Cheers raydon for the info on changing ports - I'll give that ago sometime!

Anymore thoughts on why Twonky and Mediatomb won't autostart? Do the Samba startup scripts also do this network check because that autostarts fine.

A further update - when the box comes out of standby to perform a recording, twonky starts almost immediately (30 seconds max).

So it appears it is just when I power the box on manually that Twonky is failing to start. Any ideas?

The auto-start scripts for twonky and mediatomb must wait for the box to dynamically create a hosts file containing the IP address acquired by the udhcpc daemon from your router before starting the application. This hosts file can be found in the /tmp directory.
Once a valid hosts file exists, a flag file /tmp/if-up is created, and it is the existence of this flag file that the server scripts wait for. (In case your wondering, the /tmp directory is part of the temporary file system and so gets created afresh at each boot). So next time you boot the HDR check to see if the hosts and if-up files exist. Also you can list the contents of the hosts file to ensure its valid by entering cat /tmp/hosts.

HDR has been in standby recording all night (it booted itself for the usual pre-recording wake up period) and the two files above were present (and the timestamps looked sensible) and the Twonky server was up.

After the HDR had finished recording and it powered down, I manually booted and left it a couple of minutes. The two files above were present (and the hosts file was exactly the same as before and the timestamps were sensible) however 15 minutes later and the Twonky server is not up (samba shares are).

Very odd

This software sounds useful.. will it activate the Ethernet port automatically?

I have a Wifi Sender attached to mine.

What software is recommended for use on the PC (win 7)?

Yes - the Ethernet port is activated as standard.

That rather depends on how how want to work and what you want to install - for example with samba a shared folder will become visible on your network and if you map this as a network drive, then you can play files directly using Windows Media Player.
If you install Twonky or MediaTomb then a variety of software works; VLC player, XBMC.

Hi richard, I have a beta firmware that uses a slightly different method to determine when networking is established. It may or may not resolve your problem. If you would like to try it let me know and I'll PM you with a link.

I've installed telnet, ftp, Samba, twonky and the channel editor. All works well - finally I can watch Sky News easily thanks to the channel editor (this would have been so easy for Humax to do).

In terms of viewing content elsewhere - I cannot view HD recordings (encryption?). The SD recordings are viewable if a little hard to navigate. I presume I just select the ".ts" files to watch programmes?

It's a good idea to make samba share the "Channels" folder - because that makes using the channel editor easier.

Yes any recording shown in Media with the Enc icon is encrypted and can only be played by the HDR that recorded it.

I just share media and map it as a network drive fro easy access.

If you installed the channel editor from ray-don's 3c bundle you will find a version with updated scripts here.

Randomly I haven't done anything to the HDR setup, network setup, router setup but over the past week or so I have noticed that media server has been starting when the box has been manually booted.

I'll keep an eye on it and see if it starts playing up again!

Can't find this software on the download link's provided.
Anyone know were I can get them.

Found it .

when I use the webif to delete media files it leaves the folder with a (0) after it. You can't delete a folder unless you use the file manager on the humax so you tend to delete the files if there are only a few because its quicker.

Hence now I have dozens of empty folders in my media list.
Is this a bug?
How can I avoid it?
How can I get rid of the little devils now I how them?

Thanks!

You can use an FTP client like Filezilla for now, to delete folders. I'll see if a folder delete option can be included in the next webif update.

That's great, thanks.

Just out of curiosity, how come the empty folders are deleted if you empty them on the tv interface with the remote but not using the webif?

I used filezilla, worked perfectly - thanks!

They are, but only if the HDR created the folder in the first place in the course of saving a 'series link' recording. If you create a folder yourself via the HDR's GUI it will not be automatically deleted when empty as a hidden flag folder named .usr is created at the same time which disables this function. Did you create any folders in this way ?

No - I never create folders myself so all the empty folders I have were created by the HDR for series record.

Also, are you aware of a bug whereby if you watch the start of a recording while the programme is still being recorded, the playback stops when the live programme comes to an end? Not a dealbreaker but a bit irritating...

No such bug that I know of. If you watch a programme using the timeshift buffer (timeshift) you are also recording then the buffer is flushed when the programme finishes. Shouldn't be any issue watching the recording from the media list (chasing playback), You can start watching the recording 60 seconds or more after recording starts.

As Graham said, the behaviour is a bit different to what you've described.

I've been irritated by this for years (see here, for instance), and it's a great shame it was never fixed, but the positives of the HDR do outweigh its negatives.

I still miss my Thomson DHD-4000, which worked so well in so many ways

Ah yes - I see what you mean. If you are watching in timeshift mode you are watching 0.ts and it deletes this when the programme is finished regardless of whether or not you have come to the end of it. I'll look more analytically nest time...


In

I converted and transferred an avi file today but when I play it back from the hdr the picture is shifted upwards by about 1/6 of a screen so the top 1/6th appears at the bottom and flickers (like the hooking you used to get at the top on a dodgy VHS replay except its 1/6th of a screen, at the bottom and has a sharp, clean top edge to it).

I started with an avi which plays fine on its own. I used winx to convert to mpeg which also plays ok in VLC. I used AV2HDR to create the fie set and ftp them to the HDR. Its only when I come to play it.through the tv that I see.the error.

Any thoughts?

What's in the file, resolution, aspect ratio and compression type ?

Medianinfo will give you all the details.

is this what you need?

Also, tried playin the .ts in vlc and it was fine.

Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 245 MiB
Duration : 29mn 54s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 145 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release)
Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2540/release

Hang on - I found a better display:

Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 245 MiB
Duration : 29mn 54s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 145 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release)
Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2540/release

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : 1
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 29mn 54s
Bit rate : 1 022 Kbps
Width : 636 pixels
Height : 352 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.183
Stream size : 219 MiB (89%)
Writing library : XviD 64

Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 29mn 54s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 110 Kbps
Minimum bit rate : 32.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 23.6 MiB (10%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 26 ms (0.65 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 194 ms
Writing library : LAME3.98r
Encoding settings : -m j -V 6 -q 2 -lowpass 15.5 --vbr-new -b 32