4 ms·

MPEG-TS is incorporated in many digital TV standards. They will continue to be around for a long time simply because of that, regardless of technical points.

Taniwha 3y ago
exactly - almost every cable and satellite system is using them
wmf 3y ago
Right, but transport stream should only be used in broadcasting. It shouldn't be used on discs (ahem Blu-ray) or other storage and it shouldn't be used over the Internet. Program stream is usually a better choice.
- lxgr 3y ago
  What about bridging broadcast media to IP or vice versa? One of the advantages of MPEG-TS is that it’s dead simple to map it to RTP or even plain UDP and back even with packet loss and data errors.
  - wmf 3y ago
    Extract the PS from the TS and send that over the network.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      How, in a way that preserves all the mentioned properties of MPEG-TS? There's RTP, but I would definitely not call translating MPEG-TS to RTP and back "dead simple" (unless you're just encapsulating MPEG-TS via RFC 2250, but then you're still using MPEG-TS).
- akira2501 3y ago
  "The Transport Stream is a stream definition which is tailored for communicating or storing one or more programs of coded data according to ITU-T Rec. H.262 | ISO/IEC 13818-2 and ISO/IEC 13818-3 and other data in environments in which significant errors may occur. Such errors may be manifested as bit value errors or loss of packets." "The Program Stream is designed for use in relatively error-free environments and is suitable for applications which may involve software processing of system information such as interactive multi-media applications. Program Stream packets may be of variable and relatively great length."
- toast0 3y ago
  > It shouldn't be used on discs (ahem Blu-ray) or other storage and it shouldn't be used over the Internet. I thought Blu-Ray switched to program stream, but DVD was transport stream (sounds like I've got things backwards though). Transport stream for optical media isn't that insane though, because while you can seek, seeking isn't great, and if you have a failed read, it's probably better to just move on than to retry that sector a bunch of times. Of course, using transport streams allows for smaller buffers and lower BOM, so there's that too.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  I use it for storage because I can stream a recording, with full seeking, while I'm actively capturing it, or I can stream it over a websocket for a little less latency. Having one thing that works just as well as WebSockets as it does over HLS makes things a lot easier on low performance devices where a format conversion would be a bad thing. MPEG-TS is like a virtual analog RCA jack, it's easy to understand and work with and manipulate as long as you don't have to touch the encoding or decoding stuff, and lets you do lots of odd applications.
drmpeg 3y ago
Fun fact. DOCSIS 1.0 through 3.0 cable Internet uses MPEG-2 Transport Streams to deliver the IP packets. It has to, because the QAM specification (ANSI/SCTE 07) is built around 188 byte TS packets.
- lxgr 3y ago
  I’ve always wondered if that was done to allow mixed video and DOCSIS channels, shared hardware on either end, or just to ensure that TVs and STBs can quickly and safely skip DOCSIS channels that they won’t be able to decode anyway.
- 1827163 3y ago
  And in those early days many cable providers didn't even implement the Baseline Privacy Interface, so you could sniff the entire neighborhood's downstream traffic with a modified modem or possibly even a DVB-C capable TV card. There was literally a register bit in the cable modem MAC to enable promiscuous mode, and you could just set it: https://pastebin.com/18702Ziq https://pastebin.com/18702Ziq Sadly the Broadcom modem hardware I used to experiment with then seemed to lack the ability to get at the raw MPEG-TS packets, so I didn't manage to repurpose it as a TV receiver. The idea was to tune to a TV channel and stream it over multicast RTP on the LAN. As used modems were very cheap, I wanted to have a whole bank of them, to demodulate every carrier on the CATV system. All fed into a giant, noisy 24 port 100Mb Ethernet switch that had IGMP snooping support. That was back in the 2000s... Modem photo: https://www.usbjtag.com/jtagnt/ambit120.jpg https://www.usbjtag.com/jtagnt/ambit120.jpg
  - drmpeg 3y ago
    You would have loved the old ATI/AMD demodulator evaluation board that I have. Does both ATSC 1.0 and QAM. TS output is DVB-ASI (which requires a pretty expensive DVB-ASI to USB converter). https://www.w6rz.net/DCP_1205.JPG https://www.w6rz.net/DCP_1205.JPG
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- pezezin 3y ago
russellbeattie 3y ago
The new ATSC 3.0 standard (NextGen TV) in the U.S. allows MPEG-TS, but prefers DASH using an OFDP wrapped UDP stream, which after hardware decoding is consumed just like any other network stream. It's really well done. Digital TV in the U.S. will eventually be like a giant, one-way WiFi signal.
- hulitu 3y ago
  > The new ATSC 3.0 standard (NextGen TV) in the U.S. Don't worry. After 3 comes 4 and 5. /s

Taniwha 3y ago

exactly - almost every cable and satellite system is using them

wmf 3y ago

Right, but transport stream should only be used in broadcasting. It shouldn't be used on discs (ahem Blu-ray) or other storage and it shouldn't be used over the Internet. Program stream is usually a better choice.

lxgr 3y ago
What about bridging broadcast media to IP or vice versa? One of the advantages of MPEG-TS is that it’s dead simple to map it to RTP or even plain UDP and back even with packet loss and data errors.
- wmf 3y ago
  Extract the PS from the TS and send that over the network.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    How, in a way that preserves all the mentioned properties of MPEG-TS? There's RTP, but I would definitely not call translating MPEG-TS to RTP and back "dead simple" (unless you're just encapsulating MPEG-TS via RFC 2250, but then you're still using MPEG-TS).
akira2501 3y ago
"The Transport Stream is a stream definition which is tailored for communicating or storing one or more programs of coded data according to ITU-T Rec. H.262 | ISO/IEC 13818-2 and ISO/IEC 13818-3 and other data in environments in which significant errors may occur. Such errors may be manifested as bit value errors or loss of packets." "The Program Stream is designed for use in relatively error-free environments and is suitable for applications which may involve software processing of system information such as interactive multi-media applications. Program Stream packets may be of variable and relatively great length."
toast0 3y ago
> It shouldn't be used on discs (ahem Blu-ray) or other storage and it shouldn't be used over the Internet. I thought Blu-Ray switched to program stream, but DVD was transport stream (sounds like I've got things backwards though). Transport stream for optical media isn't that insane though, because while you can seek, seeking isn't great, and if you have a failed read, it's probably better to just move on than to retry that sector a bunch of times. Of course, using transport streams allows for smaller buffers and lower BOM, so there's that too.
eternityforest 3y ago
I use it for storage because I can stream a recording, with full seeking, while I'm actively capturing it, or I can stream it over a websocket for a little less latency. Having one thing that works just as well as WebSockets as it does over HLS makes things a lot easier on low performance devices where a format conversion would be a bad thing. MPEG-TS is like a virtual analog RCA jack, it's easy to understand and work with and manipulate as long as you don't have to touch the encoding or decoding stuff, and lets you do lots of odd applications.

drmpeg 3y ago

Fun fact. DOCSIS 1.0 through 3.0 cable Internet uses MPEG-2 Transport Streams to deliver the IP packets. It has to, because the QAM specification (ANSI/SCTE 07) is built around 188 byte TS packets.

lxgr 3y ago
I’ve always wondered if that was done to allow mixed video and DOCSIS channels, shared hardware on either end, or just to ensure that TVs and STBs can quickly and safely skip DOCSIS channels that they won’t be able to decode anyway.
1827163 3y ago
And in those early days many cable providers didn't even implement the Baseline Privacy Interface, so you could sniff the entire neighborhood's downstream traffic with a modified modem or possibly even a DVB-C capable TV card. There was literally a register bit in the cable modem MAC to enable promiscuous mode, and you could just set it: https://pastebin.com/18702Ziq https://pastebin.com/18702Ziq Sadly the Broadcom modem hardware I used to experiment with then seemed to lack the ability to get at the raw MPEG-TS packets, so I didn't manage to repurpose it as a TV receiver. The idea was to tune to a TV channel and stream it over multicast RTP on the LAN. As used modems were very cheap, I wanted to have a whole bank of them, to demodulate every carrier on the CATV system. All fed into a giant, noisy 24 port 100Mb Ethernet switch that had IGMP snooping support. That was back in the 2000s... Modem photo: https://www.usbjtag.com/jtagnt/ambit120.jpg https://www.usbjtag.com/jtagnt/ambit120.jpg
- drmpeg 3y ago
  You would have loved the old ATI/AMD demodulator evaluation board that I have. Does both ATSC 1.0 and QAM. TS output is DVB-ASI (which requires a pretty expensive DVB-ASI to USB converter). https://www.w6rz.net/DCP_1205.JPG https://www.w6rz.net/DCP_1205.JPG
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pezezin 3y ago

russellbeattie 3y ago

The new ATSC 3.0 standard (NextGen TV) in the U.S. allows MPEG-TS, but prefers DASH using an OFDP wrapped UDP stream, which after hardware decoding is consumed just like any other network stream. It's really well done. Digital TV in the U.S. will eventually be like a giant, one-way WiFi signal.

hulitu 3y ago
> The new ATSC 3.0 standard (NextGen TV) in the U.S. Don't worry. After 3 comes 4 and 5. /s