MVP startup without Hauppauge server

[janviet]

Hi,

As far as I can tell, you don't really need the Hauppauge server at all when using the MVP with GB-PVR. The Hauppauge server is only used to assign the MVP an IP address and to load dongle.bin into the MVP. You can achieve the same result with a generic BOOTP and TFTP server, like tftpd32 which is an easy to set up piece of freeware that can be downloaded from http://tftpd32.jounin.net/

There's no need to even install the Hauppauge software, as long as you have the dongle.bin file, and simply keep tftpd32 running (with its TFTP and DHCP servers enabled).

Sub, I did notice that when I power cycle my MVP I have to restart the GB-PVR MVP server. Not a big deal, but it would be nice if I could power cycle my MVP in the bedroom without having to go down to the living room...

Regards,

Jan

[festus]

This is exactly the kind of information I have been waiting for.

I am slowly creating my media server and have been testing the PVR 250 that I got last weekend with the MediaMVP I have had for a while. The picture quality of capture and display is excellent, but I don't have the interface glue to make it all work as a real PVR.

GB-PVR seems to have the best implementation of exactly that glue, but I need the services do be a bit more dynamic. TFTP seems to get us half of the way there, so I don't have to synchronize MediaMVP startup with GB-PVR startup. Now it only seems that it needs to better detect the state of my MediaMVP when it restarts.

Any ideas sub?

[janviet]

festus,

Keep in mind that the MVP only needs to download dongle.bin when it is powered up (i.e. plugged in). If you start tftpd32 and keep it running, you only need to (1) plug in your MVP and (2) (re)start the GB-PVR MVP server once until you unplug your MVP again.

Using the power toggle button on the MVP remote to put it into standby and back into normal operation does not power cycle the MVP and does not result in a download of dongle.bin. That's why I think the power cycle issue is not such a big deal...

Regards,

Jan

[festus]

I agree that it's not that bad with the SFTP solution, but it's not what I would call mature.

...it's just good enough.

[jeffcora]

Jan,

Thanks for this info, this is great. I've installed TFTPD32 and set it up to run as a service, and it all works great without the hauppauge services running.

On the power cycle issue, are you both seeing this behaviour? I can quite happily power cycle the mvps (turn them off at the mains, not put them on standby), and they will start straight back up again without restarting anything on the PC. It was a right pain before cause if I power cylced them, I would have to restart the hauppauge services, allow then to start into the interface, then shut the hauppauge services down again. (I used to do it with a timed batch file). However, even with that setup I could leave GB-PVR MVP running all the time, without restarting the instances.

I've also setup a number of services to start GB-PVR MVP instances (3 of), however these fail on startup as I think they start before my video drivers so I get a failure "can't support VMR" or something. However, I think if I use the DependOnService setting in the registry I should be able to get the services to only kick in once the video stuff does. That should mean I can just boot the machine and everything starts automatically. Great.

Sub, any chance of future releases installing a GB-PVR MVP service so it can start automatically? May be with an option to start X number of instances, or i'd be happy with installing X number of services like I've done manually.

Cheers!

[Guest]

It looks like the problem with having to restart the gb-mvp program every time you power cycle is due to some "lock up" of the gb-mvp app... If you start 3 instances of the program, you can power cycle twice before it won't work anymore

[sub]

I corrected this about a week ago, so is fixed for the next release. It related to GB-PVR thinking it was still connected to the MVP, when infact the TCP was actually disconnected.