HWS asking for password to view PS3 media server (Home Media)?

[bellevuecoug]

I searched the forums and could not find an answer so here goes - my HWS "sees" our PS3 media server just fine. The PS3 media server is located on a desktop on another floor. The response from the HWS is a little 'glitchy' in that sometimes the files all show and sometimes they don't and sometimes the HWS likes the mp4 files ok . . and sometimes it doesn't. I generally convert from handbrake but it seems a complete random deal as to when it will play the mp4 files - seems to depend on the original source before encoding.

BUT glitchiness aside - why do I have to enter my 4-digit pin every time I select the 'Home Media' icon on the HWS? There is no parent protection enabled on the HWS. There IS parent protection enabled on a few of our Joeys and (as an experiment) I switched off parent protection on all the Joeys, came back to the HWS Home Media and STILL had to enter the four-digit PIN to access the PS3 media server. Why?

 

[primetimeguy]

It is just how Dish has implemented the Home Media feature. My regular hoppers are the same way. I don't like it but I'm sure it was their simple, cheap way of adding parental controls to shared media.

 

[bellevuecoug]

It is just how Dish has implemented the Home Media feature. My regular hoppers are the same way. I don't like it but I'm sure it was their simple, cheap way of adding parental controls to shared media.

With that in mind, should the password request go away if (in theory) all parental blocks are switched off on every device? I tried that and it still didn't clear the PIN request but perhaps I didn't wait long enough (?).

 

[Tron2012]

I posted something on this a while back. Frustrated myself. Unfortunately Dish has always had a pretty much "all or nothing" approach to their user interfaces. 10 minutes of coding and they could easily have a setting in the options to enable or disable the security for home media. Since it is the same code as the main one for the device, there was no way I was giving that to my kids. Defeats the purpose.

 

[Tron2012]

With that in mind, should the password request go away if (in theory) all parental blocks are switched off on every device? I tried that and it still didn't clear the PIN request but perhaps I didn't wait long enough (?).

Unless something changed, nope. Waiting won't help. Why I don't use home media any longer.

 

[bellevuecoug]

I posted something on this a while back. Frustrated myself. Unfortunately Dish has always had a pretty much "all or nothing" approach to their user interfaces. 10 minutes of coding and they could easily have a setting in the options to enable or disable the security for home media. Since it is the same code as the main one for the device, there was no way I was giving that to my kids. Defeats the purpose.

Maybe the new software update will take care of this. Riiiiiight, Dish?

(Also, I expect the new Senate to work productively with Obama.)

 

[dwarren2]

I had a similar problem trying to load one of the apps. Found out that under Parental Controls/Edit Ratings there was a check mark on one of ratings in the middle column. I select Restore Defaults (I think) and saved. After that no more PW requests.

 

[Hall]

Unfortunately Dish has always had a pretty much "all or nothing" approach to their user interfaces

That's the problem, as you say, it's all or nothing. If you want to control or block anything, you have to enable parental controls and a PIN. I first encountered this when I wanted to hide the adult channels (we have young kids) - I realize they can't view anything on them, but a lot of the titles, while humorous, aren't what we want our kids to see. To block these, you start the "all or nothing" lockdown. This goes back to the 522, for what it's worth.

As for the home media option, I can see Dish's thinking in that they don't know what people have on their home media servers and if they "allowed" someone's kid to access their parent's porn collection, it would be Dish's "fault" (in too many people's eyes) ! I would think that home media servers can have their own parental or access controls, but I'm not certain. I use Plex and don't recall ever seeing an option like that.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

It is because of the parental controls and it is because of the reasons stated above.

 

[Hall]

Another aspect of the parental controls that bugs me is you have to re-enter the PIN over and over. What happened with us a couple of years ago was we had the kid's channels blocked on our living room TV (keep them from watching too much). We could tune to one of the channels, enter the PIN, and let them watch something. When it was over, if we changed the channel to another blocked channel, we again had to enter the PIN. One of the few things that a Time Warner box did was cache the password for the "session" (until you turned the box off). It would be nice if Dish's set-tops had a similar option. I do realize that if you enter the PIN and it caches it like that, when you walk away, whoever has the remote has full reign on the system though....