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Direct TV DVR question
#324654 10/03/10 03:25 PM
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I switched from cable to Direct TV last week. I went with their whole home system. The system comes with one HD DVR and two additional HD receivers. The DVR does the bulk of the work. It does all the recording and stores recordings on its hard drive. The two receivers talk to the DVR through the cabling between each machine. You can watch whatever happens to be on the DVR’s hard drive from the three different locations, set up recordings, delete recordings, download movies and shows, etc. All this sounded way too cool to not give it a whirl. I’m not terribly impressed so far. So far I have had one receiver lock up hard, which affected the DVR, locking it up too. Twenty minutes later, after unplugging both machines and letting them do their thing to re-boot and talk to the satellite, they started working again. I think I'm going to have a love / hate relationship with this system.

My question is in regards to the networking capabilities. I need to plug the DVR into my broadband home network in order to use their video on demand feature. Supposedly, I can download movies and shows, some for a fee, others not. I plugged the DVR into my wired home network and tried to get it to connect. It connects to the home network, but will not connect to the internet. I have no trouble connecting any of my other devices to the internet using the same cable / network jack, so I’m not real sure what to troubleshoot to fix this problem. Suggestions?? I figured I’d ask the IT / Networking guys here before I waste an hour of my day on the phone with someone that I can’t understand in India reading a script.

Re: Direct TV DVR question
michael_d #324655 10/03/10 03:29 PM
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So normally you don't have to do any configuration on things you plug into your wired network?

It sounds like it's not picking up a DNS server properly. I would check the configuration on the cable box for that entry. If it's not auto-filling (via DHCP), you can use Google's DNS servers at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.


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Re: Direct TV DVR question
Ken.C #324656 10/03/10 03:38 PM
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Michael, I soooo do NOT know anything about networking, but is it possible you first have to have an account set up with their site before your DVR will "talk" to it?


It's just a shot in the IP....


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Re: Direct TV DVR question
MarkSJohnson #324659 10/03/10 04:19 PM
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I'm surprised.

I have an older DTV setup, and haven't had ANY problems. My experience with their tech support has actually been quite good.


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Re: Direct TV DVR question
tomtuttle #324666 10/03/10 10:34 PM
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Well I should clarify that Ken. Normally, for this particular jack / location, I just have my Oppo and Denon. All I've ever done is simply plug them in and they find the Internet and do their thing. I do not have a switch or anything here; just the cat 5 wire. I've been meaning to buy a hub or whatever I might need to just plug all these devices into so I don't have to change the cable, but I don't know what I need and I didn't want to bother you guys - AGAIN with this networking crap. I'll have to look at the boxes that the DVR is automatically filling in. I remember a lot of numbers, but don't recall what. I'll do that and report back.

I'm not entirely sure Mark. Shit, I bought the "everything" package with the NFL Sunday ticket, so I just assumed that included "everything". I'll check.

I have not actually tried to call tech support yet Tom. I'm just biased with electronic tech support lately. Seams like every time I use it, I end up figuring out the problem on my own after wasting hours on the phone, either on hold, or asking "what the F*** did you just say?", "isn't this the English support line and don't you have anyone who actually speaks English?", "no, I'm not going to reboot the damn thing for the third time dammit!"

Re: Direct TV DVR question
michael_d #324667 10/04/10 12:40 AM
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Your DVR should automatically find your network and connect to the internet. I would call their tech support. I actually had a good experience with their tech support because I couldn’t get mine to connect. Turned out my problem was self inflicted since I connected using a phone cable and not a cat5 one.

It may be something as simple as they haven’t turned on that capability for you.


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Re: Direct TV DVR question
grunt #324669 10/04/10 12:59 AM
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Well I ended up calling tech support for a different issue. My NFL Sunday Ticket channels are all grey. He couldn't fix that problem, so I asked about the network problem. He couldn't fix that and recommended that I call Best Buy's Geek Squad.

I plugged my Cat 5 cable into the Oppo to make sure it is working OK. I did a test with the Oppo and it told me my connection is OK.

So I then did the old stand by trick; re-setting my router. No bananas. The DVR will still not connect to the Internet.

This is what the error message says:

IP Address (numbers) OK
Subnet Mask (numbers) OK
Default gateway - -
DNS - -
Network: Connected
Internet: Not Connected (13) - 13 being the same error, I'm not connected.

This sucks.... I was looking foward to watching the Steelers game when I got home, but it didn't record. Sonofabitch!!

Re: Direct TV DVR question
michael_d #324672 10/04/10 02:23 AM
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As far as what you need to stop switching that cat 5 cable it is just a simple network switching box/hub.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Wired-Networking/Hubs-Switches/abcat0503012.c?id=abcat0503012

I have one for my HT requirements as well, much simpler than running a bunch of cat5 to one location that rarely requires a bunch of bandwidth.


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Re: Direct TV DVR question
jakewash #324675 10/04/10 03:50 AM
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OK. If you don't have a default gateway (or if your IP address is 169.254.xxx.xxx), then there's the problem. If you do have a default gateway, then you're ok on that count.

However, if you don't have DNS, then there's your problem. Is the DVR definitely set to DHCP?


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Re: Direct TV DVR question
Ken.C #324693 10/04/10 04:39 PM
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All I need is a switch!? Hey, I can handly that! Thanks Jay.

Uh.... What's DHCP?

There is an "advanced" network setup option, but it comes with a warning, "not recommended for the IT challenged" (my interpretation of the warning). Seeing how I ma severely challenged, I elected to not try the advanced set up.

The dashes above mean there is no default gateway or DNS.

I'm cursed. For absolutely no reason at all (I did nothing, seriously), the damn thing reset everything to factory defaults, everything. All my favorites menu's, all my recordings, everything that had been recorded, all gone. Tech support (call number three) had absolutely no idea why this happened.

Tech had me run a system check, and everything came back golden.

At this point, I'm just laughing.

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