Member Avatar for mmcdonald

Hi all,

I've just started to work on a lazy mans network - everything is unmanaged. I've now been asked to install a media server so that we can provide a source for the 90+ TV screens in our thirty remote offices, a system such as this:

The only issue is, our network doesn't support multicast technologies because our switches do not have any IGMP snooping capabilities, and our routers don't have IGMP querying!

Does anyone know of a solution where this can be achieved without the need for a multicast enabled network?

Thanks,
M

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For 's environment (unmanaged switches and no IGMP support) multicast will be unreliable across the remote sites. Two practical approaches avoid network-level multicast and work on typical unmanaged infrastructure.

One-stream-per-site (recommended for small numbers of screens per office): encode a single live stream at the headend (H.264/H.265, HLS/RTMP) and place a small edge device at each office (mini-PC, Raspberry Pi class player, or a dedicated media appliance). That box pulls one WAN stream and either (a) outputs HDMI to a local matrix/splitter or (b) serves a local HTTP/HLS feed that the office TVs/players consume. WAN cost = one stream per site, independent of how many local displays are attached.

Central origin + caching / edge re-streamers (better when many displays per site): run an HTTP-based streaming workflow (HLS/DASH with adaptive bitrate) and deploy lightweight caches or local re-streamers (Nginx proxy_cache or a small appliance) at each site. This reduces origin egress and scales far better than naively serving every screen as a separate unicast. If you must serve every screen from origin, use the formula required_bw = concurrent_streams * stream_bitrate (example: 90 streams * 3 Mbps = 270 Mbps).

Practical tips: pilot one office first, measure real bitrates and latency, confirm players support the chosen protocol, add local retries/recording for resilience, and monitor CPU/network on edge devices. If low latency is critical, avoid classic HLS or look at low-latency HLS/DASH or WebRTC options. Long term, replacing a few edge switches with inexpensive managed units that support IGMP snooping is often the simplest way to enable true multicast if you ever need it. As noted, multicast is generally a LAN-level tool; for unmanaged WANs, application-level approaches are safer and easier to deploy.

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Member Avatar for rubberman

Try this google search: streaming tv server
FWIW, multi-cast is usually not viable outside of a LAN, and your routers need to be configured to allow multi-cast outside of a subnet.

Edited by rubberman
Member Avatar for mmcdonald

I ended up getting cable time - we've got a demo kit for 2 months :)

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