Using a HD300 from a Remote Location

[fidget]

I think this is the correct forum for this question.

I would like to be able to have my mother connect to my SageTV server over the internet. We share an ISP, so most of the causes of performance issues shouldn’t exist, and my upload speed is fast enough that I shouldn’t have to re-encode the videos. Will this work? Is there any way that I can restrict the channel list so that she doesn’t have to deal with the complete channel list? I would normally install an OTA antenna, but she has some buildings causing reception issues.

Thanks in advance.

[JustFred]

Originally Posted by fidget

I would like to be able to have my mother connect to my SageTV server over the internet. We share an ISP, so most of the causes of performance issues shouldn’t exist, and my upload speed is fast enough that I shouldn’t have to re-encode the videos. Will this work?

Yes, it'll "work". But it might not work as well as you'd like. Do a test-run before making any promises. Even though both of you are on the same ISP, there are plenty of reasons why the connection may result in poor usability. In my case, one of my Sage servers is on a CATV node that's *terribly* oversubscribed... with wildly unpredictable up & download speeds that vary by a factor of 10x.

Is there any way that I can restrict the channel list so that she doesn’t have to deal with the complete channel list? .

I'm unaware of any way for the "standard" Sage UI to restrict the channel list in the Guide for one client without affecting all clients. Maybe one of the plugins provides that possibility, but I'm not familiar with them.

[sic0048]

She wouldn't necessarily need to use a HD-300 either. If she already uses a smart TV (and that is a big assumption) then you could use the SageTV android app on an Amazon firestick or similar device. I totally understand if a HD-300 is needed for "simplicity" however.

The best way to set this up in either case is to create a VPN tunnel that would connect her house and yours. Again, I realize this is a more advanced setup and both routers would need to support VPN connections. But it would allow the most secure connection for both locations. Otherwise you are going to have to open ports on your network for the remote location to be able to connect to your SageTV system.

[Striker:WG]

If you have a couple of old PC's lying around (or pickup some for cheap, anything made in the last 10 years will likely be overkill) you can install pfsense. Its a free router OS based on freebsd. Fully configured through a webui, so you don't need to know any of the backend stuff unless you want to tinker. They have a great support forum and there's a fair bit of content online if you do some googling.

Full support for VPN connections out of the box. You could setup site-to-site VPN as suggested by sic0048 and then the HD-300 would just be another device on your network, it would just be traversing the internet to get to you.