Are Remote Tuners via WAN possible?

[mattlach]

So,

Here is a little thought exercise, in part because I am curious, and in part because if it actually turns out it is possible, I may try it some day....

My wife is Brazilian, but we live in the U.S. There are many Brazilian channels that she misses that we cannot get here. (Only one we can get is Globo Internacional, and it is SD only)

I wonder if there is a way to add a remote tuner and stash it at her mothers house in Brazil, and use it to watch live or record Brazilian TV shows here in the U.S?

Scenario A:

Buy a small network tuner that supports the TV "ISDB-T International"/SBTVD standard used down there. Use an advanced router to VPN in from Brazil to my home network here in the U.S., dedicating one port to the tuner. The tuner then presents itself as if it were on my home network and can be assigned to my backend.

A few questions:

1a.) Provided I have enough bandwidth, (18mbps upstream from Brazil per tuner?) would it work?

2a.) Would the latency on the open internet to Brazil cause a problem, or is MythTV fairly OK with tuner latency?

3a.) Would the different time zones cause a problem with the guide and recording schedules?

4a.) Would the different TV standards cause problems, or is it all moot once I have the digital file recorded?


Scenario B:

Build a slave backend and stash it in Brazil, hooked up to a small "ISDB-T International"/SBTVD tuner. Again, use an advanced router to VPN in from Brazil to my home network here in the U.S, dedicating one port to the slave backend. The slave backend then communicates with the master backend in my home as if it were on my home network.

A few questions: (some repeated)

1b.) Provided I have enough bandwidth, would it work?

2b.) Would the latency on the open internet to Brazil cause a problem in communicating between the master and slave backends, or is MythTV fairly OK with tuner latency?

3b.) Would having the slave backend on a different time zone than the master backend cause a problem with the guide and recording schedules?

4b.) When everything is on the same backend you can freely move files between set up storage locations and the backend will find them. Does the same thing work with a slave backend? Could I set up an overnight rsync job to move recordings stored to the slave backend in Brazil to the master backend in my home and have it see them there?

5b.) What would happen if the remote slave backend were to go down or the network connection were to be severed?

6b.) Would the different TV standards cause problems, or is it all moot once I have the digital file recorded?

Any other ways/scenarios/methods I could accomplish this? Which is the best?

Much obliged,
Matt

[wesnewell]

Don't know about A, But B should work. At one time I ran slave BE/FE combo before buying dual pcie tuners where I could get all the tuners in one box. Ir worked fine on the lan with 4 tuners in the master and 2 in the slave. Only concerns I see are bandwidth and you'll need to do do 2 scans for channels. One using a tuner in the US and another using the tuner(s) in Brazil. I think this question could be answered better by on of the devs.