[foxlink] Simple way to link a HD to a HDR.

af123

af123

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A fair number of people who own a HDR Fox-T2 purchase one or more HD Fox-T2 boxes to use elsewhere in the house and find that the built-in DLNA playback functionality leaves a lot to be desired.

lstar337 put it well in a recent thread when he said:

lstar337 said:
Things that I wrongly assumed I could do, but cant:
  1. Use trick play functions during playback. The ad skip buttons seem to work, but no FFW or RWD.
  2. Bring up the info box to show synopsis of an episode. With no synopsis and bizarre filenames, it is hard to know where you are when you are trying to watch a series.
  3. Delete an episode from the host machine via the slave machine, once that episode has been watched. In addition to this, the 'watched' icon does not update on the host machine, meaning it is also hard to find an episode on the host machine that has been watched on the slave machine, and delete it locally.
I wasn't expecting number 3 to be available, but was hoping it might.
Click to expand...

Well, by installing the custom firmware and some additional packages, plus a bit of setting up, you can do all of that and more.

The foxlink package simplifies this process by providing an easy method for linking the two boxes together. In conjunction with the latest version of the web interface which provides recursive ongoing decryption the process for linking the boxes together is:

On the HDR Fox-T2:
  • Install the Customised Firmware and initial environment, including web interface;
  • Install the nfs-utils package;
  • Flag the top-level media directory for recursive decrypt.
On the HD Fox T2:
foxlink.png

The contents of the HDR will appear as a virtual disk that should be displayed as an option when you go into the media list. You can customise the directory name - I use Downstairs.

Foxlink doesn't do anything that the existing network-shares-automount can't do but is much simpler to configure and doesn't create the file-based configuration tree that some people find distracting. If you need any more functionality that a simple one-way link from a HD to a HDR then you should use network-shares-automount.

Foxlink utilises NFS to link the boxes together in preference to Samba.
 
If it were possible to use a host name instead of an IP address, the UI would be even simpler and immune to IP address changes.
 
Black Hole said:
If it were possible to use a host name instead of an IP address, the UI would be even simpler and immune to IP address changes.
Click to expand...
At the moment the IP address requirement is only enforced by the GUI - a hostname would work just as well in the configuration file (/mod/etc/foxlink.conf). In fact, with the zeroconf package, that would work a treat - just refer to the HDR as <name>.local and it would resolved by zeroconf (mDNS).
 
In which case, may I suggest you make this the modus operandi for foxlink, and make the ".local" implied?
 
Black Hole said:
In which case, may I suggest you make this the modus operandi for foxlink, and make the ".local" implied?
Click to expand...
Definitely - next version will include that. I will make foxlink a package that you install on both devices rather than users having to find several packages by hand.
 
I have substituted the former methods with foxlink and recursive decrypt. Much simpler and working well. Thank you af123.
Will this lead to a naslink and a winlink?!!
 
Followed the steps but the HD box isnt seeing any Virtual drive. will give it a few hours and try again. Im using a 2gb USB pen on the HD. It sees the HDR ok the normal way (blue button) and sees the USB Pen OK (Media button) but no vitual drive.
 
That post was from around 2pm - I just hadn't been back upstairs to check. Looks good now, appearing first time and filenames etc look good :)
 
I'm a newbie to the custom firmware and am very impressed with the features it provides (now I've taken the plunge!). Is there a way of linking two HDR Fox-T2 together to have the same functions described in the first post? I am not an experienced user or techie. I can use DNLA but it doesn't let you delete files, doesn't remember where you left off watching something (i.e. resume play) etc. etc. I've searched the forum and couldn't find anything specifically. Thanks
 
The package won't currently install on a HDR - I'll change that with the next release.
 
Version 1.0.1 is in the repository now. - it can be installed on a slave HDR now.
The zeroconf idea isn't working so far..
 
af123 said:
The zeroconf idea isn't working so far..
Click to expand...
Zeroconf doesn't work for me at all. I'm not sure I get how it is supposed to work. DNS goes to the proxy server on the router and out to the net, so how does it know about anything else?
Tried humax.local on the Humax itself and on a PC and nothing useful comes of it.
 
How long should a recursive decrypt take on a 1tb drive with about 700gb used? Ever since I set this up yesterday that hard drive has been hammering away non stop. Turned it off at 11 for bedtime and back on today. Noise is even worse today.

Performance on the box is poor. Media-processing- folder-processing .. Something is hammering the box
 
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