BT TV Box Pro with 3rd Party Router

[tb_forum]

I have problems using the BT TV Box Pro with a 3rd party (Synology) router and associated mesh devices. Prior to that I had the BT YouView (Humax) box which did similar. This is when using either a wired ethernet or wireless connection. The source is BT Full Fibre.

The problem is fundamentally one of connectivity but with different quirks. 

Examples

1. I can connect OK to a SD, HD or UHD channel which can then drop with error code IPC6023. Sometimes connection can be regained, sometimes it can be regained not on the original channel e.g. last night was able to watch ITV but then it dropped, unable to get ITV but I could connect to BBC2.

2.Sometimes I just cannot connect to the target channel to start with e.g. TNT Sports Ultimate or TNT Sports HD but sometimes, with no action other than changing channels and then trying again, a connection can be made (but does not always remain, per (1) above).

I can get a reliable service watching, for example, TNT Sports Ultimate, via discovery+ app directly on the TV, so this is streaming through the router to the TV.

I'm aware that there has been discussion about the IPTV streams and using two logical interfaces on the WAN port, one for the PPoE connection to the BT network for the normal traffic, the other picking up the Multicast packets used for the BT TV channels. However that isn't much use unless the router supports that, which Synology does not.

https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-setup-Wi-Fi-network/IPTV-settings-on-ER605/td-p/2270301/page/2

The reason for my renewed interest is that with Sky bumping up its package costs so much, EE TV is potentially a more attractive option. However, it has to work and right now it doesn't work for me.

I know I could use the BT Smart Hub as the primary and add my router as an access point but tbh the BT Smart Hub is not up to the job - slow, clunky, managing multiple network devices is a nightmare, unable to split 2GHz/5GHz and define multiple wireless networks...the list is long. So that is not an option.

In this day and age there really shouldn't be any problems using 3rd party routers.

Does anyone have a functioning solution to getting BT TV, incl. TNT Sports,  working with a Synology router/mesh?

[rbz5416]

You've identified the problem, know that the Synology doesn't support multicast, the solution is to use the BT Hub but don't want to do that. So what exactly is the question?

If you forego watching & recording via the EPG then everything will work through apps. If you want recording &/or Freeview over IP then you need a compatible router in place.

[DarrenDev]

The new Smart Hub 3 from EE does allow more than one wifi network (but still doesn't let you split 2.4 / 5 GHz). It also performs much better (though I never personally had an issue with the SH2 performance).

You say "In this day and age there really shouldn't be any problems using 3rd party routers" - it's fair to say that many people have managed to get their own router working, but your one doesn't support the required technology ... so you could say "in this day and age it's expected that routers support the required standards".

If you don't need the ability to record, then maybe the new EE TV on Apple TV would be a better option for you? It puts no specific requirements on the router at all (other than that it's connected to an EE broadband line).

[tb_forum]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll investigate. A potential issue is the inability to record and relying on a catch-up service which is one reason I have previously avoided Sky Stream.

[tb_forum]

The question was whether anyone had actually found a practical and working solution for Synology routers. I've not found one despite much trawling of web posts over many months and trying various things. The interesting vagary is how the connection can be there and deliver a programme one day and the next day not. That is a variable which I do not understand. Anyway, thanks for your observation.

[Les-Gibson]

Synology seem to disagree with you about their routers not supporting Multicast (AKA IGMP)