Starting with Version 2.01 firmware, the 232-ATSC 4K HD Tuner can output the tuned MPEG stream as a Unicast or Multicast AV Over IP stream. At present, the full stream will be sent, including all programs and associated streams. The IPTV stream will be in the same format as received, MPEG-2 or H.264.

Off-air broadcasts often include multiple programs. Note that the actual number for each program is not the same as the virtual channel ID. Advanced IP decoders such as VLC and the Contemporary Research QIP-D can access any program in the stream. The key is how to identify each program so it can be found by the IPTV decoder.

The best tool for this is VLC, usually using Unicast to send the 232-ATSC 4K stream to your PC.

• Access the 232-ATSC 4K Web page and select the IPTV tab
• Enter the address of your PC
• Enter a UDP Port for the video, for this example, say 1001
• Launch VLC, select Media/Open Network Stream and enter udp://@:1001 as the stream port
• The stream will play in VLC, usually showing the first program.
• Select Playback/Programs to select the programs carried in the stream
• Go to the Tools menu and select Codec information

In the example shown above, there are three programs, numbered 3, 4, and 5. These are the actual program numbers, different than the channels numbers, 47-1, 47-2, and 47-3.

If your IPTV decoder has the ability to define a program number as well as the address of the stream, use the actual program numbers for playback.

Defining Programs for the QIP-D IPTV Decoder

At the current version of firmware, defining program numbers for QIP-D playback is a bit different. When a program such as VLC connects with the stream, it first looks inside the stream’s PMT (Program Management Table) to extract the data shown in the Codec Information table, and how VLC lets you select the program by a name or number. Currently, the QIP-D reads the same PMT and lists the program in the order it finds them, which is not always the same as the actual program number (this will change with a future firmware update).

In the case of the above example, QIP-D programs 1-3 access actual programs 3-5. It’s possible that programs won’t always be in the same sequence, so some experimentation is in order. In creating this set of instructions, I flipped back and forth between sending the 232-ATSC 4K stream to my PC and my QIP-D IPTV encoder. I appreciated that the tuner remembers a list of IPTV settings, so it was easy to go back and forth.