Accessing HD Homerun 2 Tuner over VPN Network

[antsandrews]

I have a wireguard VPN setup between 2 locations. 1 in Utah and 1 in Colorado. Both have fiber and have 2 separate HDHR4-2US units, 1 in each site. I would like to have a single instance of channels that can connect to both HDHRs. Having a 2nd instance of Channels can work but that requires me to have to swap back and forth in the android TV app to watch channels from the secondary vpn location. There are a couple of things I would like to be able to see if they can be resolved.

1. Have a single guide to display both sets of channels between the 2 sites and this partially works. Right now the guide seems to have conflicts between the channels, where some may have the same channel number but have different shows because they are being broadcast in 2 different locations. For example 2.1 is CW in colorado but is CBS in Utah. The guide only shows the CW.

2. Channels keeps saying the signal isn't strong enough for the device over the VPN. It might be a longer latency than the software is expecting? If I run a separate instance of ChannelsDVR over the VPN my connection to the server from the support page of the android app says it's about 250mbps with a ~60 ms latency, and a 1ms jitter if that helps. Running iperf3 between the 2 sites I get about 250mbps and ping reports about 55-60ms so it lines up with what Channels is reporting. Using VLC to tune to my HDHR over the VPN doesn't have any issues that I can visually discern. It connects instantly without any buffering whatsoever.

[Rice]

Best way is to run two servers and export the m3u playlist to the other dvr. Tailscale works better than WireGuard in this case. If your main dvr is in Colorado then install Tailscale on the os level and then just enable Tailscale in the dvr settings on the Utah server. This will create both hdhr channels in a single app no need to switch back and forth. After setting this up we can change the duplicate channel numbers

How create custom channel using a remote Channels DVR server as a video source

Enable Tailscale on both servers. On server (A) create a custom channel and Choose hls with url: http://Tailscale.ip.of.remote.server(B):8089/devices/ANY/channels.m3u?bitrate=3000 This will use a 3mb stream (3000). Adjust how you like. For guide data: http://Tailscale.ip.of.remote.server:8089/devices/ANY/guide/xmltv?duration=604800 This will import all the channels from the remote server(B) into the local server(A)and when playing them they will be limited to 3mb.

[antsandrews]

Thanks. I'll try that.

[Rice]

Since you have fiber on both sides I would suggest deleting the bitrate=3000. With that deleted I believe it will just do a remux hls. On the custom channels setup you can choose ignore channel numbers from m3u. This will put the channels in 6,7,8,9000 range. If you want to keep them in normal hdhr range and just change the overlapping ones that is possible as well but a little more involved.

[antsandrews]

I'll have to troubleshoot some more with your solution using the m3u channel list from the remote dvr. I'm still having trouble getting it to load videos. It just stays blank on my local client even though the remote dvr server indicates that it has tuned to the correct channel and is not buffering or anything like that. The one thing I did realize is that the HDHR has a m3u playlist. http:///lineup.m3u. Using that as a source to my local ChannelsDVR allowed me to stream it very quickly without any issues. I'll need to play around and resolve some of the guide information as it is only showing the channel numbers.

[antsandrews]

Thanks for the tip about the tailscale. Although I don't need it, since I've already configured my wireguard VPN properly, it is a much simpler solution. The secondary location is in an apartment complex that has a double nat so I had to sort of work around that, where tailscale would have avoided that and makes it incredibly easy to connect up multiple devices without messing with keys and such