TiVo Community Forums Archives - Publishing Photos to a remote TiVo

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Publishing Photos to a remote TiVo
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Posted by: peteypete

I'm wondering if I can publish photos and music from my PC to a TiVo that is at another physical location, (and on another network). For example, I want my TiVo in the living room in San Francisco to see the photos on my computer. And I want my parent's TiVo across the country, in New Jersey, to see the same photos. Is this possible, and what is the configuration I need? Do both tivos need to be on the same service account?

TIA
P

Posted by: bedelman

Yes, this is possible. The computer which is hosting the photos needs to have a public IP address assigned to it. This can be done by using port forwarding at the router or, if you're less security conscious you can put the computer hosting the photos into the router's DMZ. You then use the "manually add" item in Music and Photos to add that public IP address.

The TiVo units do not have to be on the same service account at all nor do they have to be on the same network.

Posted by: peteypete

Thank you for the response! I'll try it when the TiVo's get in. (Yeah, haven't bought them yet!!). The Tivo site says that you can't share recorded TV shows outside the network. I assume this is still true with the configuration you laid out.

Also, HMO is required on both machines for this to work, right?

P

Posted by: bedelman

Yep -- you can't transfer shows this way

You need HMO since you don't get the "Music and Photos" option without it.

Posted by: peteypete

I just set up one TiVo and the Home Media Option is really easy to use. The whole thing is pretty easy to use.

Some questions on port forwarding.

I set it up on my router but

1) there is no service for TiVo (There are others for AIM, or HTTP etc. ) Do I need to make one up? What are the specs?

2) How do I know the external, public IP of the server that I put on port forwarding.

3) Also, Whenever I restart the computer/server, won't my IP address change (I Have DHCP), and therefore no longer be forwarded? Will I have to change port forwarding and the remote TiVo's settings everytime I happen to reboot?

TIA

Posted by: joeonsunset

Hmm... don't tell the RIAA about this. ;-)

Posted by: mdscott

1) Yes you will have to tell your router that certain ports need to be open and these need to be forwarded to your server PC. On my Mac the following are used for TiVo: 2190, 8020-8050, 8101-8102, 8200.

2) This is obtained from your ISP. It is also your router setup. My LinkSys calls it WAN connection info.

3) It will not necessarily change. But you are right it can and that will screw things up. What you can do is assign the PC a static IP (within the range handed out by your router. This is set in your Network connection Wizard (Windows) or Network Pane in System Preferences (Mac). On the router you can lop off the first 10 or so possible internal IP address from those which are availabe to the internal DHCP. Then assign your PC one of those as a static address.

If your router's external IP address is assigned via DHCP it is another matter and wiser heads will need to comment.

mds

Posted by: peteypete

Hey, thanks for the answers, they're all very helpful.

I suspect my external IP changes because Im' using Covad which uses PoPEE or whatever it is.

I really hope that TivoToGo makes the discovery of tivo's over the net as easy as plug and play.

I mean I'm fairly comfortable with networking and I still find this a major pain, and would pay for it to be easy.

P

Posted by: morac

For external IP changes, you can use a dynamic DNS service. What this does is give up a domain name which maps to whatever your current ip address is. You run a program on your PC which sends your current ip address to the server which updates the address.

DynDNS and TZO.com are the two big ones. Another popular one is WebAlias.

Some routers, like my LinkSys WRT54G router, can be set up to automatically update your dynamic DNS (for DynDNS or TZO) in the event your public ip address changes.

Posted by: jdr5

The dynamic IP services will not completely work, because the Tivo only lets you enter the IP number of the server. So if the server computer does not have a static IP connection, you will have to change the number on the Tivo every time the server starts.

With PPPOE it is even worse because some of the providers spin the IP numbers very frequently. Your IP might only last an hour or so.

have fun