Thank you for installing TVShare. You'd probably like to know how it works and how to get the most out of it.
Until you get used to using TVShare you might want to bookmark this page.
Scroll down if you want to find out more about our Skip feature (Fast Forward/Rewind).
The easiest solution to most problems is rebooting your receiver. This fixes many problems from finding your TVShare server to poor video quality and choppy audio. It seems that DTV's Mediashare can get a little flaky if you keep starting and stopping your server software or you can crash the video decoders completely with one bad transcode of a video. Do yourself a favor and reboot your receiver while TVShare is running on your computer. If this doesn't fix your problem then read on...
First let's make sure that you can get the Directv receiver and TVShare talking to each other. You should have your receiver hooked up to the same network your media server (PC) is going to be on. Start up TVShare on your server (PC). Wait about 30 seconds then go to you television. Bring up the menu on the Directv receiver using the 'menu' button. You should see an option called 'Extras'. If you select 'Extras' you should see an option called 'Music & Photos'.
If you do not see the 'Music & Photos' option click here. Read the section titled 'I have my network hooked up and can't see the media server on my Directv Box.'
When you select 'Music & Photos' you should see a screen with 'My Computers' highlighted. Select it. A drop down menu should appear with the name of your computer and TVShare appended to it.
Right now, if you select it you are not going to see any media available. Let's set up some media for viewing.
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!
NOTE: After changing what is shared from TVShare you should probably shut down and restart TVShare. The Directv receiver will most likely not recognize a change in the media unless you do.
Go to your media server, look at the TVShare main screen. You have four options to share media. First, if you have iTunes installed you have the option to share your iTunes songs. To share your songs check the 'Find iTunes and share my music Library' option. When you have selected it, press the 'Save and Apply' button near the bottom of the screen. With this option selected TVShare will serve your mp3 and m4a iTunes files to your receiver. NOTE: some iTunes files are m4p files which are rights protected and TVShare cannot serve them. After you have done this and selected 'Music, Photos & More' then selected your computer you should see an item called 'iTunes'. If you select it, you will be given the options 'All', 'Albums' and 'Artists/Albums'. Selecting any of these will display the appropriate songs.
There are three other ways to serve your files. There are three portions of the screen where you can enter a share name and add you media. The share name you enter will display as a menu item on the receiver and you will be able to browse through the media you added. When you press the 'Add My Media' button a dialog will open that allows you to enter up to 5 folders where you have media stored. You can also enter a share name for each folder.
Using the 'Add My media' Dialog: Let's assume that you have a folder on your drive called 'Movies' and that all your movies are in it. In the add my media dialog for movies, you would browse for the folder which would put c:\Movies\ in the path area. You would then enter a share name like 'My Movies'. Then press the 'Save' button. When you select the 'Music, Phots & More' option and select <Your Computer>-TVShare you will see 'Movies' listed. If you select it, you will get the option 'My Movies', when you select it the contents of the Movies folder will be displayed on the screen. When you select an item, it will start playing.
To stop serving a file path just set the path to nothing and select 'Save'. Remember to close TVShare and restart it to let the Directv receiver know that something has changed. Also, remember to wait about 30 seconds before restarting TVShare.
TVShare now automatically tracks where you are in the movie you are viewing. If you stop the movie or it is interrupted you will see an item in the folder above your movie named 'Resume:Movie name'. NOTE: With the new Directv firmware you may have to back out a directory or two and come back to the directory to see the 'Resume' entry. if you select that item the movie will start playing from where you stopped it (minus about ten seconds). TVShare tracks the last five movies/videos you have viewed. If you did not watch them all the way through it will save them as a resume file. The resume information is stored in memory on the server so if you shut down TVShare you will lose your resume points. A resume point takes no space on your hard drive. A resume point will not be set if you viewed your movie/video for less than twenty seconds. You can start watching a movie on one receiver, stop it, then resume it on another receiver.
If you wish to clear your resume points, go to the Music & Photos folder, select your server and then select 'Clear Resumes' from the menu, it is below iTunes, Music, Movies, Pictures. You will get a message that says 'There are no files in this folder' on your Directv and all your resume points will be erased.
NOTE: If you are using a trial version of TVShare it will not set a resume point more than 15 minutes into a movie.
NOTE: Resume will ony work if you have the transcode option turned on.
The most requested feature for TVShare is Fast Forward and Rewind functionality. Unfortunately Directv disables this functionality during mediaShare. There is no media server that can provide this feature on Directv. TVShare does allow you to skip forward and backward in your video while watching it however. Here's how to do it. Once you have started your movie, select the 'menu' button on your remote. From there select the 'Extras' option then select the 'Music & Photos' option. Select your computer, then from the menu that is displayed select 'forward/rewind' and then 'controls'. Your movie will still be playing in the upper left of the screen. You will be presented with the option to skip forward or backward 3,10 or 30 minutes. Select the option you want. You will get a message 'There are no files in this folder'. The menu will go back to controls and after a few seconds your movie will skip by the requested amount. If you want to skip again, just press 'Select' on the remote to get back to the skip menu. If you are done skipping, press 'exit' on the remote to go back to viewing your movie full screen.