# TiVo Stream via VPN?



## davezatz

I'm kicking off this thread so we can have a dedicated discussion of ways to access the TiVo Stream outside the home. I assume it can be done, the question is how...


----------



## compnurd

Should be in the Stream Forum?


----------



## davezatz

Well, crap. I didn't know we had a Stream forum. Just asked the moderators to relocate us.


----------



## vectorcatch

I posted this in another thread, but it seems pertinent here as well.

For a VPN to work it would need to support mDNS and Bonjour. 

This means that your VPN client IP address given out on your network would have to be on the same subnet as your Tivo. It also means that your VPN server would need to correctly handle multicast and arp requests from the VPN client. The VPN Client would have to appear like any other device on the local LAN.

The only non-commercial solution I have seen that may be able to do this is StrongSwan (using the dhcp and farp plugins). OpenVPN may have similar functionality, but as it doesn't work with iDevices (non-Jailbroken) I haven't looked.

This will never work with PPTP.


----------



## danjw1

So is the question if the Stream has to be on the same subnet as the TiVo or if the other device (i.e. iPad) has to be on the same subnet as the Stream? I would actually like to know the answer to both these questions.


----------



## ronaldheft

danjw1 said:


> So is the question if the Stream has to be on the same subnet as the TiVo or if the other device (i.e. iPad) has to be on the same subnet as the Stream? I would actually like to know the answer to both these questions.


I would assume all three have to be on the same subnet for discovery. They probably all use Bonjour.


----------



## JosephB

I would think you're going to need a really, really good upload at home for this to work. Like, 5+mbits.


----------



## Dan203

The download options are either 610MB per hour or 1GB per hour. If the streaming bitrate is equivalent to Best that's only about 2.2Mbps, and if it's equivalent to Standard, which I think it is, then it would only be 1.4Mbps. I think a lot of people have upload speeds in those ranges. And if TiVo really wanted to allow internet streaming they could probably lower the resolution a bit, then lower the bitrate a bit and get a perfectly watchable (on an iPad) stream at <1Mbps.

I think the bigger issue might be copyright issues. I'm not sure if CCI flagged shows can be streamed outside the home. Slingbox gets away with it because they exploit the "analog hole". But TiVo is doing a direct digital to digital stream and I'm not sure if the rules allow for those streams to be sent out over the internet to a remote location.

Of course they could limit this feature to non-protected content, but I'm not sure if people would understand such a limitation or react well to it. Even now you see people complain about not being able to download protected shows that they can stream. It would muddy things even more if they could stream some, but not all, shows over the internet.

Personally I hope I'm wrong about the rules and TiVo can allow internet streaming in a future update, but I'm OK if they don't. The Stream works exactly as I expected and I'm happy with it.

Dan


----------



## pattont

I am really hoping to get this working. I am running Astaro V8 on a machine and have it currently configured for PPTP for my iPad. I am going to try to get ipsec setup to see if that does what I need it to do. This is really the main reason I want a stream, If I can't get this working, I will likely return it.


----------



## Dan203

I read a bit about this yesterday and getting Bonjure to work over a VPN sounds like it's almost impossible. Seems like there are a few people who were able to fake it for iTunes streaming or Mac networking, but it sounded like a kludge that may not work well with the way the TiVo app works. But if you do get it working I'd love to hear about it. While I don't go on the road much it would be nice to have this ability anyway just in case. Even if it only worked for downloads and not streaming that would still be worth setting up.

Dan


----------



## sirector

It should be possible using an OpenVPN Tap based VPN. This creates a Layer 2 VPN that simulates an ethernet connection between two sites. Its not the most efficient way to do a VPN and there can be other issues involved but it does create a single broadcast domain across two different sites. 

I use this to bridge iTunes Home Sharing so that an Apple TV at one location can access movies stored in iTunes at another location.


----------



## JosephB

Dan203 said:


> The download options are either 610MB per hour or 1GB per hour. If the streaming bitrate is equivalent to Best that's only about 2.2Mbps, and if it's equivalent to Standard, which I think it is, then it would only be 1.4Mbps. I think a lot of people have upload speeds in those ranges. And if TiVo really wanted to allow internet streaming they could probably lower the resolution a bit, then lower the bitrate a bit and get a perfectly watchable (on an iPad) stream at <1Mbps.
> 
> I think the bigger issue might be copyright issues. I'm not sure if CCI flagged shows can be streamed outside the home. Slingbox gets away with it because they exploit the "analog hole". But TiVo is doing a direct digital to digital stream and I'm not sure if the rules allow for those streams to be sent out over the internet to a remote location.
> 
> Of course they could limit this feature to non-protected content, but I'm not sure if people would understand such a limitation or react well to it. Even now you see people complain about not being able to download protected shows that they can stream. It would muddy things even more if they could stream some, but not all, shows over the internet.
> 
> Personally I hope I'm wrong about the rules and TiVo can allow internet streaming in a future update, but I'm OK if they don't. The Stream works exactly as I expected and I'm happy with it.
> 
> Dan


Getting around the 'stream outside the home' restriction is precisely why you need to use a VPN, and that's precisely why the Stream doesn't let you stream outside the home by default. This is definitely a gray area discussion.



Dan203 said:


> I read a bit about this yesterday and getting Bonjure to work over a VPN sounds like it's almost impossible. Seems like there are a few people who were able to fake it for iTunes streaming or Mac networking, but it sounded like a kludge that may not work well with the way the TiVo app works. But if you do get it working I'd love to hear about it. While I don't go on the road much it would be nice to have this ability anyway just in case. Even if it only worked for downloads and not streaming that would still be worth setting up.
> 
> Dan


If you have a real VPN, it will work, since to the devices being connected, it's simply as if you're on the local network. If you're doing something like Hamachi or some other forwarding service, you may be in for some trouble.


----------



## Dan203

sirector said:


> It should be possible using an OpenVPN Tap based VPN. This creates a Layer 2 VPN that simulates an ethernet connection between two sites. Its not the most efficient way to do a VPN and there can be other issues involved but it does create a single broadcast domain across two different sites.
> 
> I use this to bridge iTunes Home Sharing so that an Apple TV at one location can access movies stored in iTunes at another location.


Care to explain how exactly you did it? I've onlymever used a very basic Windows based VPN, but if I had instructions I could try it and see if it works with the stream.

Dan


----------



## sirector

My setup used a Linux server at one site and an embedded pfsense router at the other site. OpenVPN also works on windows so in theory it could be done there but I don't know the details.

I followed the Ubuntu OpenVPN guide at:
https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/openvpn.html

and then followed the "Advanced bridged VPN configuration on server" near the end.

Some of the quirks become in making sure that internet bound traffic at both sites goes directly to the internet and not through the VPN, and making sure that DHCP traffic stays within each LAN even though by default it will want to go across the OpenVPN tap link. These are places where a routed VPN works better but that is not an option in this case.


----------



## bradleys

sirector said:


> My setup used a Linux server at one site and an embedded pfsense router at the other site. OpenVPN also works on windows so in theory it could be done there but I don't know the details.
> 
> I followed the Ubuntu OpenVPN guide at:
> https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/openvpn.html
> 
> and then followed the "Advanced bridged VPN configuration on server" near the end.
> 
> Some of the quirks become in making sure that internet bound traffic at both sites goes directly to the internet and not through the VPN, and making sure that DHCP traffic stays within each LAN even though by default it will want to go across the OpenVPN tap link. These are places where a routed VPN works better but that is not an option in this case.


This is the problem...

I have read a number of aproaches that require computer connections on both sides of the VPN Tunnel to allow Multicast Bonjour to communicate. The only practical use case for this is if you have two homes and just want to be able to connect the two physical environments - but that is a pretty major constraint.

The Ipad will allow you to directly connect to either an L2TP, PPTP or IPSec VPN. The question is how can you get Multicast Bonjour working from VPN Host to iPad?


----------



## morac

vectorcatch said:


> I posted this in another thread, but it seems pertinent here as well.
> 
> For a VPN to work it would need to support mDNS and Bonjour.
> 
> This means that your VPN client IP address given out on your network would have to be on the same subnet as your Tivo. It also means that your VPN server would need to correctly handle multicast and arp requests from the VPN client. The VPN Client would have to appear like any other device on the local LAN.
> 
> The only non-commercial solution I have seen that may be able to do this is StrongSwan (using the dhcp and farp plugins). OpenVPN may have similar functionality, but as it doesn't work with iDevices (non-Jailbroken) I haven't looked.
> 
> This will never work with PPTP.


I'm not sure that's 100% accurate. I have Tomato USB (Toastman's version) installed on my Linksys E3000 and one of the features is a VPN PPTP server. I can set it up so that VPN clients are on the same subnet as my LAN devices and there's also a "Broadcast Relay Mode" setting which I have set to 2-way.

That said, I've never gotten the TiVo app to work when using the VPN outside my home (it works in the home). Granted I've only ever tried it using 3G, so it's possible that the iPhone simply won't forward multicast traffic over 3G. I now have a WiFi at work, but unfortunately they block VPN connections so I can't test that.

My guess is that the limitation is with iOS's VPN implementation rather than PPTP though.

On a side note, there are other VPN clients beyond the ones built into iOS. Juniper and Cisco VPN clients are in the App store.


----------



## cipherwar

In order to get this to work you need to setup Wide Area Bonjour. Regular LAN based Bonjour is delivered over ip multicast which isn't typically transported over VPN connections.

With Wide Area Bonjour you setup a DNS server to advertise the Bonjour services. I see the following Tivo services being advertised via Bonjour on my network:

_tivo-device._tcp.
_tivo-mindrpc._tcp.
_tivo-remote._tcp.
_tivo-videos.tcp.
_tivo-videostream._tcp.
_tivo-xcode._tcp.

You would need to add mDNS entries for the above records. Then have the VPN client use this DNS server for name resolution. The client should then be able to connect to the services remotely.

Looks like dyn-dns is offering an experimental bonjour-dns service:
http://dyn.com/support/bonjour-and-dns-discovery/


----------



## pattont

Does anyone have more than "theory" or "what should work" on this issue? I have tried a number of different VPN approaches and I am coming up short thus far.


----------



## tomm1079

back when the IPad app first came out i tried alot of things but could never get it to work remotely. 

the issue was Bonjour so i hope someone knows ways around it


----------



## Dan203

I read and searched a lot and I never found anyone who successfully got Bonjure working over VPN on an iPad. There seems to be someway to get it to work with PCs using OpenVPN, but it's not compatible with iPad. Maybe you could use a PC as some sort of gateway, but that seems really inconvenient.

Dan


----------



## danjw1

pattont said:


> Does anyone have more than "theory" or "what should work" on this issue? I have tried a number of different VPN approaches and I am coming up short thus far.


I don't think anyone outside of Tivo actually has a Stream until the last day or so, so I doubt it. You need to wait until people have a chance to play with them. Then we may see some real answers.


----------



## morac

danjw1 said:


> I don't think anyone outside of Tivo actually has a Stream yet, I doubt it. You need to wait until people have a chance to play with them. Then we may see some real answers.


Huh? A ton of people have the Stream, including a number of posters in this thread. It's available in Best Buy.


----------



## danjw1

morac said:


> Huh? A ton of people have the Stream, including a number of posters in this thread. It's available in Best Buy.


Yeah oops. Still it takes a while for people to try different scenarios and able to report back. This is a corner case for most people, I think. So not many will be looking into it.


----------



## Dmyze

I got my Tivo Stream yesterday. The first thing I tried was I fired up my VPN server and my cell phone's hot spot. Connected my iPad to my phone, VPN'd home, and started watching a video off my Tivo. It was glorious. 

I have a Windows 2003 server and I just enabled it's built in VPN server, made sure it passed out IP's in the same range as my Tivo and it worked just fine. (I did need to port forward the VPN ports over my router/firewall for that to work.)


----------



## Sling_Blade

I got it working too. I followed these instructions to setup PPTP on a Windows 7 computer I have on my home network:

http://www.groovypost.com/howto/microsoft/setup-vpn-pptp-host-on-home-windows-7/

Then I just used my iPad's PPTP VPN to connect to it over LTE. Tivo app worked flawlessly. Really cool!

Obviously with data being as expensive as it is it's not really practical to use over LTE, but it should work well whenever I'm at a wifi hotspot.

Edit: Also, something odd was that I found I couldn't connect to the VPN over my public IP when I was connected to my home network's wifi. I was trying to test the VPN to see if the ports were forwarded correctly and couldn't connect. It's probably something odd about the way my router treats its own public IP address. So don't fall into the same trap, go ahead and just test it using LTE/3g/another wifi hotspot.


----------



## Dan203

Cool I'm going to try this. I don't really travel much but it'll be nice to have he option. 

Dan


----------



## aaronwt

Sling_Blade said:


> I got it working too. I followed these instructions to setup PPTP on a Windows 7 computer I have on my home network:
> 
> http://www.groovypost.com/howto/microsoft/setup-vpn-pptp-host-on-home-windows-7/
> 
> Then I just used my iPad's PPTP VPN to connect to it over LTE. Tivo app worked flawlessly. Really cool!
> 
> Obviously with data being as expensive as it is it's not really practical to use over LTE, but it should work well whenever I'm at a wifi hotspot.
> 
> Edit: Also, something odd was that I found I couldn't connect to the VPN over my public IP when I was connected to my home network's wifi. I was trying to test the VPN to see if the ports were forwarded correctly and couldn't connect. It's probably something odd about the way my router treats its own public IP address. So don't fall into the same trap, go ahead and just test it using LTE/3g/another wifi hotspot.


Thanks, I'll need try this out when the stream works on Android. Since I'm on the 150/65 FiOS tier, and I'm on unlimited data on Verizon with my LTE phone, I should be able to stream as much as a want.


----------



## Bob Lee

Sling_Blade said:


> I got it working too. I followed these instructions to setup PPTP on a Windows 7 computer I have on my home network:
> 
> http://www.groovypost.com/howto/microsoft/setup-vpn-pptp-host-on-home-windows-7/
> 
> Then I just used my iPad's PPTP VPN to connect to it over LTE. Tivo app worked flawlessly. Really cool!
> 
> Obviously with data being as expensive as it is it's not really practical to use over LTE, but it should work well whenever I'm at a wifi hotspot.
> 
> Edit: Also, something odd was that I found I couldn't connect to the VPN over my public IP when I was connected to my home network's wifi. I was trying to test the VPN to see if the ports were forwarded correctly and couldn't connect. It's probably something odd about the way my router treats its own public IP address. So don't fall into the same trap, go ahead and just test it using LTE/3g/another wifi hotspot.


Thanks for the PPTP suggestion, as I think this will put me over the top in terms of picking up a Stream unit. One question, though...When I bring up the Tivo iOS app while connected via 3G/LTE it detects that I'm not on WiFi and tells me I am in "away mode", with limited capability. Are Stream functions included in "away mode"? Not that I will ever do much over 3G/LTE, but more of a curiosity.

Update: Hmm...not sure this is going to work. When my iPad is connected to my wireless network I can VPN and "see" my Tivo Premiere just fine. But in order to get around the 3G/LTE "away mode" issue above I try connecting via WiFi using my Android phone as a portable hotspot and unfortunately it cannot locate my Tivo on the "local network". Does the mean I'll have the same issue locating the Stream over a VPN connection?


----------



## Sling_Blade

Hmm I may have declared victory too soon 

When I tested it I switched to the VPN/LTE while the tivo app was open and already connected to my Tivo. I think this made it not check to see if it was on the home network. However, when I retested this by killing the tivo app and then trying to use it over LTE/VPN, I got the same problem you had.

Hopefully if you're on wifi/VPN it will work? I can probably test this tomorrow when I'm out. It's not like I really need this to work over LTE anyway. I does work if I use my home network's Wifi, with VPN, so that is a good sign.

Also when I tested again I think the port forwarding still isn't right. I had to use DMZ to get my iPad to connect to the VPN. It must use more than 1723? Before in my testing I thought I had turned this off and it still worked.

Edit: figured out the port forwarding. If you have a Verizon Fios router you have to go to Firewall Settings->Port Forwarding. Then use the "Create Port Forwarding Rule". In the application drop down choose "show all services". Then scroll down to PPTP after that refreshes. I was using the custom port forwarding and specifying 1723, but apparently this doesn't forward GRE, while the above method will.


----------



## wombat94

PPTP works perfectly for me.

I have a mac based network, and PPTP is not easily configured on OSX unless you have Lion or Mountain Lion server, so I downloaded EasyVPN... a GUI that enabled PPTP and allows simple administration of VPN accounts.

I ran EasyVPN on my MacBook, used the DMZ feature of my router to forward enable PPTP packets to pass through to my MacBook and then set up a PPTP VPN connection on my iPhone.

I turned off WiFi on my phone, turned on the VPN (connecting via AT&T "4G") and fired up the Tivo app... it reconnected to my Tivo with no problem and I was able to stream the Phillies game. It was jerky because of bandwidth issues, but I'm sure I could download a show if I wanted to.

I next went to my iPad (first generation WiFi only), created the same VPN connection, turned off the VPN on my iPhone, enabled Personal Hotspot and connected to it from my iPad and then turned on VPN.

When I launched The Tivo app on my iPad, it again reconnected to my Tivo and I was able to stream the game there as well. No problems whatsoever.

Obviously, this is not practical from a bandwidth standpoint over cellular data as the AT&T 3G+ isn't fast enough to stream (though I suppose it could side load - I'll have to try that out). I'm on the shared data plan for our two iPhones and my wife's iPad 3 AT&T LTE... though we don't have LTE service here yet.

The real application of this is twofold for me:

1. When somewhere with good enough bandwidth and solid WiFi signal, I should be able to stream video even away from home.

2. Regardless of where I am, I can have realtime remote control ability in order to allow remote scheduling of programs without having to wait for the website/tivo interaction... much nicer process overall.

Thanks for trying out PPTP and blazing the trail.

Ted


----------



## Sling_Blade

Also Bob Lee, I would say if you can't get the Tivo app to work, you probably won't be able to get the streaming to work. So, figure that out first. If you use your phone as a mobile hotspot and enable VPN on the iPad I would think that would work. Are you sure you turned on VPN when you connected to the hotspot from your iPad?

Wombat, DMZ is the easiest but it is probably worth the effort to see if you can get port forwarding to work. You might have to figure out how to specify GRE (protocol 47) should be forwarded, as was the case for my router. Using DMZ is like hooking your computer up directly to the internet. Anything can connect to it. There are lots of bots/worms scanning IPs on the internet and trying to infect them. Not being behind a firewall greatly increases your chance of getting infected. Some people have actually done tests on this and found an out of the box windows install (no patches, virus scanners, etc) gets infected in something like 7 minutes.


----------



## Bob Lee

Sling_Blade said:


> Also Bob Lee, I would say if you can't get the Tivo app to work, you probably won't be able to get the streaming to work. So, figure that out first. If you use your phone as a mobile hotspot and enable VPN on the iPad I would think that would work. Are you sure you turned on VPN when you connected to the hotspot from your iPad?
> 
> Wombat, DMZ is the easiest but it is probably worth the effort to see if you can get port forwarding to work. You might have to figure out how to specify GRE (protocol 47) should be forwarded, as was the case for my router. Using DMZ is like hooking your computer up directly to the internet. Anything can connect to it. There are lots of bots/worms scanning IPs on the internet and trying to infect them. Not being behind a firewall greatly increases your chance of getting infected. Some people have actually done tests on this and found an out of the box windows install (no patches, virus scanners, etc) gets infected in something like 7 minutes.


I just got back from being out and about, and while out I had my iPad with me and was on somebody's wifi network. I was able to VPN in just fine, but in terms of the Tivo app I was a nogo...couldn't find a Tivo on the "local" network. My IP address was assigned to the same subnet as all of my local devices at home, and I even tried moving my VPN server machine to the DMZ...but same negative result.


----------



## wombat94

Sling_Blade, I totally agree. DMZ was only a quick-and-dirty test. I will configure the PPTP connection and specific port forwards on the router. (Actually, I will probably upgrade my router to a third-party firmware that supports running a PPTP server on the router).

Also... as you noted (you were posting at the same time as me earlier) if the Tivo app is already running on the iOS device, it can reconnect directly via the cellular/VPN, but if the app is not running already, it falls back to the "away mode" of operation.

So I then went back to the iPad... reconnected everything the way I had had it a few minutes ago, but killed the Tivo app first. So I was connected via PPTP via my iPhone hotspot with a VPN from the iPad back to my Macbook... I launched the Tivo app, and it could not find the Tivos... the error message was not that I didn't have Wifi on (since I did), but it searched for Tivos, timed out and then offered to go into "Away mode" or watch shows already downloaded.

I am suspecting that what is going on here is that PPTP is fine for the communication protocols including streaming and remote control, but that Bonjour is not really working over PPTP.

I'm off to see if there is any discussion of this specific issue that I can find.

It'll be interesting to experiment for a while though and see how long the cached bonjour discovery works. Maybe some combination of the PPTP along with the experimental DDNS remote Bonjour services that was mentioned above can get us to the total solution.

Ted


----------



## Sling_Blade

It sounds like your VPN server isn't forwarding multicast packets. Until I am able to test mine on a different network I won't be positive mine is either.

Edit: heh just saw your post wombat. Yep, this may be a problem. I think it will just take finding a VPN that can forward those and the right settings.


----------



## morac

Bob Lee said:


> I just got back from being out and about, and while out I had my iPad with me and was on somebody's wifi network. I was able to VPN in just fine, but in terms of the Tivo app I was a nogo...couldn't find a Tivo on the "local" network. My IP address was assigned to the same subnet as all of my local devices at home, and I even tried moving my VPN server machine to the DMZ...but same negative result.


I've never gotten PPTP to work with the TiVo app. I tried a number of times with older app versions "just because" and even though I had a PPTP connection into my router and had a LAN ip address, bonjour discovery never worked. This with broadcast packet forwarding on (though it's possible the implementation on my router is flawed).

Of note, 1.9.1 added a new discovery method which I don't believe uses Bonjour, though I'm not sure what it would use.


----------



## Sling_Blade

Ahh, just found a way of testing this. I do have the hotspot feature on my iPad, just not on my iPhone, so I tried streaming on my iPhone using my iPad as the hotspot. I had the same problem. Now that I think back to my earlier testing, I think this is a more serious problem. It works when I do a VPN connection over my local network, which I think must mean that the iPad itself is not sending the multicast packets over the VPN, but rather whatever network it is connected to. That means the only other options are to try the other VPN types that are built in to the iPhone to see if they work, or find a third party app that will forward multicast packets.

Of course this wouldn't be a problem if Tivo would just give you the option of statically defining the IP of your Tivo and not using bonjoir :/

EDIT: Actually I think I have it the wrong way around. The VPN Server isn't forwarding all the multicast it sees over the VPN, but if I am on that network it will still see it. Googling this it looks like most VPN services only do normal IP, and you'd have to use something like OpenVPN, and you would have to jailbreak your iphone/ipad to get that to work.


----------



## Brad Bishop

I've sort of found a way to make it work outside the home. It's not how you'd want to do it long term but:

Connect the app to the TiVo on the local network. Press the home button and head out. Go to a bar and connect to your home network via VPN. Now open the TiVo app back up. It'll see the TiVo and it'll let you stream.

If at any time the TiVo app doesn't see a WiFi connection or you forget and don't connect to VPN then it will reset the app and put it in away mode until it sees the TiVo again.

Again, this isn't ideal BUT it at least let's you see it work while you're out and about.


----------



## Dmyze

I seem to have declared victory too soon as well. Athough it works for me if you fire up the app locally and then switch to VPN, if I start the app remotely it does not find my tivos. I think I need to configure my VPN to support bonjour broadcasting.


----------



## Sling_Blade

Well, let us know if you find an Apple supported VPN that works. From my googling I couldn't find anything. There are only two solutions I could find:

1. Jailbreak and use OpenVPN for server/client. It uses ssl, not L2TP,PPTP, or IPSEC. It can however forward multicast over the VPN connection.

2. Bring along a laptop that can run a bonjoir proxy, there are a number of programs that do this, that will advertise your Tivo service, with it's local IP, on whatever network you are connected to.

Neither of those are ideal. I haven't actually tried either of the above but there's been lots of people trying to get home sharing working over VPN, which has the same problem.


----------



## windracer

I took a shot with OpenVPN this weekend and made some promising headway, but it's not working.

I'm using the OpenVPN sever in DD-WRT on my router, and the GuizmOVPN application from Cydia for iOS (which supposedly supports multicast forwarding for iTunes sharing). Using TAP, I can get my iPhone to connect to the VPN and then I can ping and SSH into my iPhone from the local network (with the iPhone on 3G). The Bonjour browser can "see" all of the TiVo services on my local network. But, even with that, I must have a setting wrong because I can't seem to hit ALL my local network resources from the phone. I can SSH into my Linux server, but can't connect to a TiVo's Now Playing List over https and can't connect to my Calibre library. 

On top of all of that, the TiVo app knows I'm not on WiFi so it won't discover any boxes. I know there's 3G Unrestrictor but I don't really need that so I'll just test again when I'm on a WiFi network that's not my own (I wasn't able to get the OpenVPN connection to work when my iPhone was on my local WiFi, which I'm sure is just a config setting I'm missing).

I'll keep messing around with it ...

_edit:_ no better luck on remote WiFi. The TiVo actually scans for boxes, but doesn't find any, and the Bonjour browser doesn't find any services. Guess I need to poke around in the settings/config a bit more. Seems like I am so close.


----------



## cipherwar

You really shouldn't be using PPTP as a VPN protocol. It is horribly insecure. You should use either a SSL or IPsec vpn.

http://www.cso.com.au/article/43203..._crack_widely_used_pptp_encryption_under_day/

There is even a web service to auto crack PPTP so the attacker doesn't even need to be technically literate:
CloudCracker.com

Using PPTP is only marginally better than connecting your private network directly to the Internet.


----------



## windracer

I wrote this up tonight in a lot (maybe too much, I tend to ramble) more detail here, but in a nutshell I was able to get the TiVo iOS app to work over an OpenVPN connection on my iPhone over 3G.

What I used:

Buffalo WZR-HP-G300N wireless router running DD-WRT v24-sp2
the TiVo app for iOS (tested v2.0.1 and v2.0.2)
iPhone 4S running iOS 5.1.1 (jailbroken)
GuizmOVPN v1.1.8-pre1 (trial)
My3G v5.3.2 (trial)
xCon v37~beta8

I configured OpenVPN on my router (I had been using PTPP until now for basic remote access) and configured the GuizmOVPN client on my iPhone likewise. I had to use My3G because the TiVo app checks if it's not on Wi-Fi and My3G works around that. As of v2.0.2 of the TiVo app xCon isn't necessary to just run the app, but I'm guessing you'd still need it if you own a Stream.

The end result?
































Here's the kicker, though. I only got it work over WiFi once. I was testing at Starbucks last night and got it working over WiFi on my iPhone. Then I tried my iPad and it wouldn't detect any DVRs. Went back to my iPhone and it wouldn't detect any DVRs either. Tried over and over and could not replicate my initial result. 3G always seems to work though.  I tried a few other WiFi hotspots and could not get the app to detect any DVRs so I can only assume it's something with their config messing with the multicast DNS relay through the tunnel.

I don't own a Stream so I couldn't test that, but hopefully this gives people some ideas and a place to start! :up:


----------



## drewfidelic

I have the Stream sort of working over a VPN wi-fi connection! But only sort of -- possibly because the connection at the remote end is slower (getting about 14 Mb/s down on speedtest on iPhone, vs. a 35 Mb upstream Fios connection at the home end, where the Tivo and Stream are.)

This is only part of the way there. I don't have it yet set up to work without a computer alongside the iOS device on the remote side, nor is it working well. I haven't yet managed to successfully download anything to my iPhone and streaming is stuttery.

I can write up some actual details tomorrow, but I'm thrilled to have gotten this working to the point that I have.

If the standard Apple VPN tools passed Bonjour packets across the VPN, this would be a snap, but of course, that doesn't quite work. The problem with connecting to Tivo over a VPN has to do with how the VPN routes the Bonjour announcements. 

Here's what I did:
1. I have a Mac at home running Mountain Lion (10.8) Server (on the same wired network as the Tivo and stream), where I set up a L2TP VPN and connected to that VPN on the iPhone. 

2. Run Network Beacon on the remote end on a Mac laptop. This is repeating all of the Bonjour information that I found on the Tivo in Bonjour Browser. This computer is not connected to the VPN, but is on the same WiFi network with the iPhone. 

3. Launch the Tivo app. The Tivo shows up and is ready to stream. With more bandwidth on this end, it might have even worked. 

The next step that I need to figure out is using the DNS on Mountain Lion Server to send the Tivo Bonjour broadcasts to the VPN connected clients, which would obviate the need for a remote computer to be part of the mix.


----------



## Dan203

Is OpenVPN only possible on a jailbroken iOS device?

Dan


----------



## Fofer

I believe so. 

I now have QuizmoVPN installed. And how do I import a configuration file for it? Is this generated on the VPN server itself, like perhaps a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300N wireless router running DD-WRT?


----------



## windracer

Fofer said:


> I now have QuizmoVPN installed. And how do I import a configuration file for it? Is this generated on the VPN server itself, like perhaps a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300N wireless router running DD-WRT?


The configuration file for GuizmOVPN is just a plain text file with a .ovpn extension that contains the various OpenVPN directives. But if you're using certificates for OpenVPN, you can put the three certificates (your CA certificate and your client's certificate and key) plus the config into a ZIP file and then import it into GuizmOVPN. You don't have to use certificates for OpenVPN, but that was the way I did it.

For DD-WRT, you configure the OpenVPN settings under Services > VPN (this creates the server config file) and then paste in the contents of the certificates it needs into the proper fields.


----------



## Fofer

wombat94 said:


> PPTP works perfectly for me.
> 
> I have a mac based network, and PPTP is not easily configured on OSX unless you have Lion or Mountain Lion server, so I downloaded EasyVPN... a GUI that enabled PPTP and allows simple administration of VPN accounts.


Me too! :up:

I'd previously had this same setup in order to trick the TWCable (live TV) app to think I was at home, and it works great.










I use the iPad's built-in VPN dialer to connect to EasyVPN on an iMac, and now that app works for me over external WiFi or 3G (with 3G Unrestrictor installed.) I also needed some other tweak called "FakeTimeWarner" allow TWCableTV to run on a jailbroken device, with VPN enabled.



wombat94 said:


> I ran EasyVPN on my MacBook, used the DMZ feature of my router to forward enable PPTP packets to pass through to my MacBook and then set up a PPTP VPN connection on my iPhone.


So I tried this, in order to get TiVo working when I am away from home, as this is far more interesting to me than live TV. My router is a Time Capsule, and on this unit DMZ is called "Default Host."










I set it to point to the IP address of the iMac running Easy VPN. And yet, when I am on a remote network, and I connect to home via VPN, and then launch the TiVo app, it scans for and does NOT find my TiVo. It only lets me operate in "Away" (or "Guest") mode. I'm never able to connect to my Premiere in order to stream anything.

I don't want to have to change my router... I'm just wondering if there's anything I might be missing here, or anything else I should try?


----------



## Fofer

windracer said:


> The configuration file for GuizmOVPN is just a plain text file with a .ovpn extension that contains the various OpenVPN directives. But if you're using certificates for OpenVPN, you can put the three certificates (your CA certificate and your client's certificate and key) plus the config into a ZIP file and then import it into GuizmOVPN. You don't have to use certificates for OpenVPN, but that was the way I did it.
> 
> For DD-WRT, you configure the OpenVPN settings under Services > VPN (this creates the server config file) and then paste in the contents of the certificates it needs into the proper fields.


Thanks so much for this. If I can't get EasyVPN working with the built-in iOS dialer to get TiVo to work as I've wished for years (as I have for TWCable's app) then I will dive in deeper with GuizmoVPN and some other kind of VPN server.


----------



## windracer

I'm not clear on how wombat94's setup is working over PTPP. From what I've read (and in my experience), multicast DNS (Bonjour) traffic will just not go over a PTPP connection. Also, he mentions he launched the TiVo app via a VPN connection over 4G. The TiVo app will not work over a 3G connection, it's WiFi only. So I'm guessing he's jailbroken and was using something like 3G Unrestrictor or My3G like I did in my test.


----------



## Fofer

Yes, I hear ya. I am jailbroken and I have 3G Unrestrictor installed. I also tried via external WiFi though. I guess I'll keep tinkering and monitoring this thread for more breakthroughs and tips. 

I'd love to learn of the most consistent way to get this working, if possible. And if I can use the existing equipment and software I already have, that'd be great.


----------



## notyou

Brad Bishop said:


> I've sort of found a way to make it work outside the home. It's not how you'd want to do it long term but:
> 
> Connect the app to the TiVo on the local network. Press the home button and head out. Go to a bar and connect to your home network via VPN. Now open the TiVo app back up. It'll see the TiVo and it'll let you stream.
> 
> If at any time the TiVo app doesn't see a WiFi connection or you forget and don't connect to VPN then it will reset the app and put it in away mode until it sees the TiVo again.
> 
> Again, this isn't ideal BUT it at least let's you see it work while you're out and about.


Ahhhh, I had it working too a few nights ago (details below) -- tested over my super-slow 3G tethering. But then I stupidly upgraded the TiVo app last night and trying it from work today it fails. I wonder if they are now forcing a Bonjour scan when you switch networks.

Anyways, here's how it was working with the TiVo version *PRIOR* to 2.0.2 (09/26/2012):


Set up VPN on an old G3 Tower running 10.5.
Followed these instructions: http://stormrook.com/2010/05/31/setting-up-a-vpn-server-on-osx/
Configured my Belkin firewall to forward UDP ports 500, 1701 and 4500 to the tower.
Connected iPad to TiVo over my local area network.
Switched to a different app.
Connected iPad to my 3G tethering Android.
Switch back to TiVo app.
Watch the Jeopardy stutter and buffer and play in 10 seconds bursts. Yeah, it's not really optimized for slow cell networks.

Ok, now I'm going to try to set up Network Beacon. Fun fun fun.


----------



## notyou

cipherwar said:


> In order to get this to work you need to setup Wide Area Bonjour. Regular LAN based Bonjour is delivered over ip multicast which isn't typically transported over VPN connections.
> 
> With Wide Area Bonjour you setup a DNS server to advertise the Bonjour services. I see the following Tivo services being advertised via Bonjour on my network:
> 
> _tivo-device._tcp.
> _tivo-mindrpc._tcp.
> _tivo-remote._tcp.
> _tivo-videos.tcp.
> _tivo-videostream._tcp.
> _tivo-xcode._tcp.
> 
> You would need to add mDNS entries for the above records. Then have the VPN client use this DNS server for name resolution. The client should then be able to connect to the services remotely.
> 
> Looks like dyn-dns is offering an experimental bonjour-dns service:
> http://dyn.com/support/bonjour-and-dns-discovery/


Heya Cipher and others -- does anybody happen to know the Ports I should map these services to? Thanks!


----------



## notyou

drewfidelic said:


> 2. Run Network Beacon on the remote end on a Mac laptop. This is repeating all of the Bonjour information that I found on the Tivo in Bonjour Browser. This computer is not connected to the VPN, but is on the same WiFi network with the iPhone.
> 
> 3. Launch the Tivo app. The Tivo shows up and is ready to stream. With more bandwidth on this end, it might have even worked.
> 
> The next step that I need to figure out is using the DNS on Mountain Lion Server to send the Tivo Bonjour broadcasts to the VPN connected clients, which would obviate the need for a remote computer to be part of the mix.


Hey Drew -- this sounds very promising. Could you please post your Network Beacon settings? I got the Services from Cipherwar's post, but I don't have the ports.

Thanks!


----------



## drewfidelic

Download Bonjour Browser from http://www.tildesoft.com/ to get the specific IP addresses, Tivo software and serial number info.

_tivo-device._tcp. uses port 80
_tivo-remote._tcp. uses port 31339
_tivo-videos._tcp. uses port 443
_tivo-videostream._tcp. uses port 443
_http._tcp. uses port 80
_tivo-xcode._tcp. uses port 49152

The service name is the Premiere name (and proxied in Network Beacon using the Premiere's IP address) except for tivo-xcode which uses the Stream's name. There are two instances of the _http._tcp., one for the Premiere, the other for the Stream.

I've successfully streamed remotely over VPN, but the video wasn't entirely smooth. Going back to try a second streaming session or download later, I couldn't reconnect to the Stream. I think there may be other discussion between the Stream and the iOS app when they pair that I'm not getting routed across the VPN.


----------



## GTXgp

I have had my TiVos now for a few months and I am quite happy with them. In fact, I am flying to my mom's next week to convert all of her STBs to TiVo's because she is frustrated with Cox's STBs. One feature I have been looking forward to is the Stream because I was under the impression that it would stream when not at home (like Sling). Obviously I was disappointed that is not the case.

My first reaction was to VPN into my home network, which after some frustration with iOS's VPN, did get connected to a Windows 7 VPN. I have DD-WRT on my router but was unable to get iOS to connect to it. I am having the same TiVo Stream connection issues as the rest of you. I will be taking several multi-week trips over the next year and having this work remotely would be a real benefit.



Brad Bishop said:


> I've sort of found a way to make it work outside the home. It's not how you'd want to do it long term but:
> 
> Connect the app to the TiVo on the local network. Press the home button and head out. Go to a bar and connect to your home network via VPN. Now open the TiVo app back up. It'll see the TiVo and it'll let you stream.
> 
> If at any time the TiVo app doesn't see a WiFi connection or you forget and don't connect to VPN then it will reset the app and put it in away mode until it sees the TiVo again.
> 
> Again, this isn't ideal BUT it at least let's you see it work while you're out and about.


I did manage to get this to work once, but have been unable to repeat since.



drewfidelic said:


> Download Bonjour Browser from http://www.tildesoft.com/ to get the specific IP addresses, Tivo software and serial number info.
> 
> _tivo-device._tcp. uses port 80
> _tivo-remote._tcp. uses port 31339
> _tivo-videos._tcp. uses port 443
> _tivo-videostream._tcp. uses port 443
> _http._tcp. uses port 80
> _tivo-xcode._tcp. uses port 49152
> 
> The service name is the Premiere name (and proxied in Network Beacon using the Premiere's IP address) except for tivo-xcode which uses the Stream's name. There are two instances of the _http._tcp., one for the Premiere, the other for the Stream.
> 
> I've successfully streamed remotely over VPN, but the video wasn't entirely smooth. Going back to try a second streaming session or download later, I couldn't reconnect to the Stream. I think there may be other discussion between the Stream and the iOS app when they pair that I'm not getting routed across the VPN.


What did you do to get it working? What about forwarding 80, 31339, 443, 49152 from the router to the VPN server?


----------



## mitchk03

I too have been playing around with this. I'm using a Sonicwall TZ100 and the VPN client on the iPad.

I connected via a neighbor's WiFi, fired up VPN and have the same experiance as others. If I had the TiVo app open and running on my network before I flipped over to my neighbor w/ VPN, The TiVo app works. But, if you close the app and reopen, no joy.

I think this may have less to do with ports than it does with the iPad's VPN. While still on VPN, I went to Safari and entered TiVo IP addresses in my Home. I get to them. I think entered the IP address of my neighbors router. I can get to it. This I think is the problem. 

I know that my VPN server assigned me an IP on my home network. If I can still Browse to my Neighbors IP's (his router) then all IP traffic is not being properly forwarded to MY network. 

This causes the TiVo app to know something's fishy. It's looking on the local network addresses, not being properly sent through the VPN Tunnel.

That's my theory. 

Thoughts?

-mk


----------



## GTXgp

I agree. If it was a simple Bonjour or Multicast issue then we shouldn't be able to fool the app by not completely closing it before logging in to VPN.


----------



## SandDune

Check and make sure "Send All Traffic" in the VPN Configuration is set to On. If its On, and you're still seeing stuff inside you're friends network, something is fishy in the VPN client (assuming your friends network isn't routable from the outside world).


----------



## GTXgp

SandDune said:


> Check and make sure "Send All Traffic" in the VPN Configuration is set to On. If its On, and you're still seeing stuff inside you're friends network, something is fishy in the VPN client (assuming your friends network isn't routable from the outside world).


Unfortunately, the iOS VPN client is not very robust and does not allow for much troubleshooting. However, there is a "send all traffic" tab that is set on by default.


----------



## wkearney99

Also be sure your network devices properly handle multicast traffic. Many interfaces based on Realtek chips do a terrible job of handling multicast packets. The only ones I've found that do it reliably are Intel-based network chipsets. 

I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope for getting it to work over a VPN. Too many variables and too much dependency on the software not screwing it up. Multicast is very poorly understood and often very badly implemented in software.


----------



## kylen

Has anyone tried Bonjour Beacon on Windows? It looks sort of similar to Network Beacon on the Mac. Though I have no idea what configuration values I need to use.


----------



## morac

Apple is trying to update the Bonjour spec to let it work over WAN, though I doubt TiVo would implement that.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/1...-bonjour-compatible-with-enterprise-networks/


----------



## Dan203

Why not? Unless they are getting particular pressure from some partner I can't imagine they'd have anything against it. They want the product to appeal to as many people as possible, so why not add something that might broaden it's appeal?

Dan


----------



## morac

Dan203 said:


> Why not? Unless they are getting particular pressure from some partner I can't imagine they'd have anything against it. They want the product to appeal to as many people as possible, so why not add something that might broaden it's appeal?
> 
> Dan


Because TiVo's MRV/MRS is designed to only work in a household. There's no reason to have it work in a university wide WAN.


----------



## Fofer

To an pre-authorized iPad, though? Would be great.


----------



## bradleys

morac said:


> Because TiVo's MRV/MRS is designed to only work in a household. There's no reason to have it work in a university wide WAN.


I thought TiVo had expressed some interst in extending the stream remotely. I don't remember if that was a survey question or a forward looking statement in an interview I read.

At any rate, If apple does extend Bonjour to the WAN, TiVo may have to make modifications to "prevent" it from working...


----------



## ligand

windracer said:


> The configuration file for GuizmOVPN is just a plain text file with a .ovpn extension that contains the various OpenVPN directives. But if you're using certificates for OpenVPN, you can put the three certificates (your CA certificate and your client's certificate and key) plus the config into a ZIP file and then import it into GuizmOVPN. You don't have to use certificates for OpenVPN, but that was the way I did it.
> 
> For DD-WRT, you configure the OpenVPN settings under Services > VPN (this creates the server config file) and then paste in the contents of the certificates it needs into the proper fields.


Hi! I was able to setup my network to stream Tivo over a VPN connection to my iPads. I needed to jailbreak them to allow it to work and I needed to use Guizovpn to make the VPN connection. I worked with the developer to fix a problem whereby the VPN client only allowed the transmission of multicast packets over 3G (not WiFi). He fixed it and now it supports multicast over 3G and WiFi. 

I have an asus RT-66U with Shibby's Tomato build on it and configured an OpenVPN server using the "tap" interface.

So far it works fairly well, although the stream stutters a lot more than it does over local wifi even though I'm on a fairly beefy internet connection. As a side note I was also able to connect to my airplay speakers at home too.


----------



## drewfidelic

The biggest difficulty is the Bonjour side, but I've managed to successfully (slowly) download outside of my home network from the Stream by opening those ports in my router to the Tivo devices (both the stream and the XL4 advertise services on Port 80 and my router unsurprisingly doesn't allow to forward traffic to two internal devices, so the Stream was et up as a DMZ host). Then, by advertising the services to the iPad using Network Beacon with the public IP address of my home network as the "proxy address" in Network Beacon on a computer on the same subnet as the iPad, the Tivo app works. So VPN is not technically necessary for remote Stream access, but a willingness to play with the firewall on your home network is.


----------



## Fofer

So that I understand it, there are now two ways to get the TiVo iOS app and the TiVo Stream to be able to work from outside your home (for both downloading shows as well as streaming, albeit choppily for the latter.) Both of these ways require that you first establish a VPN connection.

The first requires a jailbroken iOS device, with Guizovpn client installed, and a router that has Open VPN server, presumably via a firmware like Tomato.

The second doesn't require the device be jailbroken, or Guizovpn... but does rely upon "Network Beacon" software, and that means an actual computer running it both at home, as well as on the road, on another computer, in the remote location you're at.

Does that about sum the current state of affairs up?


----------



## windracer

ligand said:


> Hi! I was able to setup my network to stream Tivo over a VPN connection to my iPads. I needed to jailbreak them to allow it to work and I needed to use Guizovpn to make the VPN connection. I worked with the developer to fix a problem whereby the VPN client only allowed the transmission of multicast packets over 3G (not WiFi). He fixed it and now it supports multicast over 3G and WiFi.


Ah, so that explains why I wasn't able to get it to work over WiFi in my initial testing. Cool, thanks for the update, and glad to know it worked for you!


----------



## Snake Plissken

So before I buy a stream ...if I read this thread correctly there's no easy way to watch outside of my home network and I can only transfer items that my TIVO desktop used to allow me to transfer to my laptop. Is that an accurate statement?


----------



## windracer

Yes.


----------



## magnus

I thought you could not use the tivo app with a jailbroken iOS device. Is that not true anymore?


----------



## windracer

magnus said:


> I thought you could not use the tivo app with a jailbroken iOS device. Is that not true anymore?


That was fixed a point version or two ago. The app will run on a jailbroken device, but you can't use any of the Stream functionality.


----------



## David Platt

windracer said:


> That was fixed a point version or two ago. The app will run on a jailbroken device, but you can't use any of the Stream functionality.


There's an easy workaround to let you use the Stream functions on a jailbroken device, though.


----------



## ligand

David Platt said:


> There's an easy workaround to let you use the Stream functions on a jailbroken device, though.


Correct. The app is called xcon and is available in Cydia.


----------



## drewfidelic

Fofer said:


> The second doesn't require the device be jailbroken, or Guizovpn... but does rely upon "Network Beacon" software, and that means an actual computer running it both at home, as well as on the road, on another computer, in the remote location you're at.
> 
> Does that about sum the current state of affairs up?


The Network Beacon or Bonjour Beacon method only requires one computer, and that computer needs to be same local network as the iOS device (NOT on the same network as the Tivo and Stream.) It does require (on most home networks) opening up port forwarding in your router to allow the iOS device to access the Tivos from outside of the home network.


----------



## kylen

drewfidelic said:


> The Network Beacon or Bonjour Beacon method only requires one computer, and that computer needs to be same local network as the iOS device (NOT on the same network as the Tivo and Stream.) It does require (on most home networks) opening up port forwarding in your router to allow the iOS device to access the Tivos from outside of the home network.


I thought Network Beacon/Bonjour Beacon was running on the network with the Tivo/Stream, to replicate the Bonjour for the VPN. If the iOS device is creating a VPN connection, how would it even see a Network Beacon/Bonjour Beacon on it's local network? Once it connects to the VPN, it's local network IS the Tivo/Stream network.

Has anyone streamed successfully using Bonjour Beacon? If so, could you post a network diagram and config?


----------



## RichB

I am also interested in figuring out the bonjour service.
It appears to be running multiple devices in my network.

What ports does TiVo and bonjour need exposed?

Thanks, 

- Rich


----------



## vectorcatch

They finally released an actual open VPN client for iOS.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/openvpn-connect/id590379981?mt=8

Has anyone tried it with the stream?


----------



## windracer

Wow, interesting. I'll grab it just in case it gets pulled for some reason.


----------



## morac

The OpenVPN app only supports TUN bridging, it doesn't support TAP bridging do to "limitations in iOS", so unless I'm mistaken it won't work for streaming purposes.


----------



## windracer

Yep, I just discovered the same thing while trying to set it up and doing some research. Oh well!


----------



## davidahn

I've been drooling over the possibility of using a TiVo Stream as SlingBox since they announced it. Anyone have any simple, reliable solutions? I was hoping to use an off-the-shelf Netgear FVS-318N, a gigabit VPN router. Anyone use this model or one like it?


----------



## gamo62

Anyone here provide some insight on how to setup the VPN &#8211; PPTP on Windows 8 x64? Thanks.


----------



## Snake Plissken

davidahn said:


> I've been drooling over the possibility of using a TiVo Stream as SlingBox since they announced it. Anyone have any simple, reliable solutions? I was hoping to use an off-the-shelf Netgear FVS-318N, a gigabit VPN router. Anyone use this model or one like it?


I would love to do this


----------



## mattack

Dumb question, if you want a slingbox, why not just get a slingbox?

or do you just want to be able to do this AS WELL as locally download/stream in your house?


----------



## Fofer

The IR-blaster-based control of a Slingbox is very, very clunky, and the PQ suffers due to the transcode. The UI isn't pretty. And it takes over your TiVo so anyone else at home must watch what you're watching. Essentially that whole "solution" is a kludge.

TiVo Stream is much more elegant, and control is IP-based. If only it could stream outside the home (and adapt to network conditions,) it'd be a near-perfect solution.


----------



## Arcady

I love my SlingBox. It is connected to an extra Premiere that nobody will ever watch while I am not home. And I can use MRS to watch content from any other Premiere.

I don't know what's clunky about the remote control. I only use PLAY and 30-sec skip and 8-sec back on it. Works fine.


----------



## Bigg

This is clearly something to do to prove it can be done, not because it is in any way practical. If you're practical, you'd be getting a Slingbox or just torrenting shows or something.

Too bad the Slingbox can't be programmed to control the TiVo over IP like a Crestron system would.


----------



## Gaidin43

Does anyone have updates on getting this to work? I have LTE iPhone 5 jail broken and would love to be able to stream (almost live TV) from my home tivo to my phone or iPad while traveling. 

TiVo stream has so much potential in the TiVo Eco system. If you have a premiere or a premiere xl and the TiVo app to set recordings you could log on your phone app, have it start recording a show, say the live news, and watch it via vpn on your phone anywhere. 

I have been trying to configure vpn to get this to work since speed isn't an issue and I have 30 download and 20+ upload on TiVo/home network side and about the same for my LTE phone. So network speed won't be the issue.


----------



## GTXgp

I figured out a complicated workaround that involves transfering to TiVo Desktop, converting .tivo to .avi or .mpg, then I can push to iOS using VLC. Not exactly the easiest process. 

I ordered a Slingbox350 this week and I'm going to hook it to a guest-room TiVo that gets little use. I will see how well that works for streaming outside the house, but I would still like to be able to transfer when I am away from home. For example, if I am gone for a week and want to transfer a show to watch on the plane home.

I am going out of the country for a month in April and it sucks that TiVo has no native solution for me.


----------



## Gaidin43

Anyone else been able to find a more streamline vpn solution to this yet? I've been trying to get this to work all sorts of ways to watch "live" TV on my phone while away from the home wifi.


----------



## Gaidin43

Has anyone seen this post or tried the steps shown and got it to work with the stream?

http://www.windracer.net/blog/2012/09/using-the-tivo-ios-app-over-a-vpn/


----------



## windracer

Well, I tried it.  But I didn't have a Stream to test with. I originally posted that here. I don't think I ever got confirmation from anyone else that that specific combination worked.


----------



## kylen

Gaidin43 said:


> Has anyone seen this post or tried the steps shown and got it to work with the stream?
> 
> http://www.windracer.net/blog/2012/09/using-the-tivo-ios-app-over-a-vpn/


I keep meaning to try that but haven't had a chance to configure the OpenVPN server on my Windows machine--haven't figured out the config files and how to generate all those certificates for windows (didn't want to re-image my existing router with DD-WRT).


----------



## Fofer

I have a TiVo Premiere and a Stream and a (jailbroken) iPad mini and I'd be willing to try all of that but not so much that I'd have to replace my router. (I'm currently using an Apple Time Capsule that I am happy with.) And at the very least I'd want it to work via WiFi (as I'd rarely connect via 3G/LTE for video streaming.) Anything less and it's not really usable for me, realistically speaking.

I do have EasyVPN installed on a Mac on my home network, and I've connected to it in the past using the built-in VPN dialer that iOS includes. But that doesn't seem to work here, when I launch the TiVo app it scans for compatible boxes and doesn't find any...


----------



## Fofer

I also note that jailbreak tweak "3G Unrestrictor" is able to "trick" the Time Warner TV app to let me connect to my home VPN when I am on remote WiFi and use the app to watch live TV. (This app normally requires you to be physically at home, connected to the same network where your cable modem is.) 
Kinda cool that a tweak normally used to make a 3G connection appear like a WiFi connection (for things like FaceTime) has this side benefit of allowing us to "cloak" a VPN connection too.

And I'm using another jailbreak tweak, xCon, to trick the app into launching on a jailbroken device (as this is also precluded by the native app.)

Interestingly enough, the app only detects the VPN and prevents access when your connection is over WiFi; it doesn't pose an issue if your connection is over 3G/4G/LTE. Alas, with data caps these days I'm not keen to stream live TV that way.

I will also note that I could NOT get "My3G" to allow the same thing. It works fine (for me) with 3G Unrestrictor, but not My3G.

I also tried adding TiVo app to the 3G Unrestrictor app to try the same, but still end up getting the same "no compatible boxes found" after the app scans for one. Bummer. I feel like we're really close, we just need to find the correct ingredients...


----------



## Gaidin43

XCon and unrestrictor 3G seem like they are both Necessary to get this to work as well as a VPN app that handles multistream. The issue that some will have is they will want to use this on a wifi away from home which will require another step in the process to get it to work. I have unlimited LTE so I'm not worries about data limits but I can see how others would be. 

Maybe we are looking at this wrong. Do you think we can get a tweak from cydia that will mod the TiVo. App to thinking it is in it's home network all the time?


----------



## Fofer

Gaidin43 said:


> Do you think we can get a tweak from cydia that will mod the TiVo. App to thinking it is in it's home network all the time?


There is a Cydia app already called "UnrestrictPremium2" (intended to allow for AirPlay out from apps that typically restrict this.) I use it to AirPlay (mirror) from the TiVo app to my AppleTV. It also has a feature/toggle called "Fake Home Status" with that exact description -- but it doesn't seem to work here for me in that context.

Again, this could be because my VPN connection (iOS -> EasyVPN) isn't actually handing multistream.


----------



## Gaidin43

I am almost tempted to return my stream now until this is allowed and just get a sling box. I can still mirror everything to another TV without any restrictions. Only issue is I'm controlling the TV the unit is attached to when compared to just using a tuner like the stream would be.


----------



## Bigg

GTXgp said:


> I figured out a complicated workaround that involves transfering to TiVo Desktop, converting .tivo to .avi or .mpg, then I can push to iOS using VLC. Not exactly the easiest process.
> 
> I ordered a Slingbox350 this week and I'm going to hook it to a guest-room TiVo that gets little use. I will see how well that works for streaming outside the house, but I would still like to be able to transfer when I am away from home. For example, if I am gone for a week and want to transfer a show to watch on the plane home.
> 
> I am going out of the country for a month in April and it sucks that TiVo has no native solution for me.


Doesn't the paid version of TiVo Desktop do that? You could have it running on a machine at home, do the transcode, and then you could slurp the show down via VPN or FTP.


----------



## Fofer

Seems like such a waste of resources to have a computer transcoding every show just to provide the availability of a large file to download. And that would only work on shows that don't have the CC flag set. The whole POINT of the TiVo Stream is for on-demand transcoding and streaming, for all recorded shows.


----------



## Gaidin43

Also you can't watch shows that are being copied by TiVo desktop until they are finished. 

I am looking for a live away from home alternative.


----------



## Fofer

Unfortunately it seems like Sling is the better product for that.

The TiVo Stream is "so close, and yet so far."


----------



## morac

Gaidin43 said:


> Also you can't watch shows that are being copied by TiVo desktop until they are finished.
> 
> I am looking for a live away from home alternative.


I'm able to watch while transferring to TiVo Desktop, though only up to what has already been transferred when I start playing. To go past that I have to close the file and reopen it.


----------



## Gaidin43

Fofer said:


> Unfortunately it seems like Sling is the better product for that.
> 
> The TiVo Stream is "so close, and yet so far."


It would sell so many more units if it allowed AirPlay and wireless steaming away from the home network. I doubt the cable companies would ever allow it though. Even the new models of Slingbox don't have their own built in tuners and require a stb or dvr or player of some sort to stream content.

There has been a huge change I'm how media is consumed and distributed and the media companies are smuggling with how is the best way for them to do it while maintaining the same profits they used to see. All copyright and from protects they build in make it harder for the end user to watch the media they produce.

Things like the stream and the Slingbox need to be combined with an upgraded tivo. That would be the ultimate one box solution. Right now the HTPC is the only real on box solution out there and it takes a little know how.


----------



## Bigg

Fofer said:


> Seems like such a waste of resources to have a computer transcoding every show just to provide the availability of a large file to download. And that would only work on shows that don't have the CC flag set. The whole POINT of the TiVo Stream is for on-demand transcoding and streaming, for all recorded shows.


It depends if you're running a 24/7 machine anyways or how much power a machine would slurp down.



Gaidin43 said:


> It would sell so many more units if it allowed AirPlay and wireless steaming away from the home network. I doubt the cable companies would ever allow it though. Even the new models of Slingbox don't have their own built in tuners and require a stb or dvr or player of some sort to stream content. ...
> 
> Right now the HTPC is the only real on box solution out there and it takes a little know how.


There is no way to stream directly from WMC over the internet that is in any way functional or reliable. The only way is to Sling an XBOX. No joke.

Yeah, it would get kind of sticky to do remote streaming, since it's an all-digital path, unlike the Sling which goes through the analog hole. In-home AirPlay shouldn't be an issue though, as it's no different than a TiVo Mini or anything else, and the quality is lower anyways.


----------



## innocentfreak

Bigg said:


> There is no way to stream directly from WMC over the internet that is in any way functional or reliable. The only way is to Sling an XBOX. No joke.


I always hear people swear by Remote Potato for streaming remotely.


----------



## Bigg

innocentfreak said:


> I always hear people swear by Remote Potato for streaming remotely.


I tried it, it barely works over a LAN. I have no clue how it would work over a WAN. Maybe two FIOS connections, since that would be similar to my LAN...


----------



## dsnotgood

GTXgp said:


> I figured out a complicated workaround that involves transfering to TiVo Desktop, converting .tivo to .avi or .mpg, then I can push to iOS using VLC. Not exactly the easiest process.
> 
> I ordered a Slingbox350 this week and I'm going to hook it to a guest-room TiVo that gets little use. I will see how well that works for streaming outside the house, but I would still like to be able to transfer when I am away from home. For example, if I am gone for a week and want to transfer a show to watch on the plane home.
> 
> I am going out of the country for a month in April and it sucks that TiVo has no native solution for me.


Check out kmttg. You can do all of those in one automated step. Just make sure you check the qs fix box or else encodings get all messed up.


----------



## GTXgp

dsnotgood said:


> Check out kmttg. You can do all of those in one automated step. Just make sure you check the qs fix box or else encodings get all messed up.


That looks interesting, but I would still need an app like VLC to allow me to download to my iPad when I am away from home for offline viewing...


----------



## ShayL

GTXgp said:


> That looks interesting, but I would still need an app like VLC to allow me to download to my iPad when I am away from home for offline viewing...


Once you download, decrypt, and transcode to H264, you just need to put into itunes. You should be able to set the output destination in kmttg to the autoload directory of itunes.


----------



## GTXgp

I understand that, but loading into iTunes doesn't do me any good if I am away from home  VLC allows me to stream or download remotely from my home computer.


----------



## ShayL

I would suggest a slingbox for that scenario.


----------



## malkalm

drewfidelic said:


> The Network Beacon or Bonjour Beacon method only requires one computer, and that computer needs to be same local network as the iOS device (NOT on the same network as the Tivo and Stream.) It does require (on most home networks) opening up port forwarding in your router to allow the iOS device to access the Tivos from outside of the home network.


How do you configure Bonjour Beacon to access your stream?


----------



## Fofer

malkalm said:


> How do you configure Bonjour Beacon to access your stream?


Yeah -- I'd like to try that.


----------



## Fofer

Going through the new Roamio FAQs here, I see:



















(highlighting added by me.)

"Functionality is exactly the same," eh? So does this mean a 2-Tuner Premiere, along with a TiVo Stream (both of which I have,) will eventually allow me to do streaming away from home as well?

Fingers crossed.

(Oh TiVo, please, don't screw this up for us. We've been disappointed for too long and I'm not going to buy a whole new TiVo (and deal with failing at transferring over my library of recordings) just to get features we should have had from the start.)


----------



## kylen

Fofer said:


> Going through the new Roamio FAQs here, I see:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (highlighting added by me.)
> 
> "Functionality is exactly the same," eh? So does this mean a 2-Tuner Premiere, along with a TiVo Stream (both of which I have,) will eventually allow me to do streaming away from home as well?
> 
> Fingers crossed.
> 
> (Oh TiVo, please, don't screw this up for us. We've been disappointed for too long and I'm not going to buy a whole new TiVo (and deal with failing at transferring over my library of recordings) just to get features we should have had from the start.)


I missed those items--the only thing I saw was this item in the comparison chart of the Roamio models:



> Watch Live TV from remote location (coming soon)


Their description of the Roamio says it contains the features of all these other devices--including a Slingbox. But that is entirely untrue--who uses a slingbox to watch stuff at home on another TV?! Everyone uses it to stream stuff outside of the home.

I am hopeful we will finally get a real use for the TiVo Stream the way it should have been from the start!


----------



## windracer

So I won't need my overly complicated jailbroken iPhone + OpenVPN solution?  I'm curious to see how this will work!


----------



## Fofer

windracer said:


> So I won't need my overly complicated jailbroken iPhone + OpenVPN solution?


Does that even work? I recall some dealbreaker you shared, that made it annoying/unreliable.


----------



## windracer

Oh, it's still annoying/unreliable (the VPN overhead is to blame, I believe) but I was more saying that in jest than anything else.


----------



## bradleys

kylen said:


> Their description of the Roamio says it contains the features of all these other devices--including a Slingbox. But that is entirely untrue--who uses a slingbox to watch stuff at home on another TV?! Everyone uses it to stream stuff outside of the home.
> 
> I am hopeful we will finally get a real use for the TiVo Stream the way it should have been from the start!


That is exactly what they are saying... External - they are not comparing local network streaming to Slingbox (RIF)

The reviewers of the Roamio actually tested a beta version of the external streaming service. So we should see it soon on the Roamio line and I would expect - maybe, with the fall release on the Premier line... Maybe...


----------



## billyelliott80

I found a website to watching hulu in arround the world through VPN serive it's extremely easy to use. The customer support and pricing is unbeatable. Seems to be pretty good and easy to use as well.
http://www.streamingvpn.com


----------



## kylen

billyelliott80 said:


> I found a website to watching hulu in arround the world through VPN serive it's extremely easy to use. The customer support and pricing is unbeatable. Seems to be pretty good and easy to use as well.


With the recent updates to the official TiVo app, this thread is kind of moot--the functionality is all there, no VPN needed.


----------



## morac

kylen said:


> With the recent updates to the official TiVo app, this thread is kind of moot--the functionality is all there, no VPN needed.


 Not entirely. TiVo's app won't stream copy protected content out of home, but will stream it in home. For people with highly restrictive cable companies, the updated app doesn't work to stream out of the home.


----------



## TivoQueensDad

morac said:


> Not entirely. TiVo's app won't stream copy protected content out of home, but will stream it in home. For people with highly restrictive cable companies, the updated app doesn't work to stream out of the home.


Ding ding ding - give that man a prize!

I'm thinking I'd love to go on vacation somewhere - bring my mini along and be able to watch my shows via a VPN - using the vacation home as an extension (via VPN) of my regular home. As long as the bandwidth is there, it should work....and much easier than moving the Roamio itself.


----------



## kylen

morac said:


> Not entirely. TiVo's app won't stream copy protected content out of home, but will stream it in home. For people with highly restrictive cable companies, the updated app doesn't work to stream out of the home.


Odd, I didn't even realize those were blacked out--I could have sworn they were still allowing streaming just not downloading. It's ridiculous that they are blocking that.


----------



## windracer

You can also still use this method to stream over cellular, which the current TiVo app won't do either.


----------



## morac

windracer said:


> You can also still use this method to stream over cellular, which the current TiVo app won't do either.


The app does allow you to download over cellular, so it's a lot easier to simply do that than try to set up a VPN.


----------



## Fofer

Of course I'd only try that on an unlimited data plan, or a plan with enough to cover those GBs. These TiVo files are huge.


----------



## windracer

The app transcodes them, though.


----------



## Fofer

windracer said:


> The app transcodes them, though.


But doesn't the file need to get to the device first in order for the app to transcode it? (Or do you mean the STREAM transcodes it?)

And to what size? I mean, heck, even at 250 MB it would be a significant file to contend with over cellular. And someone with a 2 GB/month plan should know what they're getting into. At least with streaming it's only transferring what I'm actually watching, as I watch it.

Not to mention, if a recording has a CCI byte set, I can't download it (home or away) and I can't stream it (away) so the point, given the context of this conversation, is largely moot for many users (and especially users on Time Warner) anyway.


----------



## windracer

Fofer said:


> But doesn't the file need to get to the device first in order for the app to transcode it? (Or do you mean the STREAM transcodes it?)


Right, I meant the Stream transcodes it, so the file sizes are significantly smaller (and vary based on the quality you select).

But yes, you're right ... the file sizes can still be significant if you're dealing with a 3gb monthly plan, and the CCI-byte restrictions really suck (and this is a problem with TiVo's OOH streaming/download as well).


----------



## Bigg

TivoQueensDad said:


> Ding ding ding - give that man a prize!
> 
> I'm thinking I'd love to go on vacation somewhere - bring my mini along and be able to watch my shows via a VPN - using the vacation home as an extension (via VPN) of my regular home. As long as the bandwidth is there, it should work....and much easier than moving the Roamio itself.


For a second home... Slingbox... anywhere else... how about going on vacation and not watching TV?


----------

