Worked fine for me, I called and told her I wanted the unsupported state and the CSR turned it on without a hassle 
If only I could schedule between DVRs.
If only I could schedule between DVRs.
Instructions to get MRV (whole home DVR) activated for ethernet
- Thread starter jcrandall
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Worked Perfectly - The Second Time
Hey guys, I just wanted to share my experience with you all.
The first woman I talked to had no idea what I was talking about and did everything she could to sell me the $99 install. Unfortunately, I live live in a multi-unit building and that is not possible. I ended up ending the call with her when she kept telling me that what I was asking for was not possible.
I immediately called back, told the guy what I wanted (with no explanation, just that I wanted MVR over ethernet) and he turned it on. He also told me that he does the same thing at his house to avoid the DECA install.
It works great!
Joe
Hey guys, I just wanted to share my experience with you all.
The first woman I talked to had no idea what I was talking about and did everything she could to sell me the $99 install. Unfortunately, I live live in a multi-unit building and that is not possible. I ended up ending the call with her when she kept telling me that what I was asking for was not possible.
I immediately called back, told the guy what I wanted (with no explanation, just that I wanted MVR over ethernet) and he turned it on. He also told me that he does the same thing at his house to avoid the DECA install.
It works great!
Joe
So I have my HR20 and HR23 connected via local network. The email method worked just fine. Now, if I should add the HR24 to my system, do I need to contact DirecTV to get unsupported MRV for it?
I believe its turned on for your account, not on a per receiver basis. So it should just be on when you hook up the HR24.
Ok so this is my first post but I called initally and mentioned it because I just converted an old router as a bridge to hookup my H23-600 upstairs. The woman said I have to pay the 99 plus the 49 plus my first born etc.. I thanked her and hung up. The second one I talked to 30 minutes later asked if they had come out and hooked everything up already, I said no the tech just told me to ask for the "unsupported MVR" since I already had the house networked. It took her a bit of time but she said she got it switch on. I hung up and went to the TV's named each box and started watching. I have a Buffalo Wireless G Router setup as a bridge and it streamed an HD show no problems. Thanks for the info.
Glad it worked out for you.
At this point though, I have to once again plug the 'send them an email like I did' methodology, which appears to be 100% foolproof and simple, as long as you arent on some particular ancient grandfathered package or dont have the right mix of HD dvr's/hd receivers. In which case you wont get it by calling either.
Seems the folks who answer the emails have this pretty well knocked. The folks taking phone calls on the other hand appear to employ a lot of WTF?
Why put the hassle on yourself?
At this point though, I have to once again plug the 'send them an email like I did' methodology, which appears to be 100% foolproof and simple, as long as you arent on some particular ancient grandfathered package or dont have the right mix of HD dvr's/hd receivers. In which case you wont get it by calling either.
Seems the folks who answer the emails have this pretty well knocked. The folks taking phone calls on the other hand appear to employ a lot of WTF?
Why put the hassle on yourself?
the e-mail route worked for me as well. I do have GB ethernet (using netgear GB switches) to each of my DVR locations and it works great. i only had to restart 1 DVR (the other worked right away). I have an HR21-100 and an HR21-700. When watching HD content from the other DVR, I see a peak of 1.65M (bytes) or 13.20M (Megabits). Hope that helps.
what I said:
what they responded with:
what I said:
what they responded with:
I plan on using the email method when I get ready to activate mine. I am still waiting on the phone company to move by interface outside. I did have a question though. I have a router that has both wireless and several ports on the back. I could just hook both receivers up to the router directly if I wanted. I have read, however, that some purchase a switch and let the receivers share one connection to the router. Is there a preferred way to do it? I really dont see where the difference would be? Maybe Im wrong? Switches are cheap and Im not trying to cheap out, I just want to know what the advantage is by not hooking both directly into the router.
thanks
matt
thanks
matt
It wouldnt much matter. If the stuff is all gigabit you'd probably never have a problem.
If you do go with an outboard switch though, I'd hook all the receivers to that and that to the router. That way all the dvr-to-dvr stuff will be on a shared switch and none of the dvr's demand that much from the internet, even when downloading VOD.
If you do go with an outboard switch though, I'd hook all the receivers to that and that to the router. That way all the dvr-to-dvr stuff will be on a shared switch and none of the dvr's demand that much from the internet, even when downloading VOD.
Well if it wont much matter, I will just go ahead and hook them both up to the router. No since in adding more equipment when there is no need. 
Keep in mind that most residential routers use a software bridging process to link the LAN ports together (it's not a true switch), and due to the limited processing capabilities of these devices they can start to slow down the more that is going on within the device.
There have been a few reports of people having MRV performance issues using the LAN ports on a SOHO router vs plugging into a switch.
I dont believe that this is true. Do you have a citation?
Except for very old routers that had an integral HUB and not a switch, anything made in the last 5-8 years should switch ethernet ports on the LAN side just as efficiently as a standalone switch.
well my router was purchased last year and it was $$$. It is a linkysys dual "N" band router. It has worked great for me. I would hope its as fast as a 40 dollar switch. I think I paid like 150 bucks for this thing for the range capabilities.
Sure. Look at the source code implementation of custom firmware like OpenWRT. The LAN ports each have unique broadcom NIC drivers so you can turn your Linksys/Dlink/whatever into a mulit-port router.
The bridging process is highly efficient and integrated as a kernel module so for most purposes the throughput is fine, but latency can suffer in certain situations.
Hook up an Ixia or Smartbits traffic generator to the LAN interfaces on a consumer router and you'll see performance that is very different from an ASIC-based switch.
Ah, I see the confusion. Of course a simple switch has the control and data path functions in hardware while in a router some of this is organized by the host processor, but in both cases there are distinct lan ports, a controlling entity and software that defines the behavior of the device. Its not like the router is spoon feeding each bit from one port to another.
While I'm sure a traffic generator can show up some shortcomings in latency and throughput, I sort of doubt that a small number of HR20's doing MRV between them would show any visible difference to the user or adversely effect other devices connected to the router. Certainly not worth buying or implementing extra equipment, unless the router/switch in question is old.
I've used both a discrete switch connected to the router with the HR's connected to the switch, and with the HR's directly connected to the router. I couldnt see any difference in performance or reliability even when running a pair of HD mrv streams and copying files from one PC to another. You did comment on people having problems with a router that went away with a switch. I havent seen that, except where the user had an old router with old firmware and the problems had more to do with properly setting up the mrv connections than in-show performance. Those issues had more to do with firmware on the router than the hardware capabilities.
While I'm sure a traffic generator can show up some shortcomings in latency and throughput, I sort of doubt that a small number of HR20's doing MRV between them would show any visible difference to the user or adversely effect other devices connected to the router. Certainly not worth buying or implementing extra equipment, unless the router/switch in question is old.
I've used both a discrete switch connected to the router with the HR's connected to the switch, and with the HR's directly connected to the router. I couldnt see any difference in performance or reliability even when running a pair of HD mrv streams and copying files from one PC to another. You did comment on people having problems with a router that went away with a switch. I havent seen that, except where the user had an old router with old firmware and the problems had more to do with properly setting up the mrv connections than in-show performance. Those issues had more to do with firmware on the router than the hardware capabilities.
Just as a follow up, I took apart the half dozen routers I have kicking around and looked up some router boards online for some very commonly made models I dont have. All were equipped with a broadcom, marvel or vitesse 5 port switch.
I also dug up some performance data on the switching performance of these chips and the switching performance of some common non-router switches which contain similar switch chips from the same companies. The performance is similar between the switch chips used in the routers and the standalone switches, and its also similar between the switch chip manufacturers. Performance appears to be wireline in nature as long as you stay within the switch and the router doesnt need to actively route any traffic. Even when the router is actively passing data between the LAN ports and the WAN port, the handful of fastest routers available today can achieve nearly wireline speed with only nominal latency.
About the only difference I saw was when the frame size was increased, which produced a significant throughput boost, but that boost was also consistent between the products and implementations, about an 18-20% boost. Since directv has implied that they 'do something' on the DECA network to improve performance and theres a limited number of things they may have tweaked, larger frame sizes is quite likely one of them.
You'd still need 5-7 regular HD mpeg4 MRV streams or 3-5 broadcast HD mpeg2 MRV streams to even start to saturate the DECA network. That means you'd need 10-14 and 6-10 dvr's/receivers respectively, with half of them running an mrv session to the other half. Pretty serious business. A full duplex switched 100Mb/s network made in the last 5-6 years will have enough throughput in the switch fabric and enough buffer to effectively eliminate that limitation as long as you stay within a single switch, but if you were to use gigabit switches and a gigabit router there'd be no practical limitation for a residential user.
So I think the bottom line is if you can remember when you bought your router/switch and it was within recent memory and you've updated its firmware, or if you bought it in the last couple of years, there shouldnt be a lot of difference in MRV performance no matter how you hook it up. If you're cascading multiple switches off a router or switches cascaded off of other switches, I'd recommend gigabit gear because it'll have more headroom on the router-to-switch or switch-to-switch connections since those are shared with all traffic between the two devices.
Since gigabit switches are under $20 a pop and some very usable gigabit routers are under $60, I dont think anyone will feel too much wallet shrinkage from an upgrade to newer gear if they're running really old stuff.
I also dug up some performance data on the switching performance of these chips and the switching performance of some common non-router switches which contain similar switch chips from the same companies. The performance is similar between the switch chips used in the routers and the standalone switches, and its also similar between the switch chip manufacturers. Performance appears to be wireline in nature as long as you stay within the switch and the router doesnt need to actively route any traffic. Even when the router is actively passing data between the LAN ports and the WAN port, the handful of fastest routers available today can achieve nearly wireline speed with only nominal latency.
About the only difference I saw was when the frame size was increased, which produced a significant throughput boost, but that boost was also consistent between the products and implementations, about an 18-20% boost. Since directv has implied that they 'do something' on the DECA network to improve performance and theres a limited number of things they may have tweaked, larger frame sizes is quite likely one of them.
You'd still need 5-7 regular HD mpeg4 MRV streams or 3-5 broadcast HD mpeg2 MRV streams to even start to saturate the DECA network. That means you'd need 10-14 and 6-10 dvr's/receivers respectively, with half of them running an mrv session to the other half. Pretty serious business. A full duplex switched 100Mb/s network made in the last 5-6 years will have enough throughput in the switch fabric and enough buffer to effectively eliminate that limitation as long as you stay within a single switch, but if you were to use gigabit switches and a gigabit router there'd be no practical limitation for a residential user.
So I think the bottom line is if you can remember when you bought your router/switch and it was within recent memory and you've updated its firmware, or if you bought it in the last couple of years, there shouldnt be a lot of difference in MRV performance no matter how you hook it up. If you're cascading multiple switches off a router or switches cascaded off of other switches, I'd recommend gigabit gear because it'll have more headroom on the router-to-switch or switch-to-switch connections since those are shared with all traffic between the two devices.
Since gigabit switches are under $20 a pop and some very usable gigabit routers are under $60, I dont think anyone will feel too much wallet shrinkage from an upgrade to newer gear if they're running really old stuff.
well, I called them today at work and got a lady who didnt really sound like she knew what to do when I asked her to enable the whole home DVR with my existing equipment. She told me I need a connect kit which I replied that both receivers were already online. She said ok then and put me on hold for like 2 mintues. She then came back and said ok it will take 30 mintues to work blah blah. Well I get home and its not working. Either I dont have something right or she did not turn it on. Both receivers are "named" but I see no mult room or whatever tab on the menu options. Is there something Im missing before I call back? Thanks a bunch
Matt
Matt
Call us up. ask for ACE or Tech Support eith one can do it . ( billing cant unless they were once tech or ace an still have the permission in the system ) tell them you want to run in a unsupported setup through tradiotinal hardware cat 5 and th y will turn it on for you.
sooo your telling me she lied? 
...haha thanks for the heads up. I will call them tomorrow. When you say ACE I assume that is an acronym for something...accounts collection enforcement maybe? hahah j/k. I will call tomorrow.
...haha thanks for the heads up. I will call them tomorrow. When you say ACE I assume that is an acronym for something...accounts collection enforcement maybe? hahah j/k. I will call tomorrow.
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