Remote access to DVR and Tuner over site-to-site VPN

Hi all- I have a Channels DVR server at home that works in conjunction with a HDHomeRun Prime for my CableCard tuner. I have a site-to-site IPSEC VPN set up for a seasonal cottage that we sometimes spend time at. I was able to connect remotely from my AppleTV to the DVR over the VPN without issue. I also tried "Live TV" through the AppleTV Channels DVR App but it wasn't able to connect to the HDHR Prime. I'm guessing this was a networking issue, but not 100% sure. Doing a little searching here in the forum it looks like a HDHR Extend might be what I need, partly because the raw MPEG2 stream size is likely to cause me issues over the tunnel (I had to decrease the quality a bit on the DVR app to stop periodic glitching). So a few questions:

  1. If I add an HDHR Extend, will it play nicely with the DVR as far as access to the tuner? When I watch live via HDHR Extend will the DVR notice that one of the tuners is busy and not get confused, and/or claim the tuner when I'm watching? Is there a way to set tuner priority (presumably I'd prefer to give LiveTV priority, and have the DVR skip recording the lowest priority recording if there is a tuner resource limit).

  2. What app would I use on the AppleTV to watch Live TV via HDHR Extend? Would this be possible within the Channels App itself, or do I need a different app?

  3. I assume there's no way to use the DVR Computer itself basically as a transcoder? With my TiVo I can "watch live" which gives me a basically live stream, plus the bonus of the ~30 minute history buffer to pause live TV if I want to do that. That would be great, but I couldn't find any way to do that...

Thanks in advance!

HDHR Extend is for OTA only and cannot be used for cablecard.

You don't need a new HDHR or a VPN to do this. In the Channels app, click Connect to DVR and select Away From Home.

At home, you need to enable Remote Access on your DVR web UI settings and ensure your router is configured for port forwarding. The app will let you select your "Internet Streaming Quality" and the DVR PC will transcode the mpeg2 to the requested size as h264.