UDP only on Ethernet cable from router to TV for IPTV?

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

Hello all, I hope someone can help me here and thanks in advance.

I have connected an Ethernet cable from my router to TV. The router is running OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r22257-166ab6f90e / LuCI Master git-23.069.52569-24d7da2.

I have an IPTV subscription, not from my ISP from another source. My internet is not tht best in the evening times and this causes buffering on the IPTV.

I have read on some forums that for IPTV it is best to connect an Ethernet cable from router directly to TV and also to only allow UDP packets through the cable as this helps eliminate buffering due to no handshakes from UDP protocol.

I have set up a new traffic rule as seen in the pics, to allow only UDP on the connected lan going to tv, I don't know if it is correct? ?
The tv seems to work a little better and switching channels seems faster with this new traffic rule but maybe that's placebo effect..

Is my setup of the new traffic rule correct?
Thanks all for your help.

Screenshot_20230331-095446_Openwrt Luci App
Screenshot_20230331-095446_Openwrt Luci App1080×2160 159 KB

2

I can't see how this would have any impact at all. Whether or not the stream uses UDP isn't going to be determined by what protocol you allow down the ethernet cable, it's already determined by the sender and streaming video generally uses UDP rather than TCP.

No, it definitely isn't correct. We could get into changes needed to rectify it, but as I've said above it's not going to achieve anything. If your internet service is patchy in the evening then this is going to be the cause of buffering, nothing you do on your internal network is going to rectify this external issue.

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3

Thanks for your reply.

The reason I want to try this is because: I read a few weeks ago for using IPTV with a weak internet it is best to use a VPN using the UDP protocol on the VPN.

I did this and there was almost no buffering issues, so I did a few tests,
use IPTV with no UDP VPN, result a lot of buffering, with VPN UDP protocol, result almost no buffering,
with just VPN no UDP, result buffering.
I did these tests over a few evenings and I have to say I did notice a huge decrease in buffering with UDP protocol VPN.

Also my IPTV provider actually told me that's the best setup for IPTV and that's what lead me to researching about this.

I just now want to see if I can achieve the same in openwrt without using a VPN because as we all know using a VPN affects the download data.

Thanks.

4

Is your ISP throttling UDP traffic or throttling traffic from that IPTV provider?

Anyway you need something to encapsulate and hide your traffic something like ... a VPN.

WireGuard is much faster than OpenVPN .

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5

You can't. Your issues are outside your network.

As you have already discovered, the solution to your problem is a suitable VPN setup.

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6

Ok,

So let's put this another way.....

On openwrt there is absolutely no way to allow only UDP packets down an Ethernet cable??

I'm a bit shocked actually because I thought there would be a way.....?

7

Firstly you would need to separate the specific link out into a different network (i.e. a VLAN most likely) to pass the traffic through the firewall. You could then probably craft a rule that explicitly blocked all other protocols from that link (but that would likely render the link essentially unusable as basic operations will require protocols other than UDP).

But, even if you did set up such a rule and it didn't break basic functionality, it wouldn't solve your issue. The problems you have are outside your local network and, as I've mentioned a couple of times already, making internal changes aren't going to fix them.

The video stream from your provider is already going to be using UDP. From your testing with VPNs it seems likely your ISP is doing something that impacts on UDP traffic. That's why using a VPN (i.e. bypassing your ISP) solved the problem.

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