Comparatif des fonctions
Castmux et Cesbo Astra, côte à côte.
Astra domine cette catégorie depuis longtemps et c'est un bon produit. Voici la version honnête du tableau : quand ils sont devant, c'est écrit. Tout ce qui porte la mention « prévu » figure sur la feuille de route publiée.
En bref
La décision se joue sur quatre ou cinq lignes.
Si vous êtes pressé, tout est là.
Choisissez Astra si
- Il vous faut le désembrouillage DVB-CI ou un module CAM
- Il vous faut un accès conditionnel complet avec Simulcrypt
- Il vous faut la modulation DVB-T
Choisissez Castmux si
- Il vous le faut en arm64, hors ligne, dans un boîtier sans ventilateur
- Vous voulez du multicast à la demande, pour faire tenir plus de chaînes sur un petit appareil
- Vous voulez que le réseau soit diagnostiqué à votre place
- Vous voulez la licence offerte avec un bouquet de chaînes
Fonction par fonction
Toutes les lignes, y compris celles que nous perdons.
Sept sections : sources, diffusion, traitement du flux de transport, fiabilité, exploitation, services de contenu, plateforme et conditions commerciales.
| Fonction | Castmux | Cesbo Astra | Remarques |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sources | |||
| HLS | Yes | Yes | We select a ladder rung by resolution; Astra selects by bandwidth only. |
| SRT caller | Yes | Yes | We derive latency from measured round-trip time automatically. |
| SRT listener / rendezvous | Manual | Yes | Possible via engine parameters; first-class UI option is on the roadmap. |
| RTMP | Yes | No | Astra has no RTMP input at all. |
| UDP/RTP multicast input | UDP; RTP on roadmap | Yes | Plain MPEG-TS over UDP multicast ships, which covers sitting behind another headend. RTP framing is not read yet. |
| HTTP MPEG-TS input | Yes | Yes | |
| RTSP cameras | Roadmap | Yes | Garden and entrance cameras are a real request in care homes. |
| DVB-S/C/T tuner input | Roadmap | Yes | Castmux takes every source over IP today. Astra reads tuners directly, with DiSEqC, Unicable, T2-MI, SAT>IP and adapter scan. |
| Delivery | |||
| UDP/RTP multicast output | Yes | Yes | TTL, egress binding, full 1316-byte datagrams. |
| Constant bitrate / null padding | Mux only | Yes | Applied on the DVB-C multiplex today; per-channel CBR on UDP is roadmap. |
| DVB-C RF output | Yes | Yes | Both drive TBS modulators. We add drag-and-drop assignment and hot-swap. |
| DVB-T modulator output | No | Yes | Astra supports HiDes IT950x. Not planned unless customers ask. |
| HLS/HTTP output with auth | Roadmap | Yes | For guest phones and tablets. Preview only today. |
| SAP/SDP announcements | Roadmap | Yes | Set-top box auto-discovery. |
| Transport stream processing | |||
| Pass-through of original PIDs | Yes | Yes | |
| All audio tracks with language tags | Yes | Yes | On the pass-through engine. The remux engine carries one track. |
| Audio track ordering / language forcing | Roadmap | Yes | So the television's default track is the right language. |
| PID filtering and remapping | Mux only | Yes | Automatic inside the multiplex; not yet exposed per channel. |
| PAT/PMT/SDT generation | Yes | Yes | |
| NIT with cross-mux linking (fast scan) | Roadmap | Yes | We generate NIT today; automatic cross-linking is next. |
| Logical Channel Numbers (LCN) | Roadmap | Yes | The most requested DVB-C feature. Top of the list. |
| TDT/TOT clock | Roadmap | Yes | Sets the clock on every guest set. Cheap, disproportionately noticed. |
| Stable pinned service identity | Roadmap | Manual | Guarding it against accidental change is ours; Astra leaves it to you. |
| Reliability | |||
| Automatic restart with backoff | Yes | Yes | |
| Ordered backup sources with failover | Roadmap | Yes | Astra's is mature: active and passive modes, separate return delays. |
| Technical-difficulties slate fallback | Roadmap | Manual | Astra makes you hand-build a looping file. We intend to ship it working. |
| Dead multicast route detection | Yes | No | Sending to an unroutable group succeeds silently. We check from outside. |
| Duplicate sender detection | Yes | No | Two senders on one group present as pixelation and waste days of diagnosis. |
| Server-level high availability | Roadmap | Yes | Astra has a master/slave standby mode. |
| Operations | |||
| On-demand streaming (IGMP) | Yes | Partial | We watch real memberships with packet capture and actively query, because these segments have no querier. |
| Per-channel bitrate measured on the wire | Yes | Yes | Engine-agnostic, so it is true for both engines. |
| Live viewer count and client list | Yes | HTTP only | Astra counts HTTP sessions; multicast viewers are invisible to it. |
| Built-in transport stream analyser | Roadmap | Yes | CC errors, PES errors, scrambled counts, per PID. A support-cost killer. |
| Email / webhook alerting | Roadmap | No | Astra has no alerting engine at all — it expects you to run Zabbix. |
| Metrics export (Prometheus/Grafana) | OTLP | Yes | We ship OpenTelemetry; a Prometheus endpoint and dashboard are on the roadmap. |
| Config backup, restore and clone | File | Yes | Readable file with automatic pre-change backup; one-click export/import is next. |
| HTTP API | Yes | Yes | |
| Multi-site fleet management | Roadmap | Partial | |
| User roles | Single user | 3 roles | Neither is good enough. Reception-versus-engineer scoping is on our roadmap. |
| Content services | |||
| EPG from XMLTV into the multiplex | Roadmap | Separate tool | Astra ships this as a second binary with its own config file. We intend to build it into the same UI as the channel. |
| In-house information channel | Roadmap | No | Activities, menus, notices, services, camera. Nobody in this market ships it in the headend. |
| Radio channels as first-class services | Works | Yes | |
| Descrambling (DVB-CI/CAM) | No | Yes | Astra's external-CI design is genuinely strong. Not on our roadmap. |
| Scrambling (BISS) | Roadmap | Yes | |
| Scrambling (DVB Simulcrypt / full CAS) | No | Yes | If you need Conax and an ECMG, buy Astra. We will tell you that. |
| Transcoding | No | No | Neither product transcodes. Both pass video through untouched. |
| Platform and commercial | |||
| arm64 / low-power appliance | Yes | x86 only | Astra requires 64-bit x86. Structural difference, not a feature gap. |
| Runs with no internet access | Yes | No | Astra validates its licence against remote servers periodically. |
| Container deployment | Yes | Binary | |
| Price | €29/mo or €290/yr | €22/mo or €220/yr | |
| Free with a channel package | Yes | No | Take channels from tvheadend.io and the licence costs nothing. |
Ce tableau est établi à partir de la documentation publique et des pages tarifaires de Cesbo Astra. Si une ligne est dépassée ou injuste, écrivez-nous à [email protected] et nous la corrigerons. Un comparatif qui nous flatte ne vous sert à rien.
Voyez-le tourner sur vos propres flux.
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Ou écrivez à [email protected]