# Any tips of VPNing to Tivo from abroad?



## OrangeDrink (Feb 10, 2004)

I presume a lot of you guys are running this sort of setup to control TivoWebPlus from work and the like? My situation is I'm back in New Zealand but I modified my old Virgin Scenium and donated it to my folks when I was home over Christmas. So far they love it but it would be really useful for me to be able to do things like change the odd setting or upgrade some things remotely, perhaps add in a couple of new hacks, you know that sort of thing. My dad's router has VPN capabilities and I was wondering if any kind soul can give me some pointers about how to set it up for my to be able to get onto the Tivo from down under? Maybe there's a good tutorial online somewhere?

Any help much appreciated!

By the way Tivoland Dave, new Hard Drive and Cachecard fitted no problem, runs like a dream. Thanks dude!


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Yes I can VPN into my router at home from work and get access to my TiVo (and all other resources on my home network).

You simply (??) just set up your VPN link (router to router) I am using a Vigor 2900 at work and NetGear DG834G at home. There were plenty of notes on the Vigor site connecting Vigor VPN to other routers including DG834G, I just followed the instructions and it worked first time.

I have also installed the NetGear VPN client software (£23) on my PC at work and again have been able to VPN to my DG834G at home. Make sure you disable VPN on router at work and allow VPN passthrough else this doesn't work.

Once connected type in the web address of your TiVo and away you go. Mond you anyone else at work can also access TiVoWeb so be careful......

The 3 attached images are DG834G Status, Vigor 2900 Status and TiVoweb access from work as captured just now.


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## OrangeDrink (Feb 10, 2004)

thanks. Will have to check if I can do that with my current NZ set up, I have separate D-Link ADSL modem and D-Link Wireless Router. Gonna have to dig out the manuals to see if they even have VPN capability otherwise I may be going shopping again! Cheers Ian


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

What are the advantages of using VPN instead of just normal port forwarding on the router with Tivoweb set up for say port 443 and with a username and password entered in tivoweb.cfg?

Does VPN mean that there is no possibility anyone else can access the machine but at the cost of not being able to access it from a webcafe and/or other PCs where you may not be able to set up VPN access?


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

If your dad doesn't mind you taking over his PC occasionally, you could always use LogMeIn or GoToMyPC. He would have to run the server, but LogMeIn has a free version.

I use GoToMyPC to access my home PC from literally anywhere, and from there I can access my TiVo.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> I use GoToMyPC to access my home PC from literally anywhere, and from there I can access my TiVo.


Including telnet and ftp access I imagine, which would then also mean you could download programs off your Tivo in theory from elsewhere. Of course the size of most Tivo recordings (especially in Mode 0) might deter you from doing this.


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

Pete77 said:


> Including telnet and ftp access I imagine, which would then also mean you could download programs off your Tivo in theory from elsewhere. Of course the size of most Tivo recordings (especially in Mode 0) might deter you from doing this.


Especially since I would have to download the recording at the maximum upload speed of my remote PC.

By the way, since I use VBR, my Mode 0 recordings are only just over half the size of a standard TiVo recording. Another good reason for using Mode 0. If you use VBR, you have to ignore the TiVo's estimate of freespace, since it incorrectly calculates it using the maximum bitrate, and not the target (average) bitrate.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> By the way, since I use VBR, my Mode 0 recordings are only just over half the size of a standard TiVo recording. Another good reason for using Mode 0.


But as I recall it this is because your VBR rate is only 4500000 rather than the 7500000 favoured by blindlemon, as you find this deals better with the white flashes problem.

I suppose with my 500Gb of disk space if I went for everything at Mode 0 with VBR with those settings I would probably get about 248 hours total recording time. That would I imagine keep the Tivo menus super fast with Cachecard and 512MB of RAM, rather than the snails crawl I put up with under 613 hours at Basic.

If I can take some brave decisions on deleting a lot of old recordings that I will never find time to actually watch I suppose I could give this a go.


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## DeadKenny (Nov 9, 2002)

Alternative to VPN is SSH. More control over that as you just open the ports you want to tunnel rather than having your remote computer become part of the network (flaw with VPN is any machine authorised to the network is then trusted and if that machine has a virus...).


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

Pete77 said:


> But as I recall it this is because your VBR rate is only 4500000 rather than the 7500000 favoured by blindlemon, as you find this deals better with the white flashes problem.


My rate for Best is 9000000/4800000, and I get a couple of white flashes about once every six months or so. 

While I accept that I'm lucky with my particular motherboard, I think that Blindlemon's settings may be a bit conservative and, if the user has access to TivoWeb, they might like to try tweaking their settings a little.

I should point out that I'm not using a plasma or LCD as my main TV, so I don't have a problem with the the Mode-0 quality on my 32" CRT TV. However, I find the quality of 'archived' Mode-0 recordings to be very good when seen on large LCD PC screens, so I don't really see the need to increase my target VBR setting.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> While I accept that I'm lucky with my particular motherboard, I think that Blindlemon's settings may be a bit conservative and, if the user has access to TivoWeb, they might like to try tweaking their settings a little.


I think blindlemon's settings are more what I'd call purist than conservative. That is that they put the search for best possible picture quality ahead of other issues such as the white flashes problem and of course maximising recording space which your settings do a significantly better job of. Of course blindlemon does also offer his less agressive range of Mode 0 settings too.

I'm running with 1700000 Variable and 2300000 Max bit rates on Basic now and have seen a definite reduction/elimination of blockiness in fast action sequences as a result.

As to tolerating Basic I think that's largely down to this Philips 29" 100hz tv which probably doesn't have the world's sharpest picture. But as Tivo doesn't seem to work too well with certainly LCD and probably Plasma tvs I was thinking of buying a 32 or 36" better quality make CRT widescreen tv off Ebay but that then leaves me in the quandry of what to do with my Philips, which has no value to speak of on Ebay, is too big for my bedrooms and I'm reluctant to take to the scrap heap while still fully functional.


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## arturus (Feb 11, 2002)

I have the same router as you, but it has GT after the DG834, I looked into running a VPN server from it - but was told it couldn't do it! Do I have a differtent router, or am I missing something?

Cheers,

Keith


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

DG834GT is the same router with a better chipset & ADSL2+ compatible. If the DG834 can act as a VPN server (which is news to me and I've owned about 3 in the past) then the GT can too.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Tony Hoyle said:


> DG834GT is the same router with a better chipset & ADSL2+ compatible.


DG834G is also ADSL2+ compatible. Its just that it only support 54Mbps rather than 108Mbps as the fastest maximum wireless transfer speed.


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## OrangeDrink (Feb 10, 2004)

Pete77 said:


> What are the advantages of using VPN instead of just normal port forwarding on the router with Tivoweb set up for say port 443 and with a username and password entered in tivoweb.cfg?
> 
> Does VPN mean that there is no possibility anyone else can access the machine but at the cost of not being able to access it from a webcafe and/or other PCs where you may not be able to set up VPN access?


There's never no possibility, even the most secure machines worldwide get hacked sometimes, but as I understand it (and I'm no network guru) VPN gives you much better security than port forwarding and username/password but yes you'd be limited to accessing TiVo from places the router at the other end is set up to use.

My dad used to be a Network manager in Local Government so there's no way he'd let me do port forwarding


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

OrangeDrink said:


> My dad used to be a Network manager in Local Government so there's no way he'd let me do port forwarding


I thought once he was back home he might enjoy dispensing with all the unnecessary extra costs imposed by excessive government red tape.


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## OrangeDrink (Feb 10, 2004)

Pete77 said:


> I thought once he was back home he might enjoy dispensing with all the unnecessary extra costs imposed by excessive government red tape.


No I think he's concentrated on completely forgetting everything he once knew about computers except how to crash them... left him with TivoWeb for 30 seconds and he managed to force a reboot of the machine!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

OrangeDrink said:


> No I think he's concentrated on completely forgetting everything he once knew about computers except how to crash them... left him with TivoWeb for 30 seconds and he managed to force a reboot of the machine!


Not hard using TivoWeb to be fair. All you need to do is run Search by Advisory Codes and then reorder the Season Passes!

Perhaps you should install TivoWebPlus 2.0 (formerly 1.4 Beta) which is allegedly crash resistant but has fewer add on third party modules available.


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