| [XP] begging for help with home LAN setup Hello,
I registered in order to beg for help with setting up a local area network in my home. If you are anywhere near Shreveport Louisiana, I would be happy to buy you a beer.
I am not completely computer illiterate, but I have been out of the game for about a decade and I would greatly appreciate any advice being broken down barney-style.
Here is the hardware that I would like to network (for file-sharing purposes):
1) a Netgear N600 wireless dualband gigabit router (model WNDR3700v2)
2) a laptop running XP professional [wired connection]
3) A Direct TV DVR (model HR24-200) [wired connection]
4) A laptop running Windows 7 starter [wireless connection]
5) A Toshiba Thrive tablet running Android 3.1 [wireless connection]
6) A Motorola Droid X running Android 2.3.3 [wireless connection]
Being a networking novice, just thinking about getting all of these operating systems talking to one another makes my head hurt. But common sense tells me that this *should* be possible; all of these devices have an assigned IP address and a MAC address, etc. and they're all connected to the same router. Am I wrong?
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Aaron |
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| My guess is that your two laptops are already "talking to each other" - if you're looking to share files all you'd need to do is make a folder or find a folder you want to share, right click it -> share with -> specific people, make sure your username is in there and then hit share. Then on the other computer go to "network" and you should see the other computer on the win 7 laptop (may need to enable sharing if it pops up), or on the xp (if my memory serves me correctly) you go network -> view network computers -> entire network (or something like that) You may have to look in a "Workgroup" |
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| reply to TaintedCar
Thanks for the quick response.
I am sure that I can get the two laptops to swap files without too much trouble, but one of my goals is to access the hard drive in the DVR with my laptop in order to save recorded programs to removable media or an external hard drive. I just deleted the entire first season of Game of Thrones (freaking beautiful full 1080i, 5.1 surround sound), and I got to thinking that it really is a shame that I had to do that just to record more episodes of beavis and butthead. |
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| I'm not at all familiar with DirecTV or that box as I have FiOS but I'm not sure you're going to be able to pull video off the DVR. Don't hold me to it though, at least I can't with FiOS.
I did find this:
»www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/d···diashare
Its directv mediashare. It looks like it works in the opposite direction only, share photos, movies, etc from your computer to the DVR box. You may have better luck with some good information about getting dvr'ed recordings off the box in the forum on the directv site or on here if there is one for directv.
I did find this info on the directv forum, just to cover our bases:
The HR24 comes default set with the Ethernet port deactivated. To activate it and connect to the Internet you must do a red button reset with a Ethernet cable connected to both the HR24 and an activer router. Because you've alterend the settings, here is the reconfiguration procedure. Do all the steps in the order listed.
Connect the Ethernet cable to the top or only port of the DVR and an open port on the router. Check that the router has DHCP enabled (essential). Do a red button (inside card door) reset of the DVR. When it's booted up, do thus: Menu -> .....setup -> system setup -> network setup -> restore defaults. At this point stop and go to your router and disconnect AC power for a minute and plug it back in. When all the lights settle down, go back to the DVR and run the "connect now" command. You should get a "connected to Internet" message. Allow 24 hours for the system to download then try downloading a concert from channel 1239 as a test.
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| Thanks for your help, and yeah I have the DVR online and doing what it was designed to do, namely trying to sell me more crap. 
After poking around for the better part of the day, I have come to the conclusion that you are most likely correct when you suggest that it is not possible to access the DVR HDD thru my home LAN.
For one thing, I have learned that my DVR runs on a custom Linux-based operating system, and that the files it stores are hemmed up under some kind of military-grade encryption. For another, I now understand that DirecTv wants me to think that I am breaking some law by even asking how to archive my bought-and-paid-for 1080p programing on any device other than the one they rented me.
I thought that since I could see the DVR through the admin utility on my router, and that I could ping it through the windows XP cmd prompt, that it would be possible to go poking around in its root directory, but it turns out that this is a pipe dream.
If anyone knows how to crack this nut, I would be happy to try it out. As far as I am concerned, my DVR's warranty and end user agreement can go to hell. (In the words of Gene Kranz: I don't care about what it was designed to do. I care about what it *can* do.)
Thanks again. I will post here if I learn anything new. |
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 billaustinthey call me Mr. BillPremium,MVM
join:2001-10-13
North Las Vegas, NV
kudos:2 | You cannot access the hard drive in the DVR, or the files stored on it. You cannot even copy the files from one DVR to another. This is by design, to ensure compliance with existing copyright laws, as demanded by the content providers and copyright holders.
The only thing you buy from DirecTV, or any similar content provider, is the right to view the programming material for the time periods they allow. |
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