Austin, TX - HDTV - Page 215

Wow, what a GREAT picture!

I can't believe how much better the Direct TV HD picture quality is than what I was getting with Time Warner.

The installer (Jeff) seemed pretty smart and experienced, and installation went smoothly. He could run up and down the stairs faster than anyone I've ever seen. He installed 2 HD DVRs with multi-room viewing. He was able to do the MRV setup by... well, not by how I was expecting. I was picturing that he would have to run an Ethernet cable from upstairs to downstairs. He did it by ... well, I don't really know how; I did ask and I believe he told me ... that there was a free port on my hub (?).

I gave him the label maker and asked him to label any new things he did, so I'll go up to the electronics closet and try to reverse engineer it. (I was on a conference call when he was leaving so I couldn't ask him to show me then unfortunately.)

I have the Choice Extra program. Only thing I miss is that I was getting Showtime for free with Time Warner for their 1 year promotion and really loved The Big C (Laura Linney's new series). Now it would be $12/month more (they told me on the phone). My total bill will still be a lot less though.

In addition to the biggie (Picture Quality) I like a bunch of little things about their Guide and Recording better than Time Warner.

First small thing I REALLY liked - while setting up to tape Sunday's football games, it automatically prompts, "this event could go 30 minutes over; would you like to extend the taping by 30 minutes" YES !!! I would get so mad at myself when I'd forget to record the next show after the football game and it would go over time.

Thanks for all your help!

DirecTV uses something they call DirecTV Ethernet over Coax Adapter (DECA) which is a modified form of MoCA. So your two HR2X's use the same coax that carries the satellite signal for TCP/IP packets which are used for the Whole Home DVR service. He should have also installed a standalong DECA adapter that's used to interconnect that DECA network to your ethernet network so your HD DVR's can access DirecTV on Demand, TVApps, Mediashare and DirecTV2PC.

Well, I spoke too soon.

This morning I tried to do some doc reviews for work on my system with a 24" portrait monitor. It couldn't connect. Then, my husband said he couldn't get to the internet from his PC.

Seems like none of the PCs or my printer attached to WIRED ethernet can connect to the internet. I try to ping my router @ 192.168.1.1 from each and I get "Destination Host Unreachable"

I just took a quick look at the hubs: looks like all the cables are still plugged in, and everything is powered on.

When installer was here, I was on my laptop. Since my wireless was working / still works, I didn't think to test the wired connections.

Take your wireless laptop to the router and plug it in with an ethernet cable (be sure to turn off the wireless obviously). Do you get connectivity? If yes, the problem is somewhere between your router and the other PCs.

Q: I now have every port on my linksys hubs full. Someone said I have to have 1 port free? Is this true?



It looks like I have one of those (see pic below), but it doesn't seem to be working, probably for the same reason why none of my wired ethernet ports in the house still work.

The DECA adapter is model: deca bb1mr0-01

I should have written out a list of test cases to test before he left.

Another bug, not sure if related:

I purchased / recorded Prince of Persia in HD. It appeared to record. However, when I try to play it, I see "not supported mode" and I have to turn off and on the TV to see any more channels.



Yes - I do get connectivity when I do this, which I expected because my wireless still works. If my wireless still works, that means that cable router would certainly be working, right? Because the wireless router depends on being connect to it, right?

(I used to be able to debug my own networking problems, but it's been a while)

Well that is the proper DECA broadband adapter. Is the Linksys box that it's plugged into a switch or a router? If it's a switch any chance that the DECA is connected to the uplink port? IIRC some switches have two ports, a regular switched port but then another port that's for uplink and if uplink is conencted then the switched port that it shares is disabled.

The second picture you attached is the splitter that's used to connect your receivers and the broadband DECA together and back to the dish LNB. The third picture is the power inserter that provides the power to your SWiMLNB.

Not unless it is really an old hub. What model is it?


Yes, and as I said, this means the wiring issue is downstream of your Linksys wireless router.

Oh my gosh I bet that is it!

(that the DECA thing is connected to the uplink port)

I think that sounds like what someone else told me several years ago when I wanted to add ethernet to the TV locations. They said something like, "no you can't use all the ports, even if they look free".

I need to get a ladder to find out the model Linksys it is.


So... what I need to do is (after I verify it has a switched port... or just to test anyway):

Move the DECA ethernet cable going to the switched port over to another port? (which means one room loses an Ethernet connection, but that's OK)

Or you could go out and get another switch to daisy chain off the existing switch to add more ports.

This was it!

I haven't exhaustively checked all my wired ports, but 2 of the really important ones (printer and my work machine) now work!

Solution: I moved the blue DECA ethernet wire FROM the second port from the left TO a free port that I made free by unplugging a room off the hub.

Net: The 2'nd ethernet port from the left on my Linksys hub must be empty.

So I guess that means the 2nd port from the left on my Linksys hubs is the uplink? (I will download the manual now that I have it.)


It's a 8 port workgroup hub. Linksys model EFA H08W.

Thanks very much rad !

Glad that worked out for you. If I were you I'd go out and get a nice 16 port switch, hubs are bad since they send traffic to all devices connected to the hub while switches direct traffic to the specific port, helps network performance. That way you get a better performing network and you can hook that room back up again.

Me too! A 1 minute fix! I was imagining something really complex.


OK. Is there a reason why the person who did the wiring would have used hubs instead of switches?

How does the D-Link or Cisco look?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...igabit&x=0&y=0

D-Link DGS-1210-16 Web Smart 16-Port Gigabit Switch

Cisco Small Business SRW2016 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Switch with WebView

You just can't beat the quality of OTA's uncompressed signal.

With all the internet options for content, Sat and cable will have to start offering
a la carte programming at some point.

They were cheaper then switches. IMHO for a home environment those are a tad more then I'd be spening. I'd go with something more reasonable like http://www.google.com/products/catal...d=0CGsQ8wIwAQ#

Thanks rad.

Here are my favorite things about Direct TV in first 2 days:

1) Picture Quality much better than what I had with Time Warner

My first reaction was "WOW"
My second reaction was "Why did I not do this till now?"

2) Multi-room viewing

When I workout upstairs (Watching football, listening to Oprah, etc is a great distraction) I can continue watching the show downstairs. And vice versa of course.

And effectively this means I can record 3-4 things at once - handy when Monday night football could create domestic squabbles and I'm the one who loves football.

The top 2 are the biggies. the '80' of the 80-20 rule.


Making up the other goodies / 20%:

3) The iPHone Direct TV app seems to work!
(I say "seems to" because first time I tried to access a iPhone-triggered recording, I saw 'not authorized' message on my TV. I think this had to do with setup stuff. Haven't seen it since.)

4) The "Do you want to add 30 minutes? " automatic prompt when I program a football game.

5) Quicktune! That made reading the manual worthwhile

6) Fast forward seems faster

7) The Direct TV remote overall seems a LOT more simply organized. The latest version of the Time Warner remote became so complex.


Negatives:

- Biggest thing I don't understand: From the Guide view, I can't tell which shows are (New) or rerun. On the Time Warner Guide, it would have the title and (New) if not a rerun.

- The Direct TV equivalent of "Showcase on Demand" where I can look at TV shows without any / many *@#$% commercials seems more... awkward from a user interface standpoint.

- Numbers located at the bottom of the remote will take some getting used to... But I'm finding with the Quicktune 'tic-tac-toe' fast access and the bigger "Favorites" list (2 actually), I'm not using numbers much.

Still to do: Return my time warner equipment and cancel my account. Tomorrow...

Edit: One small thing I do miss: The clock on the Time Warner set top box. It was the only clock I could rely on being correct (beyond my cell of course)

At the risk of getting booed again ....

Cool TV is now airing on 54-2. At 9:20 they're playing "We built this city on......" followed by ELO and "
The Evil Woman".

Not what I'd call the ultimate cool (whatever that is) but on a night when the Cowboys are losing (again) it'll do!

Now....how do we convince DirecTV to put it in the local channel guides?

I'll have to check it out. Cowboys season ended 2 weeks ago...and now Romo is out with a broken clavicle? Seems I need to revise my 7-9 prediction from 2 weeks ago. 5-11 is looking about right. The team will never do anything until Jerry fires himself as a GM and hires a real GM. After 15 years of not doing it right, you'd think he'd learn. Johnson was the last "real GM" if not in title.

IIRC it's Tribune Media Services needs to add it to the guide data that they provide DirecTV.

Yep. I turned off ESPN and turned on the radio. I can't think of a worse use for the electricity used to generate the 1080 lines at this moment than Dallas Cowboys football.

We all miss the clock at first....

But these days you can get an 'atomic' clock with temperature and weather...

You read my mind! I wrote a ToDo to start looking for one that's not too huge or bright that I can put next to the DirectTV set top box.

Which one did you get?

Something like this:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sharp-Atom...Clock/10903112

But you should be able to find something that meets your needs at either walmart or amazon...

CostCo has also carried them in the past, at about half the WalMart price.

Do you have a link? Because the prices seem similar to me:

http://www.walmart.com/search/search...h_constraint=0

http://www.costco.com/Common/Search....rch&lang=en-US

Apologies, it's not the same clock. I managed to pick up one with four inch high numbers (perfect for our TV control) for less than $15 at Costco. But that was a couple of months back. Sorry for the false alarm. I'm headed there this weekend, if I find the same one, I'll report back.

TWC has soft-launched their Remote DVR Manager service in Austin today. Has anyone had the chance to check this out?

http://www.twcableuntangled.com/2010/10/were-pleased-to-announce-remote-dvr-services

According to the antenna the signal should be good enough, but I'm getting some intermittent blocking.

Mike

7.1 is on RF channel 7 (VHF). Do you have a VHF or a UHF antenna?

Just terrible news tonight about KLRU engineer Frank Roberts. Some pyrotechnics he was working on this morning exploded and he was partially maimed and badly burned. Frank was there for me during the digital transition. Even brought a spectrum analyzer out to my house once to check signal strength etc. Any time the KLRU signal got screwy, I'd give him a call and it would get fixed pronto. I do hope he makes it . . . though life will never be the same for him. It breaks my heart.

Thinking of you Frank . . .

Thanks for the thought.
Think I got it fixed, setup issue with my network connection.

Would be nice to have a web page that would report OTA signal strength or tower down time. Looks like I lost 31.1 and 31.2, thinking their tower is currently down.

Mike