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In our home we have TV over IP and our ISP ships special router with two Ethernet ports dedicated for the TV (they are not manageable by modem's administration interface). Each port supports only one TV set-top-box (only TV for short) and the TV has to be connected directly to the port. The router also has two ports for normal internet and WiFi.
For now we have four Powerline adaptors - two are connected to the dedicated TV ports and other two to the Televisions, each pair (modem-TV) runs different Powerline network. Other devices have to connect by WiFi since the router is too far away and there is no room for more Powerline adaptors, but wifi signal is weak (thick walls).
Is it possible to connect both TVs and some other computers to the same Powerline network and place something (switch?) between the Powerline adaptor and the router, which will route data based on MAC address?
It would be also nice to somehow direct all packets coming from dedicated ports to respectful TV MAC Address (by editing them), so that TVs don't get confused.
For example:
send data from TV1 to port 1 (dedicated for TV)
edit headers of all packets from port 1 to have TV1 Mac Address
send data from TV2 to port 2 (dedicated for TV)
edit headers of all packets from port 1 to have TV1 Mac Address
everything else to port 3 (internet)
make sure nothing form port 3 is directed towards any TV
As I understand it, switches keep table of MAC addresses and send packets to the interface where desired address is located. Therefore I will probably need a router... However I suspect the fact that two devices will be connected with multiple Ethernet cables will cause problems.
Is it possible? Can it be easily done? If so, will it be cheap (max. $100)?
Thank you, @grawity. I used Wireshark and detected no VLAN. The router just spewed out Megabytes of video and IGMP packets. The set-top-box just sent DHCP requests. The VLAN will be possible, but costly. I hoped it would be solvable with only one device. – andowero – 2016-08-27T12:50:55.037