Web Connection Via a Computer

[Jon S]

Just moved house and we don’t have any phone line at the moment (thanks BT). Anyway our neighbour has kindly given us access to his broadband, but it doesn’t help Tivo as, unsurprisingly, I haven’t got a cable long enough to reach his router. Our Tivo is set-up to connect via network. If I cabled my Tivo into my computer instead of a router, would that give Tivo any access to the web, or is it more complicated than that? I kind of suspect the latter, but I thought it was worth asking.

[Automan]

Hi, how is your computer connecting to the world wide web?

Also do you know the IP details of your Tivo?

These will need to match the router which ever way you get it to work...

Automan.

[Jon S]

Automan,

The computer is connecting to the web using a wireless connection to my neighbour's broadband (with his permission and password).

Pre-move my Tivo was connected directly (by cable) to my router. I have a cachecard in my Tivo. I know my IP address (well its on my computer at least). Normally I just telnet from my computer to Tivo to pass any instriuctions. Because Tivo was connected to my router, it automatically made its daily call over the web.

If, and I'm reading between the lines, this may not be easy, as an alternative could I perhaps get one of those mobile broadband dongle things and connect it to my computer? I could then cable the cachecard (in Tivo) to my computer which will be talking to the web via a dongle. Could that work, or are we missing important things like IP addresses on the dongle ?

Due to issues with BT it may be some time before we get a fixed line, so we would consider mobile broadband if it would help.

Cheers

Jon.

[Richard Loxley]

I haven't ever tried this, but from what I've read you should be able to have your computer switched on, connected via wifi to your neighbour's router, and connect your Tivo via network cable to your computer.

Then turn on 'Internet Connection Sharing' (or whatever it's called these days) and your PC will act as a router between a private network containing your Tivo and the internet via the wifi.

The tricky bit is that you'll probably need to configure either the Internet Connection Sharing, or your Tivo, to make sure that the IP address/network settings are what each expect. I haven't set up Tivo networking before, so I'll have to bow out to superior knowledge on such matters...

Alternatively, purchase a wireless bridge which will connect to the network cable at the back of the Tivo and wirelessly connect direct to your neighbour's router. Again you will have to set up the wireless bridge and maybe your Tivo to have the correct network settings.

Hope that helps.

[katman]

Internet connection sharing insists on making the Host PCs network connection 192.168.0.1 so Tivo will need to be on the 192.168.0.x subnet

[mikerr]

Internet connection sharing (ICS) insists on making the Host PCs network connection 192.168.0.1 so Tivo will need to be on the 192.168.0.x subnet
Yes, it initially sets the network connection to 192.168.0.1, but you can change the ip to any other range manually, and ICS continues to work.

[katman]

Yes, it initially sets the network connection to 192.168.0.1, but you can change the ip to any other range manually, and ICS continues to work.

Thanks for the info Mike, I didnt realise that.

[nitrochicken]

If you are planning on connecting the tivo to your pc directly rather than through a switch, you will need to use a crossover cable. After setting your pc ip address for the ethernet card to one in the same range of the tivo, you could bridge the wireless/wired connections on the pc to allow the the tivo to talk to the internet.
If you don't have a crossover cable, don't pay through the nose for one. You can easily make one from a normal patch cable by carefully splitting the sheath, and swapping orange and green wires around.
solid orange-> solid green
striped orange->striped green

Dale

[mikerr]

Most (all?) modern PCs and laptop network adaptors are auto-mdi now.
That means you can use a normal straight through cable, and it will auto-sense if a crossover is needed, and reconfigure itself.