Multiple back-ends and the internet.

[wierdbeard65]

Hi!

Ok, I'm still in the middle of setting my system, but have had a bombshell dropped on me. I'm moving! Currently, I live in the UK, however my company is transferring me to the US. We, as a family, will therefore relocate.

My problem is getting the kids on-board. They have their TV programmes, some of which are not neccessarily available stateside (and those that are may well be either subscription based or full of ads.

So, I figured I could take my current satellite system (sky box, dish etc.) round to may parents-in-law and install it there with a small Myth back-end. Obviously, this would be no good for live TV, but recordings could be configured to be copied over the 'net (using a VPN, perhaps?) to my core / NAS in the US, from where we could watch them. The UK listings would appear in my channel guide and I could set up recording from there...

Is this possible? If so, how do I start?

TIA!

[Techstyle]

Welcome to the EXPAT club, my company relocated me from the UK to the US also.

I can't help you with your issue but Good luck with the move let us know if you have any questions with regard to Brits living in US (like where to get Heinz beans, Branston or Vimto).  You may want to check if all you PSU's are switchable from 240-110V.  Most Monitors are automatically and many TV's are but you may want to check.

[MANDINGO]

 

Me being a Brit my self you can get those English goodies at Publix here in florida and there are a couple of wanna be pubs, but oh well

As far as the recordings go yes it can be done but  your talking some good bandwidth from the uk side not so much dnload but upload, you can create a point to point vpn via some hardware.  Most good hardware firewalls do this with no problem, i use pix firewalls and works very well, so you could either have your recording pushed up to your lmce box or have the recording stay local (UK) and have the drive shared as so lmce (US) can use it !!!!

Damn i miss some "fish and chips" 

Mandingo

[wierdbeard65]

Thanks for the responses, guys

My plan is to transfer the recording to the US and watch them from there. I figured I'd set up the VPN directly between my core in the US and my device in the UK. Since I'm not too worried if the copy takes some time, this is preferable to watching directly over the VPN. I'm also looking at some kind of traffic-shaping system to ensure that the upload from the UK happens when my in-law's bandwidth isn't in use anyway (the middle of the night, for them!)

As I see it, I have two basic things I need to do, which I'm not sure how to or even if MCE can do!

1) Control a second Myth Back-end (the remote one). Whilst I know I can record on an MD, that would require my remote system PXE boot and be "inside" which is clearly not going to be the case!
2) When recordings are found remotely, copy them to the main storeage, rather than simply indexing them and making them available.

Thanks!

[totallymaxed]

Thanks for the responses, guys

My plan is to transfer the recording to the US and watch them from there. I figured I'd set up the VPN directly between my core in the US and my device in the UK. Since I'm not too worried if the copy takes some time, this is preferable to watching directly over the VPN. I'm also looking at some kind of traffic-shaping system to ensure that the upload from the UK happens when my in-law's bandwidth isn't in use anyway (the middle of the night, for them!)

As I see it, I have two basic things I need to do, which I'm not sure how to or even if MCE can do!

1) Control a second Myth Back-end (the remote one). Whilst I know I can record on an MD, that would require my remote system PXE boot and be "inside" which is clearly not going to be the case!
2) When recordings are found remotely, copy them to the main storeage, rather than simply indexing them and making them available.

Thanks!

I would look at using rsync as part of this type of solution possibly... then you could automate pulling the new recording across to your US based Core.

All the best


Andrew

[jimbodude]

1) Control a second Myth Back-end (the remote one). Whilst I know I can record on an MD, that would require my remote system PXE boot and be "inside" which is clearly not going to be the case!

MythWeb.

2) When recordings are found remotely, copy them to the main storeage, rather than simply indexing them and making them available.

As Andrew said - rsync.

There was a post somewhere about a way to rename the recording files to have titles and such.  I think that would enable you to use some of LinuxMCE's new automatic metadata retrieval stuff in the web admin so you'll have properly tagged media.  You'll have to do some research here - I've never used the rename script or the new automatic metadata stuff.

Traffic shaping will be a fun challenge on both ends, since the time difference is going to have an effect on when bandwidth will be available.  I know there are solutions available, you just have to find them and figure them out.