# streaming like a sling box



## rhapsody (Sep 18, 2010)

Is there anyway that a Tivo can 'sling' or stream video to anywhere on the internet for remote viewing?

This would be a great feature set that I wish TIVO would make.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

rhapsody said:


> Is there anyway that a Tivo can 'sling' or stream video to anywhere on the internet for remote viewing?
> 
> This would be a great feature set that I wish TIVO would make.


Hmm... Interesting.
I'm wondering if a PC app could be setup to get the Now Playing List via the TiVo's (local) web interface and present a list of non-copy protected content to a webpage. Clicking a uri would trigger a download that would be piped to tivodecode which could then be piped to media player on the remote connection...

Problems I envision with such an app:

Limited _upload_ bandwidth from the LAN to the WAN
Transcoding time to reduce bitrate to overcome upload bandwidth limitations

Tivodecode not liking an incomplete file to work with


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## rhapsody (Sep 18, 2010)

Very cool idea. Essentially I wish TIVO would build in the Slingbox functionality like Dishnetwork is doing with their new DVR's.


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## jkovach (Feb 17, 2000)

rhapsody said:


> Very cool idea. Essentially I wish TIVO would build in the Slingbox functionality like Dishnetwork is doing with their new DVR's.


Not likely to happen. Slingbox is a product of Sling Media, which is now a subsidiary of EchoStar Corp, which also own Dish Network.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

rhapsody said:


> Is there anyway that a Tivo can 'sling' or stream video to anywhere on the internet for remote viewing?
> 
> This would be a great feature set that I wish TIVO would make.


Wouldn't this cause legal issues with file sharing similar to napster or limewire?


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

shwru980r said:


> Wouldn't this cause legal issues with file sharing similar to napster or limewire?


Dunno if this would satisfy legal requirements, but the theoretical app described in post #2 could implement HTTPS, with only user/password access to the page of listed shows.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

It's already possible but not really feasible. kmttg has most of the hooks already in that you can specify wan side http & https ports for each TiVo to use (which of course must be port forwarded to each appropriate TiVo in your router setup) which allows you to get listings and download shows over internet. Of course missing piece is to pipe .TiVo file through tivodecode for immediate viewing.
Biggest issue as mentioned is limited upstream bandwidth of 1-2 Mbps doesn't really make it feasible to watch mpeg2 in real time. For HD shows you'd really need possibly up to 19 Mbps which most people don't have, and before Premiere you couldn't download quickly enough from S3/THD units anyway for real time viewing even on local LAN.
Even though Premiere units have potential for fast enough local downloads, transcoding on the fly in real time to highly compressed H.264 with a software encoder before sending over internet is also not feasible on most consumer grade computers.
That is why I left kmttg with just ability to view listings and download TiVo files over internet (I only use it for obtaining real time listings since my upload speeds are too slow for downloads) and use Sling if I want real time viewing.


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## bassque (Jun 16, 2008)

IMO this option is critical for me continuing to be a Tivo customer. I don't even care about using it when I'm not in the house but allowing me to stream to my iPad while I'm in my house so I can enjoy my recorded shows while my wife watches Lifetime is essential to my sanity!


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

OK, I had some fun doing this in a Windows command prompt:


```
curl --retry 3 --anyauth --globoff --user tivo:<mymak> --insecure --cookie-jar &#37;TEMP%\cookie2317053181494366691.tmp --url "http://tivos3/download/Criminal%20Minds.TiVo?Container=%2FNowPlaying&id=210009&Format=video/x-tivo-mpeg" | tivodecode --mak <mymak> --out - - |"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe"  --file-caching=2000 -
```
It's very crude, but it plays a video directly from the TiVo in VLC. curl & tivodecode are found in my %path%, but oddly, vlc isn't (yet).

curl downloads the .tivo file from the TiVo and pipes it to:
tivodecode, which uses stdin "-" as the input, and outputs to stdout "-", which is piped to:
vlc, which uses stdin "-" as it's input.

I suppose vlc could be setup to output the video to an rtsp stream(?) to be picked up by other (local) devices...

Fun, huh?


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## ajayabb (Jan 12, 2007)

How does the Sling box get around the limited uploads speeds of most people's WAN?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

ajayabb said:


> How does the Sling box get around the limited uploads speeds of most people's WAN?


 It has a built in *hardware* encoder to encode video on the fly to a more efficient codec and much lower bit rate which adjusts to the available upstream bandwidth. i.e. The lower the available upstream bandwidth the crappier it will look on receiving end.


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## ajayabb (Jan 12, 2007)

moyekj said:


> It has a built in *hardware* encoder to encode video on the fly to a more efficient codec and much lower bit rate which adjusts to the available upstream bandwidth. i.e. The lower the available upstream bandwidth the crappier it will look on receiving end.


Interesting:up:


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

orangeboy said:


> OK, I had some fun doing this in a Windows command prompt:
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


That is pretty cool... I am going to test that when I get home tonight.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

bradleys said:


> That is pretty cool... I am going to test that when I get home tonight.


Definitely works better with my Premiere than my Series 3. I also dropped the "--file-caching=" parm with VLC.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

I wonder if they are planning on adding this functionality to the IPAD app in the future... Now that would be cool! Have you tried this over the WAN or is this something you are just playing around with locally?



hmmm... 

It also seems like you could use this aproach to setup a Tivo extender.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

bradleys said:


> I wonder if they are planning on adding this functionality to the IPAD app in the future... Now that would be cool! Have you tried this over the WAN or is this something you are just playing around with locally?
> 
> hmmm...
> 
> It also seems like you could use this aproach to setup a Tivo extender.


Strictly local. I just put together the commands when an earlier post mentioned having streaming shows on an iPad. The thought did cross my mind about having VLC as a server that another TiVo could connect to, so the path would be:

TiVo1 > curl > tivodecode > VLC > TiVo2

The problem is there would be no trick play, since the "stream" would be at the mercy of curl & tivodecode's inability to navigate. MRV would basically do the same thing much more efficiently. Now if it were possible to get the http download links of those programs marked as "Protected" on the source TiVo box, that would be a whole other story...


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

That was fun! Took a little more setup than I was expecting, but I love to experiment...

It's ok using th Series 3, but I am interesting to see the quality improvement after I setup the premier.

Thanks to the tip!


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## AudioNutz (Nov 10, 2008)

moyekj said:


> It's already possible but not really feasible. kmttg has most of the hooks already in that you can...


Kevin,
Funny you should mention that kmttg can do most of this. I wrote my "custom" command for kmttg to basically extend to do most of the things this person is asking for.

KMTTG dowloads, decodes, comskip, comcut, encodes for iPod... Then executing my custm command zips the file, scrambles the name, then sends it to my home (Macintosh XServe) FTP server. (I scramble the name because FTP is open, and I don't want the names of TV shows to show up in my firewall logs at a remote office that I'm visiting during the week.)

I imagine if I just put the iPod files in a directory that Quicktime Streaming Server (Standard piece of Mac Server OS) was hosting, I could stream these Giles to wherever...

...but... I make mo claims to the legal TiVo license agreement. I'm betting it's in violation... If I were to do it...


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## miller890 (Feb 15, 2002)

I have done something sort of similar by setting up Tivo DeskTop 2.8.1 Plus with season passes or auto downloads. The shows are automatically set to convert to iPad format. The converted video files are written to a directory where AirVideo server reads then I just use the AirVideo app to stream at 100&#37;.

If you have not tried AirVideo, it's really a great app for streaming any video type (excluding .tivo) from your PC to an iPad. It just works and the video quality over a LAN is 100%. The quality over the Internet is better than my out dated Slingbox A/V streaming to the older iPhone app running x2.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bassque said:


> IMO this option is critical for me continuing to be a Tivo customer. I don't even care about using it when I'm not in the house but allowing me to stream to my iPad while I'm in my house so I can enjoy my recorded shows while my wife watches Lifetime is essential to my sanity!


Dude, it's *ILLEGAL*. No DVR will ever be able to (intentionally) do this, unless they change the laws. You won't find a DVR platform that does it, so any noise about switching to some other DVR is just that: noise. Any attempt to (natively) stream video from a DVR to an external device is going to have to be locked down to the local subnet, or else someone can claim TiVo is aiding and abetting a felony.

That said, you can easily transfer non-copy protected content to your IPad from your TiVo.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

miller890 said:


> I have done something sort of similar by setting up Tivo DeskTop 2.8.1 Plus with season passes or auto downloads. The shows are automatically set to convert to iPad format. The converted video files are written to a directory where AirVideo server reads then I just use the AirVideo app to stream at 100%.
> 
> If you have not tried AirVideo, it's really a great app for streaming any video type (excluding .tivo) from your PC to an iPad. It just works and the video quality over a LAN is 100%. The quality over the Internet is better than my out dated Slingbox A/V streaming to the older iPhone app running x2.


I use Air video as well. The trick would be updating the Air Video Server to see and inline convert from the TIVO. All the pieces are in place as Orangeboy has shown... You would just need to either write your own Air Video Server or talk the Air Video guys into include the protocal into their existing software.

It is just based on a custom build of FFmpeg...

http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/licenses.html

*What do you think Moyekj / Orangeboy?*


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## Beryl (Feb 22, 2009)

lrhorer said:


> Dude, it's *ILLEGAL*. No DVR will ever be able to (intentionally) do this, unless they change the laws.


We do it everyday using Slingboxes or Vulcano devices. Placeshifting is legal as long as only one person can access it at a time. The OP just wants TiVo to build this capability into the DVR which is a great idea that Monsoon is implementing albeit poorly.

If TiVo would build this into future boxes, I would consider upgrading.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

As I said, TiVo doesn't need to do anything else for this to work. A simple reengineering of Air Video Server (the pc component) and this would work fine.

TiVo could do it, Air Video could do it, and I believe it wouldn't be that difficult for us to do it.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Beryl said:


> We do it everyday using Slingboxes or Vulcano devices.


Those devices are not recording devices. It makes a big difference. The laws regarding recording content are fuzzy at best. Any device which both records content and distributes it can be easily argued to be one designed to defeat copyright restrictions.



Beryl said:


> Placeshifting is legal as long as only one person can access it at a time.


It *MAY* not be illegal, depending on the content. That it can be illegally used is not of itself a direct violation of law unless the actual intent is to break the law. Adding the DVR capability pushes that over the line.



Beryl said:


> The OP just wants TiVo to build this capability into the DVR which is a great idea that Monsoon is implementing albeit poorly.


Even if it were not illegal, CableLabs would not go for it.



Beryl said:


> If TiVo would build this into future boxes, I would consider upgrading.


I wouldn't hold my breath, for Tivo or any other DVR.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

> I wouldn't hold my breath, for Tivo or any other DVR.


I agree that is unlikely and potentially unwise for TiVo to implement streaming. I still think this is something we could do...

At the risk of being redundant, I think streaming to an iPad/iPhone would be a fun project and only require a client connection or similar to the air video server.

I suspect the folks at inmethod would even work with some of the smart guys on this forum making it an even easier implementation!


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