Uniguest MediaStar LAN-Caster gateways for North American broadcast — ATSC over-the-air and QAM cable tuners that take an antenna or cable headend feed and put it onto the network as IP streams, plus IP re-casting and multiplexing blades.

What a gateway actually does

Broadcast television arrives as RF — off an aerial or a cable drop. A LAN-Caster demodulates that signal and re-casts it as multicast IP, so every screen on the network can tune it without a set-top box or a coax run to each room.

That is the whole reason IPTV replaces coax in hotels, hospitals, campuses and corporate buildings: one network carries television, signage and data instead of three separate cabling systems.

ATSC and QAM

These are the two North American standards, and the 795 multi-tuner gateway covers both:

• ATSC — over-the-air digital broadcast from an antenna.
• QAM — digital cable, as delivered by a cable provider or an in-building headend.

Most sites use one or the other; some use both, which is why a multi-tuner gateway handling each is the practical specification. Confirm what the building actually receives before ordering — an antenna feed and a cable drop are not interchangeable inputs.

Tuner count sets channel count

Each tuner handles one transport stream. A single mux can carry several channels, so the mapping is not one tuner per channel — but it does cap how many independent muxes the gateway pulls at once.

Count the channels the site needs on screen, identify which muxes they sit on, and size the tuners from that. Getting this wrong means some channels simply are not available, and the fix is more hardware.

Re-casting and SRT

The 799 IP Re-Caster takes streams that are already IP and re-casts them, including over SRT for links crossing the public internet. That is how a multi-site estate shares one headend rather than duplicating tuners at every property — relevant for a district, a hotel group or a multi-building campus.

The 796 IP Multi-Mux handles stream aggregation where several inputs need combining before distribution.

Blades need a chassis

The 796 and 799 are blades with no power supply or housing of their own. They mount in a MediaStar chassis — the single-slot 769 or the 3RU multi-slot 770 — which is a separate line item and not optional. This is the most common omission on a first Uniguest quote.

Creation Networks designs IPTV headends end to end: signal survey, gateway and tuner sizing, network multicast design with your IT team, and commissioning. CTS-D certified, serving corporate, government, education and healthcare clients since 2006. Call 888-230-3661 or email sales@creationnetworks.net.