Newbie with some standard questions

[scooterinmn]

I have poking around this forum since I have taken the plunge to DTV which has been about a week now. Reading through this is like drinking out of a fire hydrant! WOW there is a lot of great information here. I would like to pose a couple of "newbie" questions....

First...
I have a refurbed (DTV installed it) HR20-700. It has been working as expected except for the audio skipping on some of the HD channels. I have the optical connected to a Sony receiver. I have seen some posts about this and some "work-arounds". Is there any word of a software upgrade that will fix this or do I need to get a new box?

Second...
Kinda' two questions. I have a great network setup in my house and it is quite easy to run CAT5 to my HR20-700 to connect to the network. Other than the availability of OnDemand, is there any other benefits to this? The second part to my question is that I have two other standard receivers through my house. Is there a "cheap" solution for a wireless connection? WAP maybe?

Thanks all!

[sacalait]

:welcome_s

Welcome to the hydrant...

I can't really help with the first question, because I haven't experienced the audio problems that others have discussed here.

As for the second question, Yes other than on demand, you can also share your video's, music and photos from your computer to the HR20 using WMP11 or other sharing programs that are out there. I just set up my HR20 last week on a network using a Linksys router and WAP and it works great. My wife is thrilled that she can now sit and watch slide shows of our photos (our girls) by herself or with friends right in our family room. You cannot network the two standard receivers to the HR20 though.

Also, Directv announced this week, that sometime in the 2nd Quarter of this year, you would be able to view recordings from your networked HR20 right on your computer.

Hope this helps some.

[scooterinmn]

sacalait,
Thanks for the quick reply! I am sold and I just happen to have a spare pull box of CAT5 in my garage just waiting! :D

Is there a guide or FAQ that details the picture sharing? That would really be great. I have most pics, family videos on a shared network drive. Do you think that would be possible?

Thanks again!

[tcusta00]

Start here:

http://dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=114861

[sacalait]

here is a quick start guide from Directv


Don't worry about the quick start guide saying that you need to have a Viiv computer . You don't.

I downloaded WMP11 and created a shared library and then set the unknown device (HR20) as an accepted device. Once that was done, a view pictures, video and music option appeared in my HR20 menu. From there, it was simple navigation to select the folders you wanted.

As far as setting up the actual network, I am network illiterate, so one of my network installers came over from work to help. There is a lot of set up and config info on this forum. Just do a search for Network and Media Share. Of course it would be back to the hydrant at that point.

Good luck

[redstangbob]

Besides DOD you can set the DVR to record for you via D* 's web site. just log in , go to my tv schedule, tv listings. Pick your program and tell it to record! Great if you get stuck late at work.