# Are TiVo servers involved in in home streaming?



## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

I was sitting across the room from my access point earlier trying to get the Rose Bowl to stream to my Nexus 7, and all I could get was endless spinning circles with, perhaps once every few minutes a brief burst of picture and sound.

The network was functioning perfectly well. I could download things from my computer at full speed.

The only thing I can think of is that everyone else is trying to stream the Rose Bowl at the same time and somehow TiVo servers have to be involved in the process.

I always sort of hoped that the initial login was the only place it phoned home.

Anyone have some other explanation? Streaming always worked fine when I used it with all the same hardware before.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Are you sure it was in "in home" mode? Sometimes I use mine and even though I'm on my local network it goes into out of home mode. You can tell because it will have some green quality dots along the bottom of the screen. If it happened you can bring up the remote control portion of the app and it will give you an error about only working at home then ask you if you want to connect.

The other thing it could be is your Stream. Even the one inside the Roamio is a separate unit. You can reboot it from the System Information section inside the app, without having to reboot the whole TiVo.


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## PCurry57 (Feb 27, 2012)

Android or iOS?

The old Android app before stream compatibility had to know the MAC Key, you had to enter it. The new Streaming supported version seems to be being this from TiVo servers. This requiring an internet connection to do anything. There is an option in settings I believe in streaming setup that enables the proxy setup. I've never tried unchecking that to see if it works.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

I think you mean MAK.

Small detail, big difference.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> Are you sure it was in "in home" mode?


When I tried it again later to check, it was definitely coming up by default with "in home" mode. And, of course, it worked perfectly when I just streamed sports center long after the games were over. It sure seems like something was clogging the works only during the ball game :-(.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Same here when I tried to stream remotely over the holidays Tom - it was just about useless.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

There are indications they are working on a way to eliminate the proxy server and allow direct port forwarding instead. I'm betting OOH streaming is more reliable once they get that up and running.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

The entire proxy situation at Tivo has been a nightmare. Dan, am I correct in understanding that the old Amazon Instant Download used that same proxy solution? Not the new streaming stuff, but the old download?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wmhjr said:


> The entire proxy situation at Tivo has been a nightmare. Dan, am I correct in understanding that the old Amazon Instant Download used that same proxy solution? Not the new streaming stuff, but the old download?


That was different. It actually used an instant messaging system. (they touted it a long time ago) Basically the Amazon servers would send a message to the TiVo servers which would then IM your TiVo telling it to download the video. However to limit the resources it used the TiVo would only check the IMs like every 5 minutes, which is why there could be a lag between when you ordered a movie and when it started to download. They also claimed it could be used to fix last minute lineup changes but AFAIK they only used it once, a looooong time ago, for that purpose when an episode of Friends got moved last minute.

The proxy they use for streaming is a 3rd party service they're contracted with. I assume they did this for simplicity, as most people don't know how to open ports in their firewall and allow outside access. It looks like the new solution they're working on would use uPNP which allows the app itself to talk to your firewall and open up the port automatically, making the process a lot simpler for the average Joe. By eliminating the proxy you'd reduce the number of hops your stream had to take across the internet and eliminate any bandwidth constraints the proxy server itself might impose.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Dan, I wasn't talking about the request process for Amazon Instant Downloads. I was talking about the content delivery part. I was under the impression that content purchased/rented from Amazon Instant Download via Tivo was actually routed through Tivo, and Tivo proxied the content delivery to the subscribers unit (HD, Premier, Roamio). 

There were two key problems as I recall with that overall service. One was the potential delay between an order and a download starting. That was actually the least debilitating of the issues. The other was the download itself, which was HIGHLY problematic. At first and for quite a while, it seemed to work pretty well. Then there was a bad spell in 2012 IIRC where for me (and according to others) it got pretty flaky. Then it got better, until about 6-9 months ago when I finally gave up on it completely. The blue light would come on, data would start moving, but so friggin slow that I did the math and several movie titles would have taken days to complete a download. If ever, as the speed was obviously not constant. 

My understanding was that the content itself was not being downloaded directly from Amazon to unique Tivos, but was in fact being routed through Tivo, which was the problem.

BTW, I'm in the IT field (sometimes standing alone  ) and fully understand the nature of proxies, reverse proxies, etc.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I have no idea if the actual data was routed through a proxy or not. I always assumed it was delivered directly from Amazon's servers but I never really investigated it. I never really used the Amazon option much.


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