Recording HDHR over Tailscale

Channels DVR Server
#1

I have two DVR servers - Site A (Primary) and Site B.
Both are Windows PCs.
Both have Tailscale installed at the OS level.
Both have TVE and Docker setup and are running some of the popular Dockers just fine.
Site A has an HDHR Flex OTA network tuner setup.
Site A has 300/300 fiber.
Site B has 10/300 cable.

I would like to be able to watch and record the OTA channels from the HDHR at Site A from Site B.
Searches seem to indicate exporting out my setup from A and importing to B, but I don't see the need to pull all the Pluto/Frndly/TVE channels over the site link when Site B can natively stream everything but the OTA channels.
I did set up a Docker container at A to redirect requests from B with some CoPilot help and that got me
http://100.XXX.192.57:5004/lineup.m3u and Guide data of http://100.XXX.192.57:5004/lineup.m3u and while the guide date works great, I can't pull a stream.

Not sure it's relevant, but Site A is heavy usage and Site B is light usage.

Help.

#2
#3

Here is the url to use as a source for just the hdhr.

http://100.x.x.x:8089/devices/10710S72/channels.m3u?codec=copy

Where 100.x.x.x:8089 is the tailscale ip of site A dvr machine.

Where 10710S72 is the id of your hdhr. The id can be found in your dvr settings under sources and under the hdhr in parentheses.

Just leave guide data blank in the custom channel then assign it like you would a regular hdhr after source is created with the manage gear.

2 Likes
#4

Because of the RTT (Round Trip Time) and network hops, you cannot use the remote HDHR tuner as a source at a remote location without jumping through a lot of hoops (especially over a slower connection like Tailscale). Best to have the Channels Server where the HDHR tuner is located use it locally. You can then use an HLS playlist (like @Rice posted) to get the HDHR channels remotely.

#5

First off, my apologies to everyone who answered for not responding sooner.
Bobby - thanks for the link. I cannot believe I missed that when searching, especially since it's almost the same request I made.

Rice - worked perfectly. Thank you so much.

chDVRuser - ahhh...that explains it. It might be my imagination, but doing it this way seems to allow both servers to record the same channel and share the tuner.....

#6

Silicondust does not like when their devices are being used remotely and sets the TTL on IP packets sent by HDHR to 3. You can not be more that 3 hops away from the device. A reverse proxy can be used to overcome this problem but do not try to publish the config on their forum.

#7

I did some Googling and found postings about remote usage violating the rules of one of the groups granting licenses for watching/decoding ATSC 3 DRM. Has to be within so many hops or milliseconds or something. If that's the reasons for the restrictions, I get it. Plus, I imagine many of these remote connections would be poor for any number of technical reasons causing numerous unhappy users. So, I also get why they would want to leave the "how-tos" for the enthusiast forums. Sounds like the solution presented here was a better idea than a direct connection, anyway.

#8

Yeah, I use Tailscale and a HDHomeRun Quadro. While I can watch live TV over the link just fine, I wouldn't trust it to record. What I do is record remotely, and I have a script that runs overnight that will move any recordings to my local Emby Server over the Tailscale link. Tailscale is a direct connection (It can be indirect depending on your setup) so in theory you should get pretty good transfer speeds. As an example, for my office I do backups offsite once a week for about 900 GB of data and Tailscale runs at almost the speed of the lowest connection which is 500 Mbps up from my office.

#9

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