Please explain what MRV is?

[curtishd]

I know that MRV stands for multi-room viewing but what exactly does that mean and how does it work? I am considering getting Directv soon (coming from Dish) and want to see all the features and I would be doing the CE software updates. Looking for lots of detail please.

 

[microbeta]

The ability to watch what is recorded on a DVR on a receiver in another room.

The receivers will be connected via your home network.

Mike

 

[curtishd]

Could you all explain what receivers are needed and what each does? I was tinking about getting 3 HD DVR's (theater, bedroom, living room) but the 3rd HD DVR is only really for the kids in the living room and if I can share recordings between the living room (non HD dvr) and the bedroom HD DVR then I might only need 2 hd dvrs and one HD nonDVR.

 

[microbeta]

As of right not you can only share recording to HD receivers - HR2x-H2x

The next step is to share from one HD DVR to another - HR2x?HR2x

I don't think there are plans to allow sharing to an SD receiver.

Mike

 

[mwalker939]

It sounds like this would maximize the capacity of your recording space across the network to all HD or HD-DVR's. This would be a much better home entertainment option as opposed to having only one centrally located MVR. This is an idea I can get excited about, thanks.

Mel

 

[musrmgr]

MRV turned on, now what?

I turned on MRV via the keyword search option, MRVCLIENTON but, now what?
How do I browse the other receivers?
Thanks in advance.
-Jay

 

[musrmgr]

I got it... I think

I guess you can only view HD-DVR's from non-hd dvr's.
It probably says this somewhere......
-Jay

 

[JosephB]

You can only watch programming remotely from an HD NON DVR receiver. MRV is not enabled on ANY SD receivers, and you cannot watch programming from one DVR on a different DVR.

You need to do a keyword search on "IAMANEDGECUTTER" on each receiver and turn on the MultiroomDVR option in the Misc Options menu that will become available.

 

[biz56]

What DVR functionality do you have with a MRV client? Just select and play, or can you pause, skip, etc.

Thanks.

 

[rad]

What DVR functionality do you have with a MRV client? Just select and play, or can you pause, skip, etc.

Thanks.

All the 'trick play' functions work when playing back a recording via MRV. You can even select if you want 30skip or 30slip on the client (30skip works much better IMHO). One thing I'd like to see added is the ability to delete the recording once you've view it, you still need to go back to the server to do that.

 

[biz56]

I don't have D yet, so could you elaborate on the "trick play" functions? I guess record isn't one of them. You have to go back to the server or use the on-line scheduler for that, right?

Thanks.

 

[rad]

I don't have D yet, so could you elaborate on the "trick play" functions? I guess record isn't one of them. You have to go back to the server or use the on-line scheduler for that, right?

Thanks.

Rewind/Fast Forward/30 second skip/slp forward/6 second skip back/skip to tick (usually a 15 or 30 minute mark in a recording). For any recording setup/deleting/modification has to be done on the server. Since this is the 1st try at MRV I think they're just trying to keep things simple at this time. But remember DirecTV purchased all the patents of Replay and when I had Replay boxes they also did things like cooperative scheduling, one DVR is busy doing recordings already it would ask you if you wanted to record a progam on another open DVR for example. Maybe future releases would include capabilites along those lines, but DirecTV hasn't said what they might add in the future.

 

[biz56]

I appreciate the reply. I think I have a good idea of what MRV does. Next question is how well does it work? Is response time on the client receiver good? Does it overload the server HDDVR and cause performance issues to a simultaneous user of that box?

Thanks.

 

[rad]

Currently the server is limited to one MRV stream only and I haven't noticed any performance problems on the server when someone is streaming from it.

How well does it work, farily well for the 1st shot at it. While the MRV client has been out in the H21's for a number of months DirecTV really hasn't been interested in issue reports, in fact their notes say they don't want MRV issues yet, only for the HR20 CE which just came out have they asked for issue reports. What I've seen is there's an occasional glitch in the video which results in some macroblocking for a second or two and the occasional audio dropout.

For some reason there's a couple channels that I use MRV on that have an occaisional problem where it looks/sounds like someone's hit fast forward for a couple seconds.

Both of these issues I've seen aren't due to my network since they also happen if I directly connect the client and server with just a cat 5 cable, eliminating everything else. Hopefully now that DirecTV looks like they're interesting in MRV issue reports these problems will be resolved.

 

[curtishd]

Lets get really specific:
1. Please explain a step by step guide on how to turn on the MRV feature/ cutting edge?
2. Please explain if I connect the receivers to each other via the ethernet cable or to my internet router?
3. Can 3 HD DVRs share shows or MUST it be HD DVR to an HD NON DVR?

 

[FrankoQ]

Lets get really specific:
1. Please explain a step by step guide on how to turn on the MRV feature/ cutting edge?
2. Please explain if I connect the receivers to each other via the ethernet cable or to my internet router?
3. Can 3 HD DVRs share shows or MUST it be HD DVR to an HD NON DVR?

Or can they be connected via wireless?

 

[rocketx2]

Lets get really specific:
1. Please explain a step by step guide on how to turn on the MRV feature/ cutting edge?
2. Please explain if I connect the receivers to each other via the ethernet cable or to my internet router?
3. Can 3 HD DVRs share shows or MUST it be HD DVR to an HD NON DVR?

This is a great forum but is there some kind of step by step primer about what's included in all the cutting edge releases to date, what's new in the most recent release and a step by step implementation guide?

It's tough to jump in the middle of this and get up to speed. Searching through hundreds of old post trying to piece all this together, decipher all the abbreviations and make it work is about impossible.