# HOWTO - use a TiVo like a Slingbox



## kennybain (Nov 25, 2005)

The SlingBox is a fantastic addition to any TiVo, but the other day I got to wondering if it was really even needed. I asked myself would be possible to use my Series 2 DirecTiVo (with "zippered" enhancements) as if it were a Slingbox? So, I started playing around with my setup and I found out that the short answer to this question is "yes"! 

I have decided to post a quick HOWTO on what I have done, as an effort to get people to start poking around with using a TiVo in this manner. Obviously, the SlingBox is a wonderful tool, but with a little refining, a "zippered" TiVo and a couple of open source tools would work just the same!

A brief summary of my setup (hardware and software) is:

Hardware -
Series 2 DirecTiVo (with "zipper" hack)
Apple PowerBook G4
Linksys WRT54G 

Software -
vserver running on TiVo
TiVoTool 0.6.1 running on PowerBook
DD-WRT firmware hack installed on WRT54G

I will skip over the process of performing the zipper hack. It's the one that is on this board by Gunnyman, Rbautch, and others involved in that process... (thanks guys!). Installing DD-WRT is not necessary, but I think the QoS features will help when streaming remotely.

So, from my "zippered" TiVo, I used the Hackman module / web interface to run vserver on startup. Then, with TiVoTool installed on my PowerBook, I was able to do the standard browsing/watching/extracting of shows on my TiVo over my home network. 

But - since TiVoTool simply interfaces with vserver (over the home network) and lets you use your Mac as if it were another TiVo - the thought I had was, "What would keep this from working off my network - like if I wanted to watch something on my laptop at work, or while away on vacation?"

So, now - the fun part begins! I already had a static IP address on my home router. I have not spent much time poking at vserver with TiVoTool to see what ports were needed, so I decided to briefly opened up ports 1024 to 65535. Then I opened my TiVoTool program up and told it to look for vserver on my public IP address (back on the home router). Sure enough - it found it right away! (If you don't have a public IP address, I see no reason that something like DynDNS would not work just fine.)

So, with TiVoTool I was browsing my list of recorded shows just fine, as well as downloading them over the internet, and watching / streaming them! Even better - I can also watch the "live" streams on my TiVo. The only issue I'm seeing is that it occasionally does start & stop, which I suspect is an issue with limited upstream bandwidth - I only have 256kbps up at the moment. I think that I can play around with the program preferences, under the "stream" section, and adjust the cache setting, as well as the setting of when to begin playing (% of cache full) and make this issue improve or go away.

The issues I see with this that need to be explored and refined:

1. Biggest one - how secure is my TiVo when these ports are exposed? I'd hate to see someone get into the box and delete data (shows). Of course there are a lot of things that can happen to it besides this. I'd like to poke around on this some more and see what ports are needed - or if anyone knows the answer, feel free to post it here. There's no need of having everything open if we can be specific.

2. On the topic of security - how obvious would the TiVo be to a malicious person when it's made available like this? If more people started accessing their TiVo's like this - how difficult would it be to get vserver and TiVoTool to ask for a password? 

3. Is there some hack that would allow us to remotely change channels on the TiVo? If so, then we would, in effect, have the same capabilities of a SlingBox!

4. How much bandwidth is NEEDED on the upstream link? I'm going to play with my settings on 256kbps before I upgrade to more bandwidth, but I'd love to hear from others that get this going and see how well it works for them.


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

1+2) VERY insecure... tivo tools haven't been designed with security in mind... even with a uname/passwd, a dedicated hacker could almost assuredly find a way to mess with your tivo.

3) Unfortunately, changing channels on tivos with s/w versions >4 isn't really possible right now... there IS a hack called routerplus by ADH that COULD allow something like that, but nobody has released a utility to do so (it's non-trivial)

4) if you're talking about SA content, it depends on the recording quality

If you're truly concerned about security, you may want to look into SSH tunneling... it should allow access without too much effort (tho it would require an SSH server in your tivo's network... I don't know if the tivo has the horsepower to handle ssh by itself)

EDIT: just saw in the files section on DDB that ssh CAN be run on the tivo itself... guess it doesn't need as much horsepower as I supposed for encryption, though I don't know what sort of throughput you'd get running it there.


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## kennybain (Nov 25, 2005)

Hi and thanks for that feedback! I realize there are some huge insecurities in doing things this way - but I hope to generate some interest in using the TiVo in this manner and hopefully see improvements in security made. I know that the TiVo was never intended to be used in this manner, so such security measures were never taken into consideration. 

It's easy to use a TiVo in this manner when a broad range of ports are open. I know better than to leave it open (with all those ports open) for more than a few minutes, though. I'm just hoping to generate a little interest in using one like this and see what comes out of it!

BTW - I have an iMac running on this network, so setting up a decent little SSH server on the network would be fairly trivial. Good idea!


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

well, afaik vserver only uses a single port: 8074 is the default, I believe... try only opening that port and see how it goes.


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## Biggles209 (Dec 17, 2006)

I've also just started messing around with remote access to my TiVo's. I have three at one location, and one at another. All are DirecTV, with the PTVnet software. I have just acquired two Linsys WRT54GL routers, and I putting the DD-WRT with OpenVPN on them. I'm also using DynDNS. My hope is that the router-router VPN tunnel will allow both networks to see each other transparently, so that I can do TiVo-TiVo transfers regardless of location. Sure, the transfers will be a little slow (prelimary tests show about 30-60 minutes for a one hour show), but I can live with that.

You could set up your WRT54G as a VPN server, and then connect in from the laptop. This should be secure.


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## kennybain (Nov 25, 2005)

BTUx9 said:


> well, afaik vserver only uses a single port: 8074 is the default, I believe... try only opening that port and see how it goes.


BTUx9 - 
Thanks! It does, in fact, connect to the TiVo player when that port is open. However, it seems to want to refresh some information, and when it tries that, it just sits there. That leads me to believe that it is looking for something on another port somewhere. I'll get a port scanner running locally and see what I can turn up.

But - back to a security standpoint, how dangerous would it be to have port 8074 open all of the time? i.e., what exactly can be done over that port?

Any thoughts on that?


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## sfxc13 (Nov 28, 2007)

Anything ever come of this thread? I am trying to do something similar but have been mainly running into network speed issues.


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## unclemoosh (Sep 11, 2004)

TivoWebPlus has a Live TV module. This allows password protected access. TWP also allows you to change the port it uses, so you can pick some obscure port and point your router to your TiVo. If someone is lucky enough to guess your domain, port, user name and password, you're out of luck.

TWP also has a remote function, so you can change the channel or watch from your NPL.

The problem is speed. I have a cable ISP with 1 meg up and it's not enough. Audio is fine, video is not. So, I don't know how much you need to get the video smooth, but, I 've got all my ISP has to offer and it's not enough.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

This is a bad idea for so many reasons
Security sucks for one.
Upstream data also is severely limiting.

If you REALLY don't want a slingbox you can configure a Windows machine for streaming over the net and use the TiVo's output to a capture card.


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

BTUx9 said:


> 3) Unfortunately, changing channels on tivos with s/w versions >4 isn't really possible right now... there IS a hack called routerplus by ADH that COULD allow something like that, but nobody has released a utility to do so (it's non-trivial)


What about sendkeyplus?


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## djl25 (May 26, 2005)

The 'remote function' in TWP that Moosh mentioned above is a graphical web interface for Sendkeyplus.



JamieP said:


> What about sendkeyplus?


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

JamieP said:


> What about sendkeyplus?


yes, sendkeyplus works (my comment was posted in 1/07... sendkeyplus wasn't released until 9/07)


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

BTUx9 said:


> yes, sendkeyplus works (my comment was posted in 1/07... sendkeyplus wasn't released until 9/07)


duh. here I thought I was reading a current thread.... Sorry about that.


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