I am seeking an easy way of moving video files between my Humax HDR and my NAS via the network.

Has anyone used the Linksys NSLU2 for this with the Humax ? I know it can be made to work with the Topfield 5800.

Having done a search I cannot find anything that gives any clues for the HDR. I suspect there may be some subtle showstopper. I know people in this forum have the Topfield/NSLU2 combination and would be grateful for any info or thoughts.

Many thanks for any advice.

To connect a usb device to the Toppy requires a host controller like a PC. The hdr is a host controller so connects to a usb device like a pen drive. to work with the hdr it will have to have a device usb port The FS will also have to be either FAT32 (max file size 4GB) or Linux EXT3

I had limited success with a cheap & cheerful external Drive enclosure.

The one I purchased (from Maplins) had both Ethernet & USB2 connectors and I could copy files to and from the nas and then access it from the Humax menus.

There is a drawback however, you can only access the drive via Ethernet when the Humax is off.

... Still living in hope for Humax to enable basic network access, maybe they have the time now ver2 is delayed.

Thanks for the helpful replies.

If I’ve got it right the difference between the Topfield 5800 and the Humax HDR are:-

Topfield : box expects to be under the control of a PC

Humax : box expects to control a USB disc

Because they are so different I can see no way that the standard Toppy NSLU2 solution would work. The NSLU2 is such a versatile device it could probably present an area of the NAS disc to look like an external USB disc to the Humax. Sadly is well beyond my programming skills!

The external disc controller box with both USB and Ethernet interface does sound a relatively easy (if slightly inelegant) way of moving items back and forth between the HUMAX and a NAS. I already have the original 320G drive from the Humax spare so it should be fairly cheap to try out. The way my Humax and NAS are installed does not easily allow porting using a external drive and physically moving it between the two locations.

I will investigate further but need to act fast as my 1TB drive has been hovering at over 90% for the past couple of weeks.

To move files between the HDR & my network, I'm using the following very successfully:
1. WDTVLive network media player - which acts as a great NAS server even for Linux formatted HDD's.
2. 1Tb WD Green hard disk in an external USB housing
3. A manual USB switch
4. Three standard USB cables
Set up:
1. Format the 1Tb drive in EXT3 (no problem with the WDTV player recognising this)
2. Plug in the 1Tb drive to the common USB switch terminal of the USB switch
3. Plug in one USB switch input/output to the HDR, the other to the WDTVLive player.
Operation:
1. With switch in HDR position, you can move files between the HDR and the 1Tb drive, and watch a file directly off the drive if it has already been recorded using the HDR & you have kept the two supporting files.
2. With the switch in the WDTVLive position, you can share anything on the 1Tb drive with other computers on the network, and play to the TV via the WDLive player itself.

I find this set up gives me all the flexibility that I need. I have suggested Ext3 formatting so that you can watch files that are >4Gb off the 1Tb drive, either on the TV via the HDR or WDTV player, or on any of the computers on your network.

That's interesting Nick, I'm going to try this out - which USB switch do you use? (I am aware there is plenty of choice but it's always good to get a recommendation from a working system).

I can't find the original order or remember who I bought it from, but it was a cheap two-port USB switch identical to that shown here:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=UB21P&cat=NET
If you buy this model, then one word of caution: it is not completely manual and defaults to USB port 1 when it detects that a cable on port 1 is plugged into a device; make sure that the HDR is connected to port 1 & the WDTVLive to port 2 or else you can get connection breaks when copying large files from the HDR to the external HDD.

OK, thanks a lot for the info.