PC viewing & HR34 new install coming

[satchel]

I am new to DirecTv having ordered it Friday. They didn't show for the Sunday install but then we got about a foot of snow!
My question is primarily about how this will work with my PC setup. We currently have Mediacom cable family basic tv and internet. Besides the living room plasma I have a 3 monitor setup with a tower I built right before the Sandy Bridge chips came out,Pentium I7 950, two Radeon HD6850 cards in Crossfire and currently have a cable tv/internet connection to a Hauppage dual tuner card. As I see it I have to run a program to get the Directv feed through my local network? Sounds sketchy to me.

I have a linksys 4200 so I think I have the bandwidth. With the HR44 not yet here for months I believe I'm going to have to hope the installer has a network interface adapter to sell me to link the genie and my network? Our current cable internet which we have to keep is 15MB down but often is much lower(dang university students), I'm wondering if I should step up a tier and hope it is actually a speed improvement, I'll already be hit with a penalty for dropping the video feed.

Then there are the results of the DirecTv2PC playback advisor. According to this the processor isn't quite up to snuff, and the dual graphics card setup is inadequate! Can someone let me know what I'm getting into here. Thanks

 

[raoul5788]

I can't help you with the computer setup, but I can you to Satelliteguys!

 

[nvguy38]

I am new to DirecTv having ordered it Friday. They didn't show for the Sunday install but then we got about a foot of snow!
My question is primarily about how this will work with my PC setup. We currently have Mediacom cable family basic tv and internet. Besides the living room plasma I have a 3 monitor setup with a tower I built right before the Sandy Bridge chips came out,Pentium I7 950, two Radeon HD6850 cards in Crossfire and currently have a cable tv/internet connection to a Hauppage dual tuner card. As I see it I have to run a program to get the Directv feed through my local network? Sounds sketchy to me.

I have a linksys 4200 so I think I have the bandwidth. With the HR44 not yet here for months I believe I'm going to have to hope the installer has a network interface adapter to sell me to link the genie and my network? Our current cable internet which we have to keep is 15MB down but often is much lower(dang university students), I'm wondering if I should step up a tier and hope it is actually a speed improvement, I'll already be hit with a penalty for dropping the video feed.

Then there are the results of the DirecTv2PC playback advisor. According to this the processor isn't quite up to snuff, and the dual graphics card setup is inadequate! Can someone let me know what I'm getting into here. Thanks
View attachment 86264

More than likely, the software doesn't have some of your components in it's database so it either flags it as uknown or not qualified. Your biggest issue with that setup is lack of HDCP compliance. That in itself has the potential for causing issues with playback via DirecTV2PC. Also, that program only plays back recordings stored on your DVR. It does NOT provide live feeds from your D* setup.

FWIW, I had it working this weekend after initial install. I went back a day later to finish watching the movie and it could not find my DVR any longer. The program has more bugs than not and D* is not very interested in supporting it very much since they released their Nomad product....which, BTW, DOES allow you to watch live streams on your PC over your LAN. Not sure why the PC is being left out of the tablet and smartphone loop, but.....there ya go. I can watch live streaming TV on my tablet via an app, but not on my PC......go figure...

 

[satchel]

OK, the only seeing recorded stuff was what I was seeing, so what about using a genie mini client with the pc? Or just hooking the mini up to an input on the 30" monitor and using it like a tv?

 

[Joe The Dragon]

You may need HDCP display on the PC.

 

[Lanarian]

The hauppauge card should have come with an add on that allows input from the receiver (Either Component or Composite). If you've got that, then your set.. just run the appropriate cables (YRW or BGRWR) to the inputs for the Hauppauge and you should be good to go!

 

[Lanarian]

umm... just in case.. The cables are Yellow, White and Red (standard definition only) or Blue, Green, Red, White and Red (High Def) the first three carry Video only and the last two carry Audio.

 

[satchel]

The hauppauge card should have come with an add on that allows input from the receiver (Either Component or Composite). If you've got that, then your set.. just run the appropriate cables (YRW or BGRWR) to the inputs for the Hauppauge and you should be good to go!

To clarify the PC is in another room than the receiver which is hooked to the Panny Plasma in the living room. Fortunately I have a slot left despite the dual graphics cards taking up four! So I am assuming I need a mini genie to hook up via composite then I have DirecTv gui and functionality on PC? Not what I've read. It's my understanding that you can get recorded material(by way of your local network through a program downloaded to the pc) but not the interface or live, and it takes newer hardware than my two year old build(pre-sandybridge).
Then there is the lack of HDCP, this being a shortcoming of the graphics cards?
What about a mini genie and hook it up hdmi to my largest monitor and chose that input when I want to use it, $6 a month extra. Full functionality.

 

[Lanarian]

The Client (mini-Genie) can hook up to your Hauppauge OR to your monitor.. It can output via component, composite or HDMI. You'd view it thru the Hauppauge.. Or since the Monitor has an HDMI input, you can run the output from the client to that .. which is what I do.
The Software your asking about is DirecTV2PC.. which is a seperate and completly different animal.. and yes, that only gives you access to recorded programs on the DVR.. assuming the DVR is connected to your home network.. and lack of HDCP wil probably stop that program from running on your computer.

 

[Lanarian]

sorry, missed a question.. HDCP is usually a feature of either the graphics chip or the drivers.. it can be either one.. Do some googling on your specific card.. sometimes theres there's an option in the drivers that can be turned on.. I ran into that once on an Nvidia driver set.. it was a while ago

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

The problem with upgrading a videocard that old, is that it would probably need to upgrade the motherboard too, at that point why not build a whole new pc.

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