Saw that this topic was briefly discussed, but didn’t see a topic for it specifically. Has anyone had good luck hosting your own VPN server at home to access Channels from a remote location? If you have, what is your setup (router, router firmware, OpenVPN protocol, upload speeds at your home, etc…). I would be interested to know how well this has worked for others that may have attempted it. Thanks!
I have an OpenVPN (and L2TP and PPTP but I generally just stick with OpenVPN) running on my Synology but for Channels it just doesn’t work for HD channels since the upload speed from my house is only max 22Mbps. SD channels weren’t bad, there were only a few hiccups, but I was just at the neighbors not in a different state (I’ll try that next week). You’ll probably need at least 30 or more (stable) to get it to actually stream well. It works well streaming movies but live TV not so much just because of the bandwidth requirements.
Are you able to change the transcoding profile on the HDHomeRun to reduce the Mbps to better your stream?
I have a Prime (CableCard w/ Comcrap), so no I can’t do that.
I got this bit of information from SiliconDust today “HD channels will require 10-15Mbps, SD channels will need 3-5Mbps.” Which is not too bad, I maybe able to use it while traveling
Thanks for the responses! I was hoping the upload speed demands wouldn’t be that high. I get a consistent 10 to 12 upload speed, but that might not cut it. I have seen that the next tier of speed from my provider nets an average of around 35 Mbps on the upload side of things, so might have to try that. Please post again after you test further on the quality and reliability.
Is there anything special that I need to do? I have the VPN set up as L2TP and can connect on my iPhone but channels doesn’t find the tuner for some reason. Any additional ports to forward?
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The auto-discovery doesn’t work over VPN, but if you click “Add Tuner Manually” and enter the IP of your hdhomerun, it should show up.
Thanks. I’ll try this after my trip and post results.
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Yeah, sorry I forgot to mention that. I’m in a hotel right now (download speeds are a whole 600Kbps) but I can add my tuner and see channels. I can’t watch anything (but I did try) because even SD is pausing and restarting every .2 seconds lol.
It worked. This is awesome!
I have a L2tp vpn server and a pptp vpn server. I can connect fine to both remotely and Channels even autodiscovers my HDHR tuners, but when I click on “Scan for Channels” I get “Error: Unable to scan cable”. Same if I choose antenna, both on a Prime and a Extend.
Any advise? Thanks!
I have hdhomerun extend and a qnap nas hosting the vpn server. I luckily have gigabit up and down.
That very lucky on your part, I just ordered the HDHomeRun today should be here by next week. My second location will be configure with the VPN hardware but I won’t be able to do much testing until next month when I’m traveling
Problem solved. Had forgotten the basic VPN rule: remote and local LANs (and DHCPs) were inadvertently in the same 198.162.1.xx range. Changed one to the 192.168.0.xx range and it instantly worked. Flawlessly, I should say.
Now that I’m at it, I’m going to dump the Actiontec Fios router and get a new one with built-in VPN server capacities. It needs to have L2TP (iOS 10 is getting rid of PPTP altogether). So far I’m looking at the (fairly) new Synology RT1900ac.
Any other ideas for hadrware-based VPN server?
Thanks!
@uspino I would tell you to not get a Netgear, one of the problems I’m currently having with my Netgear FVS318G is being able to use my iOS to connect to the VPN, mainly because of IPSEC (Cisco) which is not supported by iOS. I’m sure with some more digging around I can configure L2TP or PPTP though but earlier attempts failed.
So you do not have FIOS TV. Thought you would need to keep it as your main router. I use my Synology NAS VPN. Works well.
I do have Fios TV but no cable boxes, so I don’t really need the Fios router (The HDHR gets the video signal by coax directly from the ONT; the router gets Internet by Cat5 from the same ONT).
Thanks for that detail. I am using the latest Router from FIOS (has AC) and works pretty well but have considered a replacement since returning all of be Boxes (once I got ATV 4 and Channels). However, I do use MOCA for a couple of locations so using the FIOS Router works well for that. I also use Apple Extreme in the center of the house for most connections.