Dear valued customer and/or IT/IPTV Specialist,

Selected Life Fitness and Cybex Tablet Touchscreen consoles, used on our cardio series are able to connect to Coax (Terrestrial, Cable, Satellite) and IP Network based media streaming sources. Open IPTV is one of the IP streaming options Life Fitness offers its customers.

The below information will additionally support you in setting up your IP network where the Life Fitness Symbio, Discover and Cybex 70T consoles will be connected to, through the Open IPTV streaming setup.
The consoles are able to work with non-encrypted IPTV streams, called "Open IPTV" within Life Fitness, correctly, but because the consoles are not specifically made to just do that (unlike commercial grade/hospitality IPTV Set Top Boxes or PC/Mac laptops), they need some additional support from the network, so that they're not flooded by unnecessary traffic. The following information will give you additional info on how to setup your network correctly to have the best Open IPTV streaming experience for your customers with our consoles.

In this article:

Main requirements

Customer Network requirements

Console Feature Support

Other customer network suggestions

Customer Network setup examples

Further reading

Main requirements

To start, we want to highlight some crucial technical network requirements which are inevitable, to make sure the Open IPTV channels are correctly shown on the consoles (These are further technically specified in the chapters below):

1. The network must have a Layer 3 device included which includes the IGMP Querier functionality (based on the IGMPv3 protocol).
2. There may only be one device in the network which has the IGMP Querier functionality enabled.
3. All other devices in the network (switches) must support the IGMP Snooping functionality (IGMPv2 protocol).
4. The IPTV streams offered to our consoles must be in UDP or RTP format. Some newer console types do also support HLS, which is outlined below. Any other network protocol is not supported.
5. It’s strongly advised to thoroughly review the Multicast settings of each of the network devices (routers/switches) to make sure they’re setup correctly to stream the IPTV channels to the consoles, adhering to the requirements indicated in the below information.
6. Through experience we've seen that by not following these requirements, this can cause various symptoms and issues, which degrade the customer experience:
   1. Not able to show any of the IPTV channels (black screens)
   2. Only channel audio is heard, no video is seen
   3. Channels are shown with pixelated images
   4. Only a static image of the channel is shown
   5. Channels are only shown 20-60 seconds after selecting the channel
   6. Streaming works correctly on commercial grade/hospitality IPTV Set Top Boxes or PC/Mac laptops (VLC), but not on the Life Fitness consoles
7. Life Fitness or any of its affiliates are not responsible for setting up, managing, maintaining, changing or updating the customers (IT/IPTV) network.

We understand that these requirements are maybe beyond the normal IT network setup requirements and appreciate your cooperation in setting up the network as indicated so that our consoles will be able to show the IPTV content seamlessly, creating the best user experience possible.
 

Customer Network requirements

Console Feature Support

*The Pro:idiom IP Tuner can receive IPTV signals only through the tuner’s own LAN port. It converts the IPTV signal into HDMI and then passes it to the Console Main Board as an HDMI source.

If the Ethernet connection going into the tuner also carries an internet connection, the tuner will pass that connection to the Console Main Board through an internal Ethernet cable. This allows web browsing on the console as well.

If the IPTV signal does not include internet access, or should be separated from the IPTV signal, and internet is available through Wi-Fi at the fitness facility, then the console can connect to the internet via Wi-Fi instead. For this to work, the internal Ethernet cable must be disconnected from the Console Main Board.

Other customer network suggestions

The following items are suggestions based on feedback and experience we received during setting up IP networks in combination with our consoles:

1. All switches in the network should be “non-blocking” switches, preferably.
2. Have only one IGMP Querier activated within the network (or set to Auto when supported in the hardware, so that it detects other Querier(s) and auto turns them off). Having 2 devices acting as Queriers will cause IPTV streaming issues.
3. All network hardware should have the correct date, time and time zone.
4. IPTV headend and ISP internet source should both preferably be directly connected to the L3 switch/router which has the IGMP Querier functionality included and enabled.
5. When available turn ON, the "Immediate Leave" function within IGMP snooping setup (IGMPv2 protocol option).
6. When available, turn ON, the IGMP Querier “Election” in the IGMP Querier device.
7. Make the "Query Max response interval” setting in IGMP VLAN settings as low as possible (in seconds) to improve channel switching timing (IGMP Querier device)
8. “Multicast Router Port” setting should be set to "Static" (or turned ON or equivalent) for the port in the L3 IGMP Querier device which sends the IPTV channels to the other switches in the network. The rest of the ports should have turned it off/none.
9. "Forward All" setting should be set to "Static" (or turned on or equivalent) for the port in the L3 IGMP Querier device which sends the IPTV channels to the other switches in the network. The rest of the ports should have turned it off/none.
10. "Unregistered Multicast" setting should be set to "Forwarding" (or turned on or equivalent) for the port in the L3 IGMP Querier device which sends the IPTV channels to the rest of the switches in the network. The rest of the ports should have turned it OFF/set to "Filtering"
11. “Jumbo frames” setting should be turned OFF in all switches.
12. Turn ON “Flow control” only when the consoles are getting flooded with too much traffic and then turn it ON only within the switch(es) directly connected to the consoles.
13. As the cost of a Layer 3 IGMP Querier device is significantly higher than a Layer 2 device and the Layer 3 switch pricing increases rapidly when going beyond 10 ports, we advise to setup the network with a small Layer 3 IGMP Querier device, which can handle all the incoming streams as well as one outgoing stream, which is connected to a Layer 2 device. This much cheaper Layer 2 device distributes the streams to all Consoles.
14. When an IPTV channel is broadcasting its video content in MPEG4, we believe that the broadcast is most stable and in sync when its setup with the RTP network protocol and less stable with the UDP network protocol. MPEG 1 & 2 streams can be best broadcasted through the UDP protocol.
15. The recommended total bandwidth is based on the number of channels and the expected channel bandwidth. For example, if there are 20 channels streaming with 10Mbps video, the network will require (20x10) 200 Mbps support
16. The Multicast address range the IPTV channels require is between 224.0.0.0 and 239.255.255.255 (Class D Multicast IP addresses)

Customer Network setup examples

Example 1: IPTV Media Server/Head End only

Example 2: IPTV Media Server/Head End plus Internet

Example 3: Possible Network Bandwidth with correct IGMP setup

Further reading

The following links is reference material to some of the network protocols and features which have been highlighted above, to further support you in correctly setting up and understanding your network. (We don't take any responsibility for the content and it correctness of these websites)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGMP_snooping
3. https://howdoesinternetwork.com/2015/what-is-a-non-blocking-switch
4. https://kb.netgear.com/25091/Guidance-on-the-use-of-jumbo-frames
5. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/flow-control. 
6. https://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/ipmulti/configuration/guide/imc_tech_oview.pdf
7. https://support.spirent.com/s/article/FAQ10423