Multiple tuners

[IanJohnson]

I would like to eventually set up my system like this-

Cable comes into a closet and splits to several set top boxes. A/V from the STBs go to network tuners which are connected to the router or a switch. The MCE in a different room connects to the tuners through the wired network.

Will the Hava work in this senario? Can I create a pool of Hava tuners on the same network which get allocated to one or more Media Centers?


Ian

[Gary-MM]

At this moment in time there can only be one HAVA on a given network, so the unfortunate answer to your question is, sorry no.

[davieboy]

Please please please please implement this feature. It will probably double your sales of mce customers! Just wondering would this be possible by redirecting traffic in a managed switch??

[Gary-MM]

While I think it would be possible to have 2 HAVAs on the same physical network, one would have to be on a different subnet which matched the PC you wanted to watch the video on. The most straightforward way to do this would be to have those on static IP on that different subnet. But that would remove much of the benefit of having all your computers on a network, in that the systems on the different subnets would not be able to talk to each other without reconfiguration. Perhaps there is some more elaborate way by setting up 2 individual networks with a static route between them, though I have not done this to verify if it's really possible.

Now, let's just suppose you could put 2 HAVAs on one network. Would you then buy 2 HAVAs, or would you rather have a "MONGO-HAVA" that had 2 video front ends in it? And if so, what inputs would you be using?

[rernst]

I have two HAVA boxes, one is a Wireless HD, the other is a HAVA Gold.
Can I connect to both from the same PC, if I connect to the Wireless HD via it's internal AccessPoint and to the HAVA Pro via EtherNet? The separate interfaces will have separate network addresses.
Or is the 1 HAVA Tuner limit a restriction in the client software?

[Gary-MM]

When you start up local viewing, there's no concept of "which" HAVA to connect to - the designed behavior is to look for "the HAVA that is on this network". Certainly you can set the 2 boxes to be on different static IP subnets etc. So the limitation extends to the client side as you have noted.

[rernst]

So if my Client is multi-homed, how does the Hava Client software know which interface to scan for the HAVA box?

[Gary-MM]

Please explain what you mean by "multi-homed"?

[rernst]

When a computer has interfaces on multiple networks/sub-nets it is termed multi-homed. For example, a computer can have two Network Interface Cards (NICs) where each NIC connected to a different LAN. A Wireless card is considered a form of NIC. Per my earlier posts, I want to configure my PC to talk to the HAVA Wireless HD over a wireless link. The HAVA would be configured as an AccessPoint DHCP Server. This creates wireless LAN between the HAVA and the PC Client. For the sake of discussion, lets say AccessPoint uses addresses in the range of 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.x, making it a 192.168.1.x LAN.
The same PC has an Ethernet interface on the 192.168.0.x LAN; The HAVA Gold would also live on this LAN.
So, my PC is "Multi-Homed" because it has interfaces on both the 192.168.1.0 network and the 192.168.0.0 network.

Assuming that scenario, how would the HAVA Client software know which HAVA to connect too? Is there any possibility of both showing up as tuners under MCE?


Thanks

[Gary-MM]

I like your optimism.

It's just not going to work with the current design (multiple tuners showing up in MCE). That said, I am going to push really hard to get this implemented in the next major release.

If you have 2 NICs in your PC, and IP addresses are set up so that you can ping an individual HAVA on each one, the connection will be made to the "first one your PC finds". I believe this has something to do with the order that your network adapters appear in your "Network Connections" screen. In any case it is not fully predictable and won't support multiple local devices.

[rernst]

That's clear and reasonable in light of the productions original intent, place-shifting.
The fact that people are asking for it should be viewed as a mark of the product success. In the case of poor products, End-Users usually complain that advertised features don't work correctly. New feature requests typically mean customers have confidence in the advertised features and believe the unit is capable of much more.

Good Luck

[IanJohnson]

I would buy multiple "Mongo Havas". I would like to have at least 4 tuners to allow watching/recording on the main MCE box and live viewing on extenders or additional MCEs. I would hope that a dual Hava would cost less than 2 individuals.

Actually what I want is for the Hava to do what the HDHomerun does. The HDHR has two tuners which though in the same box, appear on the network as individual devices which can be assigned to the same or different computers.

I imagine the solution would be for each tuner to have its own name, perhaps the same as its serial#. The the client software rather than looking for "The Hava on the Network" would say "I see these available Havas on the network. Which ones do you want to use on this computer?"

I doubt a new hardware product can ship before a software release, so I would be content buying additional tuners one by one.



Ian

[sirdowny]

I'm with Ian.

I'm trying to setup a media viewing solution in a small private educational environment. The plan is to set up Vista computers with projectors in each classroom and use MCE to access multimedia content on a fileserver. Rather than deal with running coax cable along with network cable everywhere, I'd love to use a solution like HAVA. So multiple tuners on a single network would be great.

Can we expect an update or a new product with these features any time soon? I'd buy about 6 tuners.

Thanks
-Matt

[davieboy]

I can sell these units by the bucket load. Gary this multiple hava on the network feature is essential along with gigabit network card for supporting multicast.

[davieboy]

any sign of a road map update on multiple tuners on a network??