Planet Replay

[hudsonsmom]

Close, but still having problems...
- Installed FreeSCO and WiRNS 3.0.4
- Setup Schedules Direct account
- Was able to view the Channel Guide info in WiRNS

The showstopper is having problems dialing into the FreeSCO. For some reason, the modem is only activating every 15 minutes (or so) - and only for about 30 seconds. By the time I force the Replay to redial, it's too late - and the modem hangs up.

I reviewed the /pkg/sbin/mgetty file, and the key variables are set as follows:
PHONESIM=n
DELAY1=2
DELAY2=30

From what I understand, this means it should be redialing every 30 seconds or so - plenty of time for Replay to sync up. But...

Help!

[jonwz]

I haven't played with the mgetty settings as I normally have access to a telco line simulator.

But there's an easy way to force the FREESCO modem to answer, and give control back to FREESCO:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=20582320#post20582320

[hudsonsmom]

Thank you!

Forcing the FreeSCO connection works perfectly. Just wait for the replay to start "Dialing", and type:
[Linux] minicom /dev/cua0 38400
ATA <to start up modem>

Hopefully, the guide is downloaded correctly - so far, so good. I'm currently at "Getting program listings for channels (60%)" for 31 channels - so far it's taken 29 minutes.

Let me know if you're interested in the final download stats.

Thanks, again.
Pennee

[sillyname99]

Congratulations Penee.

I found a driver for the pcmcia network card, so now I'm trying to figure out how to install it onto the floppy.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to pull this off. We may just have to abandon the showstoppers and only use the 5040. At least I have that working.

[Susan G]

[hdonzis]

[sillyname99]

I was using 0.4.3, so the first thing I will do is get 0.3.2. However, I'm not clear on how to get the driver to the right place on the floppy. It comes with a file called SETUP and a file called 8139.vol. The SETUP file is:

echo "Install RTL 8139X/8100 Family Fast Ethernet Adapter Driver (MDI)"
echo 'Please input source path ? ( ex: a:/sco/5.x) \c'
read d_path

echo "Please wait to transfer files ................"
if [ ! -x /tmp ]
then
mkdir /tmp
fi
doscp $d_path/8139.vol /tmp/VOL.000.000
echo "Transfer End ............"
echo "Please use 'custom' to install the driver."
echo "And follow the following options::"
echo " Software/Install New/From 'your computer'/MediaImages"
echo "Then enter the directory::/tmp"




I put the files in the router directory. When I tried to run SETUP, it ran the freesco setup instead, possibly because I didn't use capital letters. I'll try the capital letters after work tonight. I'm also not sure how I will get to the "custom" thing if I get that far. If anyone has thoughts, I'd appreciate any direction.

Thank you all for your patience.

[hdonzis]

[sillyname99]

I downloaded 0.3.2 and the pcmcia driver, but either I don't have the settings right or I didn't do the right thing with the driver. I continue to google, looking for instructions or tips.

Susan, did you have a good reference for settings?

Thanks

[Susan G]

[hdonzis]

If you're looking for instructions on setting up FREESCO version 0.3.2, then you should be looking here, with the step-by-step instructions being here...

Henry
_________________
Here's my Poop

[rmeden]

Here's a new piece of info for folks doing FreeSCO modem setups in a VM.

When setting up FreeSCO for LaHo, the PC didn't have a serial port. I used a USB->Serial adapter. There were *lots* of retransmissions and while it worked, it worked slowly and sometimes there were interrupt problems (seen if I typed commands directly to the modem in minicom)

The solution was drop drop the USB-Serial adapter and put in a PCI one. Ever since connections (mine and others) have been very clean.

Robert

[RichG]

[hudsonsmom]

My setup...
- Showstopper 2000
- Vista Laptop
- External Zoom 56k USB modem
- magicJack
- VMware Player 3.1.4 <installed locally on laptop>
- WiRNS 3.0 Beta (updated to 3.0.4) <installed locally on laptop>

Now that there's time, I will probably order a chat-cord, to see if I can simplify things - and get rid of the external modem and magicJack.

Timing...
- My "test" setup only included 31 channels - it ran in 46 minutes.
- I updated the Schedules Direct list for the essentials (53 channels), and re-ran NetConnect - it ran it 59 minutes.

I'm planning to do a weekly forced connections, and 1-2 hours is workable.

Once again, thanks to everyone for your help I LOVE my Showstopper, and am ecstatic that I don't have to give it up. Thank you!!

Hope this helps.
Pennee

[RichG]

WORKING SOLUTION for SHOWSTOPPER HS2000

(sorry about the formatting, but I'm new to this)

My setup:
- Desktop ( WiRNS Server) -> Creative Modem Blaster, Realtek PCIe GBE network adapter, XP Pro
- Laptop (Dial-Up Server) -> Thinkpad X61s, Thinkpad Modem (CXT), Intel 82566MM network adapter, XP Pro SP3, VMWare Player (3.1.4), Freesco 0.3.2 (noauth beacuse true dial-up)
- Replays:
2 Replay 5000 (network connected)
1 ShowStopper HS2000
- 2 Telco Phone Lines

The 5000s have worked flawlessly with WiRNS - first with version 2 and now with version 3; the SS was a different story:

Dataflow for SS: SS->Telco(line1)->Telco(Line2)->Laptop Modem->VMWare serial->Freesco cuax->Freesco eth0->VMware->WiRNS Server->VMWare->Freesco eth0->Freesco cuax->VMWare serial->Telco->SS

The WiRNS server modem refuses to interact with the SS, but the SS and Thinkpad play nice together. Loaded the SS dialing prefix with the Line 2 phone number and the SS and WiRNS connected on a regular basis; did not change the modem speed as modems are pretty good at finding a working speed on their own, did change my zip code. Like others, the initial call showed progress to 88% then got the dreaded Network Connect Error. Discarded the changes, once again chaned my zip code and attemped to connect to ReplayTV's service. It also terminated abnormally! This happened consistantly until a 243-Zones (6)Clear Channel Guide was executed. Tried to just get the Channel Guide from WiRNS without changing the zip code. It connected, spent a long time (about 1 hour) downloading, then died with "problem with connection" message (not exact). This time there was an added bonus of the channel guide getting wiped out. Connecting to the replay service gave the same results as before: it failed. As before, clearing the channel guide resolved the problem. A network trace revealed that both the initial setup failure and the get channel guide failure occured when WiRNS sent a large burst of data to the SS. It appears to be a problem in the VMWare-Freesco coupling. Changed the VMWare network interface to "Bridged" instead of "NAT", changed the network setting in Freesco to use DHCP (setup->Advanced settings->(62)Local network->(627)Use DHCP client to y). x out to the screen that lets you save the setting save then reboot.

After this, the network traces showed much better flow control, and the SS completes all interactions with WiRNS. I download 417 channels for 14 days in less than 1 hour.

Threr is a caveat: Freesco may not have the correct driver for your native ethernet controler. The pcnet32.gz driver is for, among others, the vmware NAT interface. In bridge mode you are using your native network adapter. If when you boot Freesco, it will say, in red, that there is no network interface, this tells you that you need a different network driver. the link Freesco.sourceforge.net modules.zip contains alternate drivers and installation instructions.

Good Luck,

-Rich

[Susan G]

@RichG:

[RichG]

[Susan G]

[Susan G]

[amblinn]

Back from vacation (and pleasantly surprised by the continuation of the ReplayTV service... not that I'm going back, though ).

Just wanted to add my $0.02 that I also switched over to bridged mode, and my download times have gone from about 20 min per day of guide data to about 2 min per day of guide data. Definitely much nicer.

[RichG]

[hdonzis]

[RichG]

[Space]

Actually, I believe the 5Ks download/retain 13 days of data.

Here is the data my guide currently holds:

8/8 4:30pm - 8/21 8pm

So it actually has a little more than 13 days currently (including the prior days data).

[hdonzis]