# MRV/Multi-Room Viewing w/ HR Series DVR's



## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Yet another post-CES poll; this one targets an area that saw many announcements as to portable/remote viewing of DVR recorded content, and transferability of content (HD in particular) throughout and even beyond the home.

Pre-eminent among these (as a device that adds to any system) is the Slingbox Pro-HD, although others have approximately the same type products. The 'announced' availability is 3rd qtr. 2008, so the question of the day is, will those with an established h/w base (being as this is the HR-series forum, that box), beat Slingbox with a s/w upgrade that would accomplish the same thing. 

Remember, this was announced as a goal over a year ago. But perhaps their feet are to the fire now. How close, is the question of the hour.


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## Thaedron (Jun 29, 2007)

I went with July. I probably should have gone with the less eager October, but everything is in place except for the s/w. At the rate they are going July seems feasible.

Woot - first to vote!


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Is the day of pessimism? (sp?)


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## Sirshagg (Dec 30, 2006)

Hoping for 3/1 but suspect it will be more like 7/1.


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## Hansen (Jan 1, 2006)

How about a poll option for tonight's CE?


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## Sirshagg (Dec 30, 2006)

Hansen said:


> How about a poll option for tonight's CE?


I couln't possibly be that lucky. :grin:


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## Thaedron (Jun 29, 2007)

Hansen said:


> How about a poll option for tonight's CE?


I would not sleep tonight.


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## BkwSoft (Oct 18, 2007)

I voted for the 3/1 date. With the video mediashare they are basically half way there. Yes there are still a few issues to work out with the video media share but it is close to being ready for prime time. Now all they need to implement is a media share server in the HR2x and we would have MRV.


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## Sirshagg (Dec 30, 2006)

BkwSoft said:


> I voted for the 3/1 date. With the video mediashare they are basically half way there. Yes there are still a few issues to work out with the video media share but it is close to being ready for prime time. Now all they need to implement is a media share server in the HR2x and we would have MRV.


The same could be said with VOD/DOD.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

The poll is flawed. It should have been public so we could see what Earl votes.


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## Sirshagg (Dec 30, 2006)

bonscott87 said:



> The poll is flawed. It should have been public so we could see what Earl votes.


*+1*


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## smiddy (Apr 5, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Is the day of pessimism? (sp?)


Yeah, it does seem that way, doesn't it. I'll carry my glass full today.


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

I voted 3/1 just because I REALLY hope that it's in a CE at least by then. I sure would be a great freature to wave in front of all the E* 622/722 fans.


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

Can't be soon enough for me  can't wait for MRV...


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## daniellee (Jun 15, 2006)

With a new CE round for the HR20's starting soon (hopefully tonight) my guess is that MRV will be in this CE round. New CE rounds seem to be started when the developers are ready to start testing the next “big thing”. So what would the next big thing be if not MRV?


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## Sixto (Nov 18, 2005)

My money is on the next CE cycle. 

Maybe not tonight but I bet within the next several weeks.


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## techm8n (Jan 3, 2008)

Is this poll for the NR or CE release of MRV? 

If it's for NR, we'll be waiting for a while since it's not even in CE for us to test.


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## crmlht0000 (Jan 21, 2008)

bonscott87 said:


> The poll is flawed. It should have been public so we could see what Earl votes.


-1


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## Thaedron (Jun 29, 2007)

techm8n said:


> Is this poll for the NR or CE release of MRV?
> 
> If it's for NR, we'll be waiting for a while since it's not even in CE for us to test.


I can't speak for the OP, but I think you need to assume NR.


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## Thaedron (Jun 29, 2007)

crmlht0000 said:


> -1


You don't want to know what Earl would have voted?


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## crmlht0000 (Jan 21, 2008)

Thaedron said:


> You don\'t want to know what Earl would have voted?


nope


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## crmlht0000 (Jan 21, 2008)

Thaedron said:


> You don\'t want to know what Earl would have voted?


no, because i do not care \"what people who think for o think like engineers think\"

i prefer to think for myself, a lost art in america today


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

crmlht0000 said:


> no, because i do not care \"what people who think for o think like engineers think\"
> 
> i prefer to think for myself, a lost art in america today


I was wondering how long it was going to take for you to take a jab at me.


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## woj027 (Sep 3, 2007)

So how would the MRV work? I have an HR20-700 in one room and an H20-100 in another room. Would I have to buy a new glossy black box (yet to be seen) from DirecTV to make it work?


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

If we're talking about CE Release, I would bet CE testers see it by March 1, but if we're talking about National Release, I'd go for July 1.


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## MIAMI1683 (Jul 11, 2007)

woj027 said:


> So how would the MRV work? I have an HR20-700 in one room and an H20-100 in another room. Would I have to buy a new glossy black box (yet to be seen) from DirecTV to make it work?


Yup, The thought is it's for hrxx's. You would have to have the hrxx in the room you want mrv in, and probably networked too. Thats just a guess, but it seems
highly likely the hrxx will have to be networked for it to work. I think by April 1 for CE testing for what its worth.


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## crmlht0000 (Jan 21, 2008)

Earl Bonovich said:


> I was wondering how long it was going to take for you to take a jab at me.


it was not a jab, just stating a fact, i would rather think for myself, than care / need to know what ANYONE who said \"I think like an engineer\" says.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

I'm not in this for what Earl thinks...I'm in for what he knows. 

(Tho I do respect what he thinks, along with many others here.)

Cheers,
Tom


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## Herdfan (Mar 18, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> I'm not in this for what Earl thinks...I'm in for what he knows.


I would guess that you already know what he knows.  I can imagine the mod room as almost a borg where all knowledge is assimilated into others immedately.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

Herdfan said:


> I would guess that you already know what he knows.  I can imagine the mod room as almost a borg where all knowledge is assimilated into others immedately.


!rolling


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

It's a network cable between the "modbots" :lol:


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## mhayes70 (Mar 21, 2006)

crmlht0000 said:


> it was not a jab, just stating a fact, i would rather think for myself, than care / need to know what ANYONE who said \"I think like an engineer\" says.


With all respect....I have seen alot of your post the last couple of days and  :scratch: :nono2: . I think you are just angry about something here. Why so negative all the time. Chill out and enjoy this forum. We are all her just to help and have fun.


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

Herdfan said:


> I would guess that you already know what he knows.  I can imagine the mod room as almost a borg where all knowledge is assimilated into others immedately.


As Earl knows,
There are known knowns.
There are things Earl knows he knows.
He also knows
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
Earl knows there are some things
He does not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones Earl doesn't know
He dosen't know.


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## Thaedron (Jun 29, 2007)

armophob said:


> As Earl knows,
> There are known knowns.
> There are things Earl knows he knows.
> He also knows
> ...


Winner of the most profound post of the week...!!!


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

crmlht0000 said:


> it was not a jab, just stating a fact, i would rather think for myself, than care / need to know what ANYONE who said \"I think like an engineer\" says.


As, so you're just unhappy with ALL engineers ... I see that makes it that much less of a jab! 

I appreciate Earl's posts, and can only say, "keep 'em coming!"


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## tooloud10 (Sep 23, 2007)

I'm not sure I "get" the poll--we're guessing about when they activate MRV? How is this useful again?


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

tooloud10 said:


> I'm not sure I "get" the poll--we're guessing about when they activate MRV? How is this useful again?


I think there's a bookie somewhere in Vegas who's closely watching this ..


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## Thaedron (Jun 29, 2007)

Drew2k said:


> I think there's a bookie somewhere in Vegas who's closely watching this ..


LOL... :lol: Wait, I better go place my bet...


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

tooloud10 said:


> I'm not sure I "get" the poll--we're guessing about when they activate MRV? How is this useful again?


You would rather have another To Do poll? Because I will do it. I swear I will.


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## TomF (Sep 20, 2006)

Is MRV actually in DirecTV's plans or is it just something that a bunch of us want and hope that DirecTV implements? Are the HR2xs physically capable of MRV so that all it needs is a software implementation? Just wondering.


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## Michael D'Angelo (Oct 21, 2006)

TomF said:


> Is MRV actually in DirecTV's plans or is it just something that a bunch of us want and hope that DirecTV implements? Are the HR2xs physically capable of MRV so that all it needs is a software implementation? Just wondering.


Yes it is in the plans and possibly soon.

All the units need is a software upgrade.

But you need to have the units networked to a home network either wired or connected with an wireless adapter with a ethernet connection not USB.


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

armophob said:


> You would rather have another To Do poll? Because I will do it. I swear I will.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

On armophob's todo list a todo about todo lists with polltential...

Yes, MRV is very important in DIRECTV's future plans for competitive reasons. And it's going to be way cool! 

Cheers,
Tom


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

Tom Robertson said:


> Yes, MRV is very important in DIRECTV's future plans for competitive reasons. And it's going to be way cool!
> 
> Cheers,
> Tom


Agreed, and IMHO the sooner the better.


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## rsblaski (Jul 6, 2003)

I hope that the plans for MRV are such that the connected dvrs become a virtual "merged" machine. IOW, you could have access to the recording and playback functions of all receivers through one unit. If I wanted to schedule four programs at the same time, I could do that using one dvr and the MRV function would allocate the recording jobs to the available tuners, no matter which machine they were on. I could then use the same machine to go to a "master" playlist and pick what I wanted to watch, no matter which recorder it was on. I would not even have to ever access any of the other machines if I didn't want to.
What are the chances D*'s implementation will be this simple?


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

rsblaski said:


> If I wanted to schedule four programs at the same time, I could do that using one dvr and the MRV function would allocate the recording jobs to the available tuners, no matter which machine they were on. [...]
> 
> What are the chances D*'s implementation will be this simple?


What you're talking about is called "Collaborative Scheduling", and I would love to have this as well. However, I think this would be a major undertaking, so it may be a while before we see it, if ever.


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## Herdfan (Mar 18, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> What you're talking about is called "Collaborative Scheduling", and I would love to have this as well. However, I think this would be a major undertaking, so it may be a while before we see it, if ever.


Yes, and while this would be way cool, I can manage recordings on my own if I can just watch them anywhere. Let's not try to outhink the room.


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## DaHound (Nov 20, 2006)

rsblaski said:


> I hope that the plans for MRV are such that the connected dvrs become a virtual "merged" machine. IOW, you could have access to the recording and playback functions of all receivers through one unit. If I wanted to schedule four programs at the same time, I could do that using one dvr and the MRV function would allocate the recording jobs to the available tuners, no matter which machine they were on. I could then use the same machine to go to a "master" playlist and pick what I wanted to watch, no matter which recorder it was on. I would not even have to ever access any of the other machines if I didn't want to.
> What are the chances D*'s implementation will be this simple?


Can't you schedule recordings on multiple boxes from the D* web site?


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## pjo1966 (Nov 20, 2005)

This is the feature I've been anticipating most. I have an HR20 and and HR21 sitting next to each other and right by my router. It would be nice to free up an input in my home theater and be able to view all content off one box.


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## ilovehd (Jan 5, 2007)

I went with July and am hoping for March.. This is one of the features I miss from my HDVR2's..


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## crmlht0000 (Jan 21, 2008)

mhayes70 said:


> With all respect....I have seen alot of your post the last couple of days and  :scratch: :nono2: . I think you are just angry about something here. Why so negative all the time. Chill out and enjoy this forum. We are all her just to help and have fun.


not angry, just amazed at lack of old fashioned common sense,


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## rsblaski (Jul 6, 2003)

DaHound said:


> Can't you schedule recordings on multiple boxes from the D* web site?


Sure you can. But on the web site, you can only do one program at a time and cannot establish an SL. You also cannot see a combined list of available recordings as with collaborative scheduling (thanks Drew).
I would like it if MRV would be able to function as the original concept of the Home Media Center (HMC) that D* proposed; ie, a server with clients. But in this case, each dvr would act as both. If set up this way, you could locate any number of dvrs in an out of the way location and just have one dvr at each viewing area. Extra dvrs could be stored in a closet and would serve as extra storage or tuners when needed. In a four dvr scenario, this would give you a total of 8 available tuners at any one time and a little over 1 TB of storage.


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## jschramm (Sep 12, 2007)

crmlht0000 said:


> not angry, just amazed at lack of old fashioned common sense,


You are a little weird.

They are not asking for someone to have an opinion for them, they are just hoping for some info from someone who might be able to make an educated guess.

Relax.

I vote for March 1st or earlier in a CE.


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

rsblaski said:


> Sure you can. But on the web site, you can only do one program at a time and cannot establish an SL. You also cannot see a combined list of available recordings as with collaborative scheduling (thanks Drew).
> I would like it if MRV would be able to function as the original concept of the Home Media Center (HMC) that D* proposed; ie, a server with clients. But in this case, each dvr would act as both. If set up this way, you could locate any number of dvrs in an out of the way location and just have one dvr at each viewing area. Extra dvrs could be stored in a closet and would serve as extra storage or tuners when needed. In a four dvr scenario, this would give you a total of 8 available tuners at any one time and a little over 1 TB of storage.


Kinda doubt that will be a part of it.. I'll settle for being able to stop a recording in one room and finish watching in another


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

BMoreRavens said:


> Yes it is in the plans and possibly soon.
> 
> All the units need is a software upgrade.
> 
> But you need to have the units networked to a home network either wired or connected with an wireless adapter with a ethernet connection not USB.


It is my understand that if you are only interested in MRV, and not VOD or remote booking, then the minimal network that will be required could be as simple as a single cat 5 cable connecting two DVRs. Is that correct?


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

cartrivision said:


> It is my understand that if you are only interested in MRV, and not VOD or remote booking, then the minimal network that will be required could be as simple as a single cat 5 cable connecting two DVRs. Is that correct?


Yep.. just connect them together and manualy set IP..


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

tooloud10 said:


> I'm not sure I "get" the poll--we're guessing about when they activate MRV? How is this useful again?


It's not. The only results of this poll that I would care about would be how Earl voted, since some of his posts lately have hinted that MRV might be making an appearance sooner than later. Based on Earl's hints alone, I would guess that MRV will be in a CE build by the end of March


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

first, thank you all for the wonderful work you do. I got my hr20 on friday 2-1-08 and by saturday 2-2-08 was trying the ce release.
please forgive me if this is not correct post to ask in, I am new here.

are there any implications\known issues of MRV being run in a server 2003 active directory domain?
I have no issues relaxing security for it since all internal traffic is separated from external influence through a hardware firewall, but the ability to assign a specific machine name would be helpful in a domain.
again, thank you.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Welcome to the forums, the HR20, and the CEs, dmacleo! :wecome_s

If you assign your HR20 a static IP address, or even better a static DHCP address, you should be able to define the device to server 2003--I think. (I haven't done as much with 2003.)

That said, at this point the server side of things would be Windows Media Player, not the active directory for file serving. Not sure if that helps or hurts your plans.

Cheers,
Tom


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

the static ip is something I use, it just simplifies things. however domain permissions are tied to the machine name and its appropriate gpo. if I can find the machine name and make sure any updates don't change it I can use that. one thing I did not think to try is using the MAC address as the machine name, since all network interaction is driven by that this might work. Then the GPO's could be used to assign its permissions and access.
its not a huge issue since the shared drives are opened and segregated from external access, I'm just asking for the sake of asking 

WMP in SV2003 doesn't act like it does on xp/vista unfortunately, so I can't use it to share to the HR20. I can use Media 9 Services to create publishing points and push, but TVersity is easier in this aspect. I am not even sure WMS9 publishing ports would recognize the UPnP device. TVersity and Unreal Media are what I use (also embedded wmp in webpages) to distribute media on my intranet.

I am working on slipstreaming WMP11 and its networking capabilities into a server 2003 installation, but I just started and have not tried it yet.


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## TheWizz (Feb 1, 2008)

cartrivision said:


> It's not. The only results of this poll that I would care about would be how Earl voted, since some of his posts lately have hinted that MRV might be making an appearance sooner than later. Based on Earl's hints alone, I would guess that MRV will be in a CE build by the end of March


I think the odds of MRV appearing sooner rather than later is due partly to the D* acquisition of the ReplayTV assets, e.g. their patents, which includes a good MRV solution. Just a guess, but ReplayTV has been doing MRV for years and the main reason I have been slow to switch to D* DVRs.


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

TheWizz said:


> I think the odds of MRV appearing sooner rather than later is due partly to the D* acquisition of the ReplayTV assets, e.g. their patents, which includes a good MRV solution. Just a guess, but ReplayTV has been doing MRV for years and the main reason I have been slow to switch to D* DVRs.


I would have hoped that MRV development was much farther along by the time the announced the Replay purchase, since MRV was announced as a coming feature a long time ago. My guess is that it was mainly purchased for the patents so when the Tivo/D* contract ends they don't need to worry about Tivo coming after them since they have their own patents to work from .


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## Radio Enginerd (Oct 5, 2006)

Sirshagg said:


> Hoping for 3/1 but suspect it will be more like 7/1.


3/1 seems overly ambitious so I'll go with 7/1 as well.


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## pjo1966 (Nov 20, 2005)

Would trick-play work with MRV between two DVRs? I know when I'm playing clips streamed from my computer it does not work.


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## Michael D'Angelo (Oct 21, 2006)

pjo1966 said:


> Would trick-play work with MRV between two DVRs? I know when I'm playing clips streamed from my computer it does not work.


No one knows. DirecTV has not given us any info. Any answer given will be 100% speculation.


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## lwilli201 (Dec 22, 2006)

Since the H21 has an ethernet port, is it possible that recorded content on an HR20/21 can be viewed through a networked H21? That would be great. You could view content in multiple places without needing additional DVR's.


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## TheWizz (Feb 1, 2008)

RAD said:


> I would have hoped that MRV development was much farther along by the time the announced the Replay purchase, since MRV was announced as a coming feature a long time ago. My guess is that it was mainly purchased for the patents so when the Tivo/D* contract ends they don't need to worry about Tivo coming after them since they have their own patents to work from .


Good point. Perhaps D* is trying to "tweak" their own MRV implementation before releasing it to have some of the same characteristics of the ReplayTV MRV since they now own those patents, e.g. make the technology more lawsuit-proof. Just a thought...


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## Capt'n (Aug 23, 2007)

Does anyone have an idea of the feature set they plan on including with MRV? If it's just video out over your network, it would be pointless as we can already do that using the normal video outputs. You would have to assume that they would allow you to view/control separate tuners (ie: one in each room). That would also make you assume both tuners would need a buffer in order to use cruise control features. Am I way off base here with my thinking of how MRV works?


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

MRV solves a couple of problems that video output extension does not: multiple rooms, via wireless or wired network connections that are ubiquitous, and potentially DLNA compatibility.

I do not expect live tuners to be shared, at least initially, as the clients should have their own tuners.

Cheers,
Tom


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## Capt'n (Aug 23, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> MRV solves a couple of problems that video output extension does not: multiple rooms, via wireless or wired network connections that are ubiquitous, and potentially DLNA compatibility.
> 
> I do not expect live tuners to be shared, at least initially, as the clients should have their own tuners.
> 
> ...


Then you can't really say it's true MRV. At least going by what E* is doing as far as MRV is concerned.

Sounds more like a mediashare feature IMO. Your just adding a drive for mediashare to pull files off of.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

I guess I'd have to ask what do you need to extend a tuner to another receiver for? It should have its own tuner?

Are you talking about Dish's two TV viewing feature? That is completely different from MRV and relies upon a video connection from the receiver to the second TV. (And disables PIP and DLB, as far as I understand.)

Multi-Room Viewing is a network (not necessarily ethernet based) of server(s) and clients distributing video content from server(s) to clients. Advanced features might include shared "todo lists" and shared "Prioritizers"; pause here, resume there; etc.

Cheers,
Tom


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

Capt'n;1442351 said:


> Does anyone have an idea of the feature set they plan on including with MRV? If it's just video out over your network, it would be pointless as we can already do that using the normal video outputs. You would have to assume that they would allow you to view/control separate tuners (ie: one in each room). That would also make you assume both tuners would need a buffer in order to use cruise control features. Am I way off base here with my thinking of how MRV works?


Let's hope that it's a lot more than just video out over the network. As you point out, you don't need an IP based network to do that. On my list of must-have features is the ability transfer recorded programs to the disks of other DVRs on the same account.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> I guess I'd have to ask what do you need to extend a tuner to another receiver for? It should have its own tuner?


Well, a killer implementation of MVR would _logically_ extend each tuner pair to the recording/scheduling/conflict resolution function of every DVR on the network. If you had 3 DVRs on your network, you could schedule 6 conflicting programs from a single DVR, and the recording requests would be distributed across all 3 DVRs.

Ideally, there would be at least an option to make X number of DVRs look like one big DVR with X times the disk space, and 2X times the number of tuners available for conflict resolution. No tuner output would be distributed over the network to be recorded on a different DVR, but it doesn't need to be because you could accomplish the logical equivalent with the above described implementation.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Yes, I refer to that feature as "Shared Todo" and/or "shared prioritizer". 

Not sharing the input of a tuner on server 1, live to client 2.

Its all good, we cleared up the misunderstanding. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> Yes, I refer to that feature as "Shared Todo" and/or "shared prioritizer".


It's also known as "Collaborative Scheduling" to some of the geekier among us.


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## captainjrl (Jun 26, 2007)

Drew2k said:


> It's also known as "Collaborative Scheduling" to some of the geekier among us.


That feature would make me drool.


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## mrpull (Jan 16, 2008)

cartrivision said:


> If you had 3 DVRs on your network, you could schedule 6 conflicting programs from a single DVR, and the recording requests would be distributed across all 3 DVRs.


TivoWeb has/had an extension called Conflict Resolve that would utilize tuners on a second Tivo as you describe.

7 days after "upgrading" to the HR21-200 I still miss the old Tivo.


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