# How many HRs on MRV + Ethernet



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

I just rearranged my HRs. Prior to the rearrangement, I had eight HRs on Ethernet MRV. While I was rearranging, I add a ninth HR. And it is working on all nine HRs now. So, the "eight limit" must be wrong. I think. I'm not even sure exactly what I did. Found one 20-700 that has a bad eSATA port and added the one 20-700 to the MRV hookup. That I know for sure, but other things happened that make no sense. I'm gonna lose my mind one of these days playing with these things. :lol:

Rich


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## lugnutathome (Apr 13, 2009)

The 8 limit would apply to DECA with has a max sized single cloud of 16 tuners on the SWM16. A good hardwired LAN can support as many as you can connect to your dish or you soak it's bandwidth (whichever comes first)

If DTV figures out how to bridge cascaded SWM8s into a single DECA cloud (or they debut the SWM32 :nono2 that limit will go up.

Don "at least that's what the voices tell me" Bolton



rich584 said:


> I just rearranged my HRs. Prior to the rearrangement, I had eight HRs on Ethernet MRV. While I was rearranging, I add a ninth HR. And it is working on all nine HRs now. So, the "eight limit" must be wrong. I think. I'm not even sure exactly what I did. Found one 20-700 that has a bad eSATA port and added the one 20-700 to the MRV hookup. That I know for sure, but other things happened that make no sense. I'm gonna lose my mind one of these days playing with these things. :lol:
> 
> Rich


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Yeah, I think if you had a SWM32 you could have more than 8 DVRs in a supported environment, but other than a few people here, who has that?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

lugnutathome said:


> If DTV figures out how to bridge cascaded SWM8s into a single DECA cloud (or they debut the SWM32 :nono2 that limit will go up.


The current "cloud" limit is 16.
There already is a way to combine clouds, but this doesn't change the "16 count".
The SWiM 32 doesn't support the DECA "bridging" as the SWiM-16 does.


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## lugnutathome (Apr 13, 2009)

Why the whole trailer park just south of tornado alley:grin:

Don "forgive me if this is inappropriate" Bolton



Stuart Sweet said:


> Yeah, I think if you had a SWM32 you could have more than 8 DVRs in a supported environment, but other than a few people here, who has that?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Stuart Sweet said:


> Yeah, I think if you had a SWM32 you could have more than 8 DVRs in a supported environment, but other than a few people here, who has that?


Rich, & Tom, & .... :lol:


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Actually VOS may be right on the bridging thing. I don't have one in the house to check.


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## lugnutathome (Apr 13, 2009)

Combining clouds? I suspect this would mean a single port out of each onto a normal Ethernet switch or can it be done entirely via the coax realm? (as my ears perk up here)

And I was just joking about the SWM32. If there really is one... Well lets just say that's one DTV bill I won't be payin:eek2:

Don "holding at 15 tuners as that's enough $$$$" Bolton



veryoldschool said:


> The current "cloud" limit is 16.
> There already is a way to combine clouds, but this doesn't change the "16 count".
> The SWiM 32 doesn't support the DECA "bridging" as the SWiM-16 does.


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## dsw2112 (Jun 13, 2009)

See below for SWM32 pics (for commercial installs only...)

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2324745#post2324745


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

lugnutathome said:


> The 8 limit would apply to DECA with has a max sized single cloud of 16 tuners on the SWM16. A good hardwired LAN can support as many as you can connect to your dish or you soak it's bandwidth (whichever comes first)
> 
> If DTV figures out how to bridge cascaded SWM8s into a single DECA cloud (or they debut the SWM32 :nono2 that limit will go up.
> 
> Don "at least that's what the voices tell me" Bolton


I could swear I read a post the other day that said Deca would support 16 DVRs and Ethernet would be limited to 8. Did I read something wrong again?

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Rich, & Tom, & .... :lol:


Next is my wife's 21-700. She finally saw the goodness of MRV. That will leave only my son's HR out of the loop. I gotta get rid of some of these. But I really hate to give up a good 20-700 that works perfectly. I guess I'll just unplug a couple and keep them just in case of a failure. I am down to eleven, if D* ever sends me a recovery kit for a 21-700 that only took a month to be deactivated. They just don't want to let go, D* that is.

Rich


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> I could swear I read a post the other day that said Deca would support 16 DVRs and Ethernet would be limited to 8. Did I read something wrong again?
> 
> Rich


What I never read/heard about was the "eight" limit anywhere [though I did read it in a posts referring to an unknown post], so :shrug:


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

I think the original limit of 8 was based on the SWM LNB and SWM8. With that setup you would be limited to 7 receivers (1 HD-DVR and 7 HD receivers would reach the 8 tuner limit). That setup could require 8 DECA adapters (7 for the receivers, one for the DECA bridge to your internet service).

With the SWM 16 you would be limited to 15 receivers (1 HD-DVR and 15 HD receivers) and thus 16 DECA units.

With a SWM32 I would think you would be limited to 31 receivers (1 HD-DVR, 30 HD receivers) and would need 33 DECA adapters (2 to bridge to your home network, 31 for the receivers). I'm not 100% sure this would work though. Does anyone have a setup with dual SWM8s bridged over their network using 2 DECA adapters? If so that would show us that you could bridge 2 DECA clouds over a home ethernet network. However it wouldn't tell us if DECA will ignore any receivers over a certain number (not enough IP/DNS addresses?).

This is all a guess on my part.

I wouldn't think there would be a limit at all on an all ethernet network as long as there is enough bandwidth, but again I'm not sure.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Beerstalker said:


> With a SWM32 I would think you would be limited to 31 receivers (1 HD-DVR, 30 HD receivers) and would need 33 DECA adapters (2 to bridge to your home network, 31 for the receivers). I'm not 100% sure this would work though.


The SWiM-32 four outputs aren't DECA bridged, like the two of the SWiM-16.
Each cloud is limited to 16 DECAs, so it's not the SWiM limit but the DECA limit.
With a SWiM-32, you'd need to run four clouds with each "broken out" to the ethernet to combine.


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Ok, I thought the SWM32 was more like two SWM16s in one package. So it would take 2 DECA adapters hooked up to an ethernet switch to bridge them. 

Sounds like you are saying it's more like 4 SWM8s so you would need 4 DECA adapters hooked up to a switch to bridge them.


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## lugnutathome (Apr 13, 2009)

Direct's test market announcement stated "limit 8 receivers" (I know as I am part of the Portland area test market) and I asked if they meant receivers of tuners? My CSR had to get clarification and stuck with 8 receivers after. At the time they were pretty well clueless on the enhancement or how it would be done at a subscribers site.

A SWM8 supports 8 tuners. 8 single tuner boxes, or 4 dual tuner DVR boxes, or some combination of the two that does not exceed 8 active tuners. Similarly a SWM16 supports well 16

Don "but the come and get it letter stated 8 tuners" Bolton



veryoldschool said:


> What I never read/heard about was the "eight" limit anywhere [though I did read it in a posts referring to an unknown post], so :shrug:


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Beerstalker said:


> Ok, I thought the SWM32 was more like two SWM16s in one package. So it would take 2 DECA adapters hooked up to an ethernet switch to bridge them.
> 
> Sounds like you are saying it's more like 4 SWM8s so you would need 4 DECA adapters hooked up to a switch to bridge them.


These seemed to all be based off SWM8s.
The SWiM-16 is two SWM8s, each with a single output, with a DECA bridge between them.
The SWiM-32 is four SWM8s, each with a single output, but no DECA bridge, since these could easily be loaded with more DECAs than one cloud can handle, at this time.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

Beerstalker said:


> With the SWM 16 you would be limited to 15 receivers (1 HD-DVR and 15 HD receivers) and thus 16 DECA units.
> 
> With a SWM32 I would think you would be limited to 31 receivers (1 HD-DVR, 30 HD receivers)


In both cases, it is possible to run the DVR with only one tuner. Otherwise if you wanted dual tuner capability you would have a DVR plus 14 HD receivers (SWM 16).

However a DVR can only support one MRV stream at a time, so such an environment would not be ideal for MRV.


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## Spanky_Partain (Dec 7, 2006)

The only limit on Ethernet is the type class network scheme you setup in your home.

Class A - 16,777,214 hosts
Class B - 65,534 hosts
Class c - 254 hosts

Most of us are using a defualt Class C type setup in our homes with 192.168.1.x or 192.168.2.x and that would accommodate 254 different hosts in your home network before you needed a router to cross into another subnet or changing to a class B scheme.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> These seemed to all be based off SWM8s.
> The SWiM-16 is two SWM8s, each with a single output, with a DECA bridge between them.
> The SWiM-32 is four SWM8s, each with a single output, but no DECA bridge, since these could easily be loaded with more DECAs than one cloud can handle, at this time.


Right, and I've got two 5LNB Slimlines with an Ethernet MRV setup. I'm pretty sure I read that that setup would only support eight HRs. I've got nine on mine now, so discussing the DECA and SWMs isn't gonna answer my question.

Rich


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Right, and I've got two 5LNB Slimlines with an Ethernet MRV setup. I'm pretty sure I read that that setup would only support eight HRs. I've got nine on mine now, so discussing the DECA and SWMs isn't gonna answer my question.
> 
> Rich


9 DVRs with both tuners active could be run off 1 SWiM-16 & 1 dish.
8 in the SWiM mode and the ninth connected to the legacy ports with full function.
The 8 could used DECA and be bridged to your ethernet [with another DECA].
The ninth would be ethernet connected.
You could still add another DVR since there are another two legacy ports on the SWiM-16.
When you finally exceed 10 DVRs, you next step would be to add another SWiM-16 which can cascade off the first [by using the four legacy ports].
These two SWiM-16s could have their DECA clouds combined into one, as long as the total DECA count doesn't exceed 16, so that means 15 DVRs + one DECA to ethernet.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> 9 DVRs with both tuners active could be run off 1 SWiM-16 & 1 dish.
> 8 in the SWiM mode and the ninth connected to the legacy ports with full function.
> The 8 could used DECA and be bridged to your ethernet [with another DECA].
> The ninth would be ethernet connected.
> ...


Well, I'm gonna assume that I can stick ten on the Ethernet setup. It's working as it should with nine, so ten shouldn't be a problem.

Rich


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

I wonder if there really is an actual limit to how many you can have hooked up to your network, regardless of how you hook it up, but rather how many can be streaming from one place to another before you have bandwidth issues, and how creative you get in wiring it all together...


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

inkahauts said:


> I wonder if there really is an actual limit to how many you can have hooked up to your network, regardless of how you hook it up, but rather how many can be streaming from one place to another before you have bandwidth issues, and how creative you get in wiring it all together...


So far I have the nine 20-700s on four TVs and no problem. Tomorrow, I'll get a 50' Ethernet wire so I can hook up the wife's 21-700. That will make ten HRs on five TVs. If I use MRV, I'm assuming that she can do the same thing at the same time. With different HRs, of course. And I now realize that I have way to many HRs. :lol:

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

inkahauts said:


> I wonder if there really is an actual limit to how many you can have hooked up to your network, regardless of how you hook it up, but rather how many can be streaming from one place to another before you have bandwidth issues, and how creative you get in wiring it all together...


That's a really interesting question about the bandwidth issues. I can try and see if there's a point where problems occur. Might as well use all five TVs and have them tuned to five HRs that are on my network. I guess that that's the limit I can test at. If you have any thoughts on how else to do it, tell me and I'll try to do it tomorrow. If five won't work, I'll knock it down to four and so on. Any other thoughts?

Rich


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

just rotate the mrv playback.. hr#1>hr#2, hr#2>hr#3...
also maybe hr#1>hr#2, hr#2>HR#1....


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Finally got around to adding the tenth HR to my Ethernet network and began to experience problems. A couple HRs dropped off the net. And I couldn't access a couple others. Took a seldom used HR off the net and as soon as I was back to nine HRs, the problems went away. So, at least for me and my setup, nine HRs is the limit.

Still haven't had a chance to check the HRs ability to run multiple shows on multiple HRs and TVs and see what limitations exist there. I keep starting it and...well, I'm just lazy and it seems like a lot of work and I end up watching something, and nothing gets done. :lol:

I'll get around to doing it one of these days. 

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

houskamp said:


> just rotate the mrv playback.. hr#1>hr#2, hr#2>hr#3...
> also maybe hr#1>hr#2, hr#2>HR#1....


I was just gonna put five HRs on five TVs and see what happens.

Rich


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## DTV_Man (May 11, 2010)

So if I connected 2 swm-16's via deca to the same network would I be able to handle 10 DVR's with both Tuners (20 Channels)?


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

DTV_Man said:


> So if I connected 2 swm-16's via deca to the same network would I be able to handle 10 DVR's with both Tuners (20 Channels)?


We believe so, but I don't think anyone has been able to verify it yet.


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## webcrawlr (Sep 1, 2007)

rich584 said:


> That's a really interesting question about the bandwidth issues. I can try and see if there's a point where problems occur. Might as well use all five TVs and have them tuned to five HRs that are on my network. I guess that that's the limit I can test at. If you have any thoughts on how else to do it, tell me and I'll try to do it tomorrow. If five won't work, I'll knock it down to four and so on. Any other thoughts?
> 
> Rich


I can tell you from my testing that a "typical" 1080i program streamed from one DVR to the next shows around 8 megabits /sec. I've gone as far as steaming two programs off a single DVR while steaming one in to it (3 streams total) and showed peek rates around 24 megabits /sec on that switch port (16 out and 8 in). As far as bandwidth is concerned I don't think you'll see any issues. What the limit of the DVR is for encoding/decoding packets is the question.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

webcrawlr said:


> I've gone as far as steaming two programs off a single DVR while steaming one in to it (3 streams total)


I find this a bit hard to believe since "one DVR" is limited to one incoming & one outgoing stream [two total].


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## urnote96 (Jun 22, 2004)

i can tell you that i have a SWM LNB cloud and a SWM8 multiswitch cloud....two differnt networks talking to one another.


hr24 - h23 - d12 on swm lnb - deca cloud

hr23 - hr22 - hr22 on swm8 switch - hard wired via ethernet

all hx's see and share with one antoher


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## webcrawlr (Sep 1, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I find this a bit hard to believe since "one DVR" is limited to one incoming & one outgoing stream [two total].


Hm. I'm going to have to go back through my notes. I swear it was 2 out and 1 in on a single dvr using direct2pc as one of them. I could be wrong, that was a while back.


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## dsw2112 (Jun 13, 2009)

urnote96 said:


> i can tell you that i have a SWM LNB cloud and a SWM8 multiswitch cloud....two differnt networks talking to one another.


Any reason you didn't dump the 2 dish solution for a dual SWM8 approach, or are you just waiting on a SWM16?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

webcrawlr said:


> Hm. I'm going to have to go back through my notes. I swear it was 2 out and 1 in on a single dvr using direct2pc as one of them. I could be wrong, that was a while back.


If you have more than one DVR, it can be easy to get them mixed up.
In the early days it was one stream in or out and couldn't do one each way, but that has been resolved so it's one in and one out now.
If you use DirecTV2PC, it doesn't change the total count, so the DVR will feed either it or another client, while the DVR can still MRV from another DVR [staying within the one in & one out limit].
If you've started streaming to one client, another client will see a red circle with a white - in the center, in the playlist, to show the DVR's recording aren't available at the time.


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## urnote96 (Jun 22, 2004)

dsw2112 said:


> Any reason you didn't dump the 2 dish solution for a dual SWM8 approach, or are you just waiting on a SWM16?


NO reason, just wanted to play with it and see how well the system works, its limitations and such. so far so good...no issues.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Two nights ago, the wife and I settled down to watch TV. First time that day I'd had an HR on. I was using one of my 20-700s with a WD EADS 2TB internal and the picture was very jittery. Every program that I tried was jittery, whether it was recorded on that HR or one of the other ones. 

OK. Figured there was something wrong with either the 20-700 or, worse case scenario, the WD HDD. So I switch to another 20-700 with a Seagate 1.5TB internal and the same thing happens. Now I'm getting worried. Off to the master bedroom, where the 20-700 with a Seagate 1.5 is. Same thing. But, now I've tried both dishes and gotten the same results. 

Back to the HR I started off with. Unwatchable, but no problems with live programming. Thoroughly puzzled, I sat back and thought. The only common thing the two dishes have is the MRV. I shut the MRV down on that HR and the picture on a recording is still jumpy, but not as bad. Watched a couple hours of shows and it seemed to get better.

Figured it was because D* was gonna do the switch from beta to a permanent MRV and gave it no further thought. Yesterday, I considered the Ethernet system that I had installed myself and wondered what would happen if I started isolating HRs. Ended up taking them all off the MRV beta mode. All the HRs cleared up. Began adding the MRV to each HR and the jittering began on the recorded shows again. 

Gave up and took all the HRs off MRV. Now they are all playing properly. Must be the Ethernet system. I was totally convinced that I had screwed something up. But then I thought that the problem had just popped up and I have been running nine HRs on the Ethernet system without any problems. More confusion.

Then, I go downstairs and turn on my computer. Can't access the Internet. My firewall is shut down and won't come back on. Reboot the cable modem and the router and the computer. All come back up and look OK. Computer still can't get the Internet. Reboot modem again. This time, after all the proper lights come on, the modem goes into standby. Reboot the modem four more times and the same thing happens. 

Now I'm running out of patience and call Cablevision. They tell me to go get a new modem. I take the old modem and get ready to go to the CV store. Front door lock won't work. Have to use the deadbolt lock. 

Finally, I get home, hook up the modem and call CV to authorize it. Internet comes up and when I go to the HRs they are fine. Turn on MRV for all nine and all is well. All that trouble and just a bad modem, which is pretty common for CV. At least I'll know what to do the next time the picture gets jittery. 

But, what I don't get is how the doorknob got screwed up. Coincidence or convergence? Or just my bad luck? 

Rich


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## David Ortiz (Aug 21, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> 9 DVRs with both tuners active could be run off 1 SWiM-16 & 1 dish.
> 8 in the SWiM mode and the ninth connected to the legacy ports with full function.
> The 8 could used DECA and be bridged to your ethernet [with another DECA].
> The ninth would be ethernet connected.
> ...


The SWiM-16 First Look says that the DECA cloud is limited to 16 nodes. So in your scenario, only nine nodes are being used. If you have a ninth and tenth DVR coming off of the legacy ports, could you send a third cable (off the SWiM splitter) to the ninth and tenth DVRs and use DECAs with PIs to connect them to the cloud?

Or if you connected a multiswitch (6x8) to the 4 legacy ports, couldn't you add 4 more DVRs, and by adding a third cable to each, make use of the SWiM-16 to add DECA only to these 4 locations?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

David Ortiz said:


> The SWiM-16 First Look says that the DECA cloud is limited to 16 nodes. So in your scenario, only nine nodes are being used. If you have a ninth and tenth DVR coming off of the legacy ports, could you send a third cable (off the SWiM splitter) to the ninth and tenth DVRs and use DECAs with PIs to connect them to the cloud?
> 
> Or if you connected a multiswitch (6x8) to the 4 legacy ports, couldn't you add 4 more DVRs, and by adding a third cable to each, make use of the SWiM-16 to add DECA only to these 4 locations?


"Seems correct".
Keep the number of tuners at or below the SWiM limit, use coax from the SWiM to connect DECAs to receivers not on the SWiM, and keep the total number of DECA devices to at or below the 16 limit of the DECA cloud.


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## webcrawlr (Sep 1, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> If you have more than one DVR, it can be easy to get them mixed up.
> In the early days it was one stream in or out and couldn't do one each way, but that has been resolved so it's one in and one out now.
> If you use DirecTV2PC, it doesn't change the total count, so the DVR will feed either it or another client, while the DVR can still MRV from another DVR [staying within the one in & one out limit].
> If you've started streaming to one client, another client will see a red circle with a white - in the center, in the playlist, to show the DVR's recording aren't available at the time.


You were 100% correct. I went back and sure enough it was two dvrs connected to a switch in the media room which in turn went back to the "core". Old setup which isn't how it is today. I also went and tested the scenario you just described and sure enough. 2 streams, no more. If you try it basically tells you no..


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