# New User -- Media Share speed bumps



## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

I had an HR24 and H24 installed and my setup upgraded to HD and whole Home DVR service. I still have two D12 on two other sets.

I am trying to get used to this new setup and duplicate as many features I had with my Series 2 standalone TiVo DVRs as possible.

The whole home setup is working fine and we can record shows and play them back in both HD locations just fine. It is a pretty slick setup and is comparable for recording TV to what I used to do with two TiVo DVRs, one in each room, I just now do it with HD. One box checked off.

I see that DirecTV2PC cannot duplicate TiVo2Go, but I knew that going in and am keeping a TiVo DVR for that. It will be SD, but that will be no worse than what I have always had there. So that is fine, but no check box on that one.

I am now trying to get Media share working and it is not going quite as well as I had hoped it would. I don't know if it is a problem with the beta nature of the product, or if I am doing something wrong and need some help to get it working as well as it can.

My Setup:
1) H24 and HR24 in Living and Family rooms respectively. H24 connects directly to a TV set via HDMI. HR-24 connects to a Pioneer VSX-920 via HDMI and then on to a Pioneer Kuro Plasma via HDMI.
2) Internet Connection Kit in office (no TV or receiver there) connected to Belkin 54G router which gets internet from Verizon DSL at 1.5mbps. VOD works fine on HR24 so internet connection is sound.
3) Buffalo Linkstation connected to the same Belkin Router running the PCast DLNA server.
4) HP Pavilion PC (Athlon X2 4300+) with a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit Professional. This includes Media Center and WMP (12 I believe). The computer is wireless and connects back to the Belkin via a wireless repeater. (IE Two wireless hops)
5) TV at location of HR-24 is a Pioneer Kuro with a built in DLNA client, (clunky interface, but it works to a reasonable extent). TV is wired to the repeater and is thus one wireless hop from the HP in one direction or theLinkstation in the other.

Music Issues:
The HR24 sees both the Linky and the Pavilion and I can browse and play back music. The sound is good and playback is stable. But I can't get OUT when I am done. Pressing exit just takes me in a loop back to music playback. Pressing guide and selecting a live TV show gets me to TV, but now I have no sound at all. Cycling TV power, receiver Power and HR-24 power has no effect. The only way to get sound back that I have found so far is a red button reset. (I have not tried a menu reset or power plug pull). Is this a known bug, or am I doing something wrong?

Photo notes:
The HR-24 has much more trouble navigating the folders of the HP PC than it does the NAS. I kept pressing remote buttons thinking the DVR didn't get my input only to find a minute later that I was getting multiple error messages. If I slowed down and waited, it would draw thumbnails. Here is a place where a busy indicator would be very useful. It took me a while to figure out how to get this working and I am still unsure what all the other navigation options for finding pictures do. It seems to browse folders on the Linkstation, I must select Album, but on the PC that path leads me to a dead end with error messages. Obviously the difference is server side, so I won't blame the DVR for that.

Video Issues:
Most of my home videos, WMV slideshows, and web video podcasts that I routinely played on my TiVo DVRs will not play at all. Now the TiVo worked with everything because it has dedicated server software that will transcode on the fly and it appears that Windows DLNA server doesn't do that. I see people using third party DLNA servers in the forums here, so I guess I will actually need one of those to get things working the way I want. There is lots of good information that I have not yet read up on in these forums, so I guess I had better get to it. Right now it appears that home/web video support is about where TiVo's was two years ago. This is actually better than what I feared it would be. I want one that will go pull RSS feeds for me if such exists. I am missing my Onion News, rocketboom and Circuits technology review video podcasts. On my TiVo I didn't need a computer or third party apps to get those, but if I can make this work, even if it is clunky, I will take it.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

Remember - Media Share is beta and it comes with all the normal beta risks.


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> Remember - Media Share is beta and it comes with all the normal beta risks.


That is fine, but I still am looking for advice on best usage and want to provide feedback about what can be improved. Also, even in beta, if I am doing something wrong, I would like to know what it is and how to do it right.


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## mobandit (Sep 4, 2007)

For me when I want to stop music playback I hit the "Stop" button on the DirecTV remote. You know the one, with the black square on it? It returns me to live TV with sound and picture every time...


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

mobandit said:


> For me when I want to stop music playback I hit the "Stop" button on the DirecTV remote. You know the one, with the black square on it? It returns me to live TV with sound and picture every time...


I gave that a try just now, HR is rebooting as it did not work, no sound in live TV. Thanks for the advice on the stop button though. I would not have guessed to try to use that, exit seems to be the way out of everything else on this box. Your experience tells me it should be working for me too. I wonder why it isn't. Can you tell me what you connect to and how, for comparison sake? I suppose it could be an HDMI related thing.


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## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

With earlier versions of Media Share, it was possible to get out of music by pressing the exit key, the back key or the left arrow key. I wish it would return to this behavior (I enter a channel number and that works).


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

Tonight I tried music and a slide show. 30 minutes later when recording shows were over, and the please wait was still spinning with no response to any remote commands, I had to red button the thing.


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## DFWHD (Feb 9, 2008)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> Remember - Media Share is beta and it comes with all the normal beta risks.


Is it still beta? I thought it was rolled out.


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## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

Some of the screens still say beta, others do not. Nevertheless, it is still beta (if not alpha).

I have never lost audio when exiting Media Share. Media Share works much better on my HR21-700 and H24-100 than on my HR24-500 (I typically use my DLNA-compliant Samsung Blu-ray player, although it has its own quirks).


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

bobnielsen said:


> Some of the screens still say beta, others do not. Nevertheless, it is still beta (if not alpha).
> 
> I have never lost audio when exiting Media Share. Media Share works much better on my HR21-700 and H24-100 than on my HR24-500 (I typically use my DLNA-compliant Samsung Blu-ray player, although it has its own quirks).


Mine is an HR24/200 with software version 413 that was just downloaded last night, so my issues appear to apply to the version that was on it yesterday. Given that it is new SW, I will try my usage all over again. The complaints above may actually be resolved.

I won't be testing for another week though, as I am leaving town for a while. Thanks for the feedback. I hope to check in here a time or two from the road.


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

0x413 is no help. I still hear dropouts a little bit after changing channels or using trick play. It is just one short dropout after doing these things with sound OK afterward for long periods of time.

I still loose sound if I try to play music from the PC or NAS. The odd multiple mode behavior with the DLNA source becoming the base operating mode of the machine remains, so that only the stop button gets me out is the same. Left arrows after that still back me out of the media share menus one at a time, even after having stopped and full screen come back on in live TV. I have no sound at this point. I changed to a music channel in the 800s, turned the DVR off with the front panel pressure plate button, set the AV receiver to a different input, turned the DVR on and then switched back to the DVR HDMI input and got stereo audio for the music channel. I switched to an HD channel and repeated that two-step but Dolby sound did not return. At that point I resorted to the red button.

So Media share, is still not working for me yet, I understand it is listed as beta. Hopefully it will work in the future.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

CuriousMark,
Seriously - I'd consider getting a internet-capable blu-ray player that can play media off your PC/NAS. I have a Sony that works great, plays Pandora perfectly, and connects wirelesly.


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> CuriousMark,
> Seriously - I'd consider getting a internet-capable blu-ray player that can play media off your PC/NAS. I have a Sony that works great, plays Pandora perfectly, and connects wirelesly.


I will fix it by bringing my TiVo S2 back into the family room. I won't have to go out and buy another piece of hardware that way. It does everything just fine, just not in HD. I already have a BluRay player, but it doesn't have those features. I didn't get the upscale model because I could already do all that stuff with my Tivo and I had hoped the DirecTV DVR would do it too. I was hoping the HR24 could match more of what my TiVo did, but I guess not. My TV already has a DLNA client, but the user interface stinks. So I can use that too without issue if I want. For photo slideshows it is more than adequate.

I am just spoiled and trying to match what I had as best I can. I appreciate the help from those willing to give me advice that helps me do it the way I hope to. I am not quite ready to completely throw in the towel yet. Thanks anyway.


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

I swapped the H24-100 with the HR24-200 and there is no loss of sound from the H24, when exiting form music playback. So this appears to be an HR24-200 problem, either a bum unit or a software glitch that could be fixed in the future. Not sure how to find out which. This is my second HR24 so far. I could go for three.


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

CuriousMark said:


> I swapped the H24-100 with the HR24-200 and there is no loss of sound from the H24, when exiting form music playback. So this appears to be an HR24-200 problem, either a bum unit or a software glitch that could be fixed in the future. Not sure how to find out which. This is my second HR24 so far. I could go for three.


The HR24/200 now has software version 0x041a on it and the loss of sound issue is now gone. It also can finally play a very limited selection of videos from my NAS and WMC.

Is there a post or page that lists exactly what detailed video and audio formats the H24/100 and HR24/200 support over DLNA? For instance It shows some MPEG-2 video (not sure of the detailed specs) in an AVI container as playable with the little movie camera icon instead of an X, but in fact those don't play. Strangely only the first 4 clips are marked with the camera icon, all the rest of the clips from the same camera made with the exactly the same settings, show an X.

This is improving.


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