New Customer/Technical Question

[avaag]

Just got a Whole Home dvr setup installed on Friday. 2 rooms. Installed HR-24 and HR-25 (best I can remember from sitting here at work). Been having issues with the 25 not being able to connect/see the DVR and going into the network setup I notice I am getting a 169.XXX.XXX.XXX address. Went to check on the connection to the router and noticed they installed a Deca and ran the network connection into that. The HR-24 is three feet from the router so my question is - Can I simplify things and remove the Deca from the setup and just plug the ethernet into the HR-24? Do I lose any functionality by doing this? Can I expect better network connectivity in my HR-25 if I do this? Or will I lose it completely? Do I have to have this Deca installed for Whole Home DVR?

 

[raoul5788]

IIRC, you don't need the ethernet connection with DECA. In fact, I don't think you can use them at the same time. Just use the ethernet to the router and not to the dvrs.

 

[cparker]

Connecting an ethernet cable to the receiver actually disables DECA last I remember. If your receiver is losing its ability to see the other receiver, try giving it a static IP instead of DHCP. I have a pair of HR-24s and they would "lose sight" of each other periodically. Once I changed them to static IPs it never happened again.

I suspect what's happening to you is this:
Receiver A gets IP (say.... 192.168.1.4)
Receiver B gets IP (say.... 192.168.1.5)

Receiver A sees receiver B at 192.168.1.5 and everything works.
Likewise, receiver B sees receiver A at 192.168.1.4 and they are both very happy together.

Now the lease expires on receiver B's IP address. It requests and address and is given 192.168.1.6
Receiver A can no longer see receiver B because receiver A is expecting to find it at 192.168.1.5 (the old address)

So give them both static IPs. If you can EXCLUDE a range in your router so it knows not to give those IPs to anything else, then do that. Otherwise just make the last number in the IP for each router a high number... like 200 and 201 and you'll PROBABLY not see IP collisions because the router handed out an IP that already exists.

 

[JerseyMatt]

Ok, here's the scoop. You will gain no advantage by connecting via ethernet. It does disable the internal DECA, and if you hook one up by ethernet they ALL have to be hooked up by ethernet. This solution is mainly for people who have non-DECA HD receivers (H/HR23 and earlier) and want MRV but do not want to spend the money on buying DECA units.

Now to your issue. The 169 addresses are as you probably know, assigned by the device when they can't reach a DHCP server. These are the addresses you will normally find in the units when they are in a MRV cloud (network) with no connection to a home router. However, when they have the DECA connecting them to your router (the Cinema Connection Kit), they will pull an address with the 192. or 10. prefix. The fact that they have 169. addresses indicates that there is a problem with the connection to your network.

So first, make sure the bridge DECA is powered up and working (all 3 lights on and green), and you have a link light for that port on your router.

Then as cparker said set each receiver to a static IP. All routers have a DCHP range and a Static range. Most, if not all router brands use x.x.x.100 and higher for DHCP, leaving x.x.x.2 through x.x.x.99 free for static devices. You can use any IP in the static range as long as you don't duplicate it anywhere on the network. Do not use 169 addresses, you must set them to the same subnet as everything else on your network (192.168.1.x or 10.0.0.x, whatever you use)

 

[avaag]

Thanks guys...will go ahead and set the receivers up with static addresses...will see if this solves my issue.