These questions are not really directed at the wowza software itself but thought I would ask here as it seems there are more technical minded people here to help with a few questions I have 
I have noticed a few of these IPTV set top boxes starting to show up around the internet and notice some of them seem to broadcast premium channels.
Now I don’t really want to get into the discussion of grey area stuff as thats not what im looking to get into but im just wondering what sort of hardware is behind the setup as I have seen hardware/head-ends for FTA or even some with CAS/caqrd support for hotels such as the “netup” for hotels and work on internal networks but not anything geared to work over the internet.
So what im wondering is, what sort of hardware are the people behind these using?
for example:
card/satellite/system > ??? > multi/uni cast > IPTV set top box.
My initial thought was a linux server with multiple capture / satellite cards and maybe even utilising wowza?
IPTV is something I feel is starting to become popular but there still seems to be limited information on the subject.
Thanks for your time!