First. If you ask Directv to hook up your receiver to your network for YouTube access and access to VOD content they will do it for you. We ordered the whole house DVR system and Directv hooked up our existing network to our receivers for us at no extra charge.
If you do it yourself, you will be tempted to use a wireless system to get your receiver hooked up. DO NOT DO THIS. Well, if all you want to do is view pictures it will work...but if you want to watch movies and listen to audio from your media server it simply won't do. We know -- you can calclulate the bandwidth requirements according to the stats of the wireless points and theoretically everything should be fine but this is real lfe, not theory. We've done a lot of testing and the first and foremost reason for media pauses, stutters and poor results is a wireless network. Do yourself a BIG favor right now and take the time to run an ethernet cable to your receiver -or- better yet, use the Directv DECA boxes that convert ethernet to signals over the cable. The drawback to the DECA boxes is that they require a power source.
You should limit the number of routers between the receiver and the Media Server. Media Server's use UpNp to communicate to devices. This protocol is specifically for small networks and does not replicate across a lot of switches/routers. Do NOT attempt to open the UpNp network ports to the internet to access your media across the internet. TVShare would announce itself to any and all renderers on the internet. You don't want anybody and everybody getting to your media. In fact it would probably crash with the large volume of discovery requests.
I have my network hooked up and can't see the media server on my Directv Box.
If you have an HR24 Receiver you MUST do a red button reset after you have attached your receiver to your router. The HR24 is shipped with the ethernet port disabled and it won't enable until you've done this!
The easiest possible solution to your Directv receiver not seeing your media server is the red reset button. Open the card slot door on your receiver. Inside you will see a small red button, pressing it will reboot your receiver (if you have a DVR make sure it is not recording a show before you reboot it or your recording wil be interrupted) make sure TVShare is running on your server before rebooting your receiver. Hopefully after your receiver starts back up you will see the 'Music & Photos' option on the 'Extras' menu that displays when you press the 'menu' button on your remote.
If that doesn't work, on your Directv box, select 'Settings & Help' then 'Settings' from the menu that shows when you press the 'menu' button. Then select 'Network Setup'. Select 'Network Services' from the on screen options. On this screen the IP Address of the Directv box is shown on your network. If there is no IP Address then the receiver can't see the network, you must have a connection problem between your network and the receiver. If there is an IP address shown then write it down. On your media server, from the Start menu select 'Run' and type 'cmd' then press enter. A command window will open. in the window type ping and the IP Address of your receiver. E.G:
ping 192.168.1.45
You should immediately see lines in the window that say 'Reply from.........'. If you do not get a reply then there is a networking problem between your media server and your Directv receiver.
If you are still having problems getting the server to show on the receiver then try disabling your firewall on your media server. Once you have done this it may be necessary to restart TVShare and reboot your receiver. You must allow TVShare to accept incoming requests on port 50003 in your firewall configuration. (If you changed the port in the advanced settings then you must allow incoming connections on the port you set up). Some firewalls call this 'Allow TVShare to act as a server'.