HR20: Networking and ViiV

[Earl Bonovich]

With the introduction of the 0x108 software version on the HR20, the network jack on the HR20 is no longer designated "future use".

[Earl Bonovich]

The HR20 includes native support for wired ethernet connections.

As of right now, the USB ports can NOT be used to connect a wireless NIC to the HR20. I don't know if that is going to be changed in the future or not.

If you need to use wireless "today", there are a few Ethernet->Wireless bridges. You will often find them in discussions about the Original XBOX, as it was one of the first popular devices that needed such a bridge. Linksys sells one, as do others.

There are also other options, if you don't have a direct wire from your HR20 area to your PC/Router. Such as phone line converters.

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Making the physical connection between your HR20 and your home network, is a little out of scope for this forum and this thread. There are 1,000s of websites and forums that can help you make a basic home networking connections.

At a very very basic level:
HR20 -> Internet Router
PC -> Internet Router
Internet Router -> Broadband provider modem

This is most common basic setup there will be... but seeing that there 100s of different combinations on how you can set this up, check with your ISP's website for more details. Connecting the HR20 is no different then connecting another computer to the network, on the base level.

If anyone has a good reference site, please send it to me, and I will add it as a link here.

[Earl Bonovich]

After physically connecting your HR20 to your network, you need to initiate and setup the network connection.

Go into the SETUP menu, and open up the HR20 setup screen
System Setup

Open up the Networking option
Networking Get Connected

And select Connect Now.... After you select connect now, you will get a series of screens. Ultimately if all goes well, you should see a success screen.
Checking Connection
Connected to the Internet
Success

If you continue on, you will be returned to the "updated" Get Connected screen... where you will have option to Test the connection.
Option to Test

Go ahead and "Test" your connection and overall system setup.
Note: Don't try this if you are recording or buffering something, as it will stop those actions.
Option to Run Test
Test Results

Hit BACK to exit out of the test, and return to the Network configuration screen.
You have options now to Repeat Setup (which will just do the same things a CONNECT did above), Advanced Setup, or Restore Defaults...

Hit BACK or use the arrows to go to DONE, if you don't want to do any of these options.

[Earl Bonovich]

The Advanced Setup option has two purposes:

1) To report the IP settings the unit received from your DHCP server, and it's MAC Address.
2) To allow you to assign a static IP address for the unit.

The Advanced Setup Screen


For number #1 (checking), just open up the screen and you will see all the values.... You can hit BACK to exit, or Connect Now to go through another set of testing (not necessary).

If you are not "into" networking, or really don't know what any of these numbers mean, don't worry about it. For most users, it doesn't matter... hence why "Advanced Setup".

But to those that do know what they are... and know what to do with them:

• Navigate the fields with the arrow buttons on the remote control
• Use the numeric pad to enter the values (leading 0's are okay)
• If you enter an invalid number range, you will get a Triangle ! telling you so.
• If you want to return back to DHCP usage... enter all 0's for All fields, then hit Connect now... it will return to DHCP mode

To continue from this screen (after changes), Click Connect now.
Checking Connection Status

The results:
Results after Connection Checking


At this point, you are done putting your HR20 on your home network.
Now to get the Photo's and Music on the system.

[Earl Bonovich]

At this point, the HR20 is now on the network.
However, it doesn't "do" anything on the network.

Right now, DirecTV has partnered with Intel, to make the HR20 a ViiV compliant system.

The PC side of things is all in the hands of Intel and Microsoft Media Center.

Here are some key things:

Your ViiV PC needs to be running Intel ViiV version 1.5 or higher.
In v1.5 they introduced an update Intel Media Server... This is the PC component that "serves up" the photos and music files to the ViiV devices... and is the key to the HR20 being able to access the files.

Intel's website for ViiV: http://www.intel.com/products/viiv/index.htm

DirecTV is working right now with Intel to establish a "Setup ViiV" document, file download area on DirecTV.com (and forums.directv.com). However, at the time of this writing it is not available yet.

--------------
So you are kinda on your own a bit with getting the PC side of things going.
We (here at the forums), will try to help where we can....

Some tips from my usage:

1) You should do a Network Scan, from the ViiV software. This should "show" your HR20 on your network. You need to click on the DirecTV device, and authorize it to have access to your ViiV files.

2) You can share files from any of your systems on your network. So long as your ViiV system can see them. For example, I had my Music file on my Windows 2003 server. I opened up a share, set Guest Access to it... and the ViiV system was able to "serve" those files, without having a local copy.

3) If you don't have your files in your "Shared Document" directories... you will need to share that folder specifically with your network. It only needs to have READ access to that share.

4) Media Center is bulkly and tedious... so be a little patient with it. If things really get slow or goofy, reboot your PC.

[Earl Bonovich]

If your HR20 can successfully see the ViiV server and you have authorized your HR20 on your ViiV server.

You should get this pop-up on your HR20 (it may go away quickly, so don't worry if you didn't see it).
HR20 Connected

How to know for sure you are seeing your server, Click on Menu
Music and Photos

Opening your Music and Photo's will provide you some options:
Options to access items

If you open My Computers; you will see a list of your systems. My PC is named "ViiV" (bad name to give it for these demos)
My Computer List

If you then open your Computer, you will see a top level items for that system...
"Items" on ViiV

If you open Music; you get the different ways to access your Music Files
Music Access Options
Another Music Access Options Listing (from another way in)
Album Listing
Cars Album

If you go back; and select Pictures you can access Pictures in different ways
Picture Options
Inside Album
Inside ViiV files
Inside Files

[Earl Bonovich]

So now that you have your Music "menu" open...
You can play your files...
Another Music Access Options Listing (from another way in)
Album Listing
Cars Album

You can play the entire list, shuffle play, or select a single track.
After you select one of those options... You will return to full screen, with your audio "playback" being the songs you selected... but the video is what ever channel you are watching.

Song Playing

You can hit the "FF" or "RW" to go to the next song, or previous song
Next Song

You can hit the YELLOW button, to regain control of the video playback...
Control of Video

Hit the YELLOW button again, to go back to music control.
Or hit EXIT to exit totally out of music playback, and go back to full Audio/Video mode for TV.

[Earl Bonovich]

Go back into the Picture folders:
Picture Options
Inside Album
Inside ViiV files
Inside Files

If you open your "Album/Folder", you will be presented with a shuffle option, or a list of files. Both items starts a slideshow mode.... if you click on a specific file, it starts you there. Shuffle... just shufles.

List of Pictures in Album
Picture Playback
Hit exit to get rid of all On Screen Displays

The slideshow is a "little" slow, and right now there is no where to configure the speed. You can use the FF and RW buttons to move back and forth in the slide show.

While the slideshow is playing, the AUDIO from your Live TV or Recorded program is in the background. You can hit the YELLOW button to toggle between the modes. Or hit EXIT a second time to leave Slideshow playback.

With your slideshow going, you can select some audio files to play.
Open up your menu options for your music, and select a song....
Yellow will now toggle between Pictures and Music... hit EXIT twice to exit back to Audio/Video mode.
Music and Pictures

[Earl Bonovich]

If you happen to have a Non-ViiV, Media Center system on your network... the HR20 will see it:
Other Media Center system

However, right now... with a stock Media Center installation, it doesn't serve up files in a way that HR20 can work with.

I am sure that as time goes on there will be other options for Media Servers, for PC and Mac... so you are not limited to just ViiV PC's


DirecTV will be opening a dedicated support forum at Forums @ DirecTV.com this will be a spot where people from the DirecTV team will monitor and participate in helping with the ViiV experience.

Right now, I don't have a good Intel ViiV support forum, so we here will do what we can.. to help with your ViiV setup... and I am sure, there will be the resource folks that will find other ways to get the Media files to the HR20...

This is a ONE WAY feature right now....
This feature does NOT allow you to access your recorded videos on your PC.

[Earl Bonovich]

As always...

A discussion thread for the Network and ViiV components.
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=72915