, that'd be great to hear. I will definitely update this forum post once I get the boxes!

[A-B]

Please keep us updated when you get them!

[dolatyler · Accepted solution]

Received my new boxes yesterday and proceeded to hook them up in place of the older ones. I initially used the same VLAN ports and had no issues with viewing television.

I have now just moved 2 of them to my normal home VLAN with IGMP Snooping turned on and my IGMP Proxy disabled. I am happy to report zero issues.

These are just nice android TV boxes with a Telus TV+ App!  Thank you Telus for modernizing! 

Now the only thing I miss is being able to record what I just watched. 😄 If my tv was on a news program and I caught a story I want my wife to see, I could push record and it would start from when I tuned to that channel. Now it only starts the moment I push record... Minor thing, but so far my only complaint!

[A-B]

Great to hear! As for the recording issue, @Optik-Kate would you have any insight?

[Optik-Kate]

Hi @dolatyler, in this case, the recording function is working as expected; it will only record the point where you instruct it to do so if a schedule has not been set previously! That said, a lot of our channels have the restart functionality where you can restart the live stream from the beginning. Please keep in mind that you won't be able to fast-forward when you restart the stream, but you can jump back to the live point by refreshing the feed. 

[LancerEvoDK]

Hello @dolatyler

How did you set up your UDM Pro for Optik TV. I have a UDM SE set up in my network and currently have a switch just after the ONT with the UDM hooked to one port of the switch and the T3200M hooked to another port on the switch and am running just my three Optik tv boxes off the T3200M while the rest of my network is run off the UDM SE. I hate the mess of the extra switch and the T3200M and would like to be able to pack them away and just run everything off of the UDM. I have tried in the past setting it up but I must be missing something as it just gets the 10 seconds of tv before dropping off

[Nighthawk]

@LancerEvoDK - You have the older type of Optik TV boxes that will only work when directly connected to the T3200M.  That is different than the newer Android TV based hardware referenced in this post. The old Optik set top boxes use multicast packets and most third party routers don't support that, either at all or not properly. That's why the boxes drop off after about 10 seconds when connected to the UDM. You may not have it configured correctly to work with multicast. The newer Android TV based Optik or TelusTV+ boxes do not use multicast packets so they will work with most routers out there right out of the box.

@dolatyler may be able to provide you with more details on how they configured their UDM to work with the older hardware.

[zulu53]

I dispute your comment on third party router not "properly" supporting multicast packets.  In my experience the issue seems to be with Telus not supporting the transmission of multicast packets properly i.e. to published standards rather than their Telus proprietary methods.  Just like Apple I think that Telus IT (system desingers) think that in order to minimize customer interaction they need to make proprietary system.  With the advent of fibre they need to rethink this philosophy and give the customer an option of getting just a optical termination - ideally just an SFP but optionally the SFP plus Nokia to give an RJ45.  All downstream equipment to be left to the customer - so buy Telus or buy your own.  Effectively this is exactly the way PureFibre works right now - e.g. I can take the SFP from the Telus provided Nokia ONT and instead use my Edgerouter X-SFP and then on to my UAP's and it works fine EXCEPT for that proprietary OptikTV box.  Talk about pushing the customers to "cut-the-cord" of broadcast TV - the Telus marking people just shake their head at the "stupidity" of the techies.

[zulu53]

I too hope that you will add to the community and provide the settings used (if modified from the out-of-the-box default settings of the Ubiquiti router.  I have the "old" boxes (I actually received and tried the "new" boxes but returned them since the new Telus AndroidTV UI is quite a downgrade from the old Telus/AndroidTV UI - the old problem of Android/Google of adding utility in one area in an upgrade but taking away utility in other areas - unless one thinks that more in your face advertising is adding to ones utility and quality of life of course, I am not one to make judgments - your money/your choice).  Anyway Moderators please keep this thread alive until the question of how Optik TV (old) can work with third party routers far more capable than the standard fare routers that Telus provide as part of the contract.