Introduction
Contents
Introduction
There is no way around it! You need to hook up your PC to your Harddisk recorder. Unfortunately there is a glitch in the software (as of FW 1.1.7) That renders your gadget unusable after a while and force you to format the Hard disk from time to time. Therefore you also need a place to store your recordings, that are safe. An easy solution to that is to use an old PC as storing device and streaming server. Since there isn't much CPU power in the device, and limited space, you will probably need to compress the video files. If you want to edit or your recordings – eg. cut out commercials, if you want to copy DVD's or CD's to the harddrive; you will have to do it on your PC.
So there are a lot of things you need to know and a lot of software you need to get, install and learn how to use. It's a jungle out there :o) but fortunately there is a lot of clever people on this forum who has done it and are willing to share their knowledge with you here, so you don't have to start from scratch.
There are a lot of options on how to do things. In this guide, we will try to present one working solution to your needs, that has been tested and is known to work well. If you find that there are better ways of doing things, please write it in this guide.
When you have fought your way through the manual, connected your TV and surround system, set up your TV channels and what not, you need to set up your player on your home network. You can use the wire-less but it works a little better with cable and a good switch. It is strongly recommended to give the player a fixed network address. (See Network setup) When the player is hooked up and is connected to the internet, you are in business.
File transfer
You need to install a FTP program on your PC to transfer files to and from the device. And you need to have a place to store a copy of all that you intend to keep, since you will need to copy it back to the player sooner or later.
Compression
To save space, you need to compress the video files to a more modern file format. The Linksys – KiSS player use the now old MPEG 2 format, which is also used on a DVD. The recommendation (for now) is to use:
DP/VR-558: XviD, H.263 compression for video and AC3 for audio. In AVI files. (Though DivX is almost as good a choice. If you really want to squeeze it down, MP3 is a working option too)
For recorded music, use:
DP/VR-558: OGG for pop/rock. There are no suitable format (Uncompressed) for classical.
Newer compression formats are not supported and there are some detailed settings you need to get right. (See Supported formats for details)
Streaming server
Since you need a place to store your files for backup anyway, you might consider to have a dedicated streaming server running in the basement. There are some interesting developments on server scripts and programs going on. If you are able, install a UNIX server, preferably FreeBSD of sorts, since it is very stable and you can use a very old computer for this. If not; a windows machine will do. The Linksys – KiSS player will be able to play the video directly from the server and you will be able to access your stuff from other devices.
Editing video
If you record movies from TV, you will probably want to edit commercial and start/endings out. You can do that with the proper software packages as described in Editing recorded videos.
Firmware update
One of the things you will do early on it to upgrade the firmware. If you are the lucky owner of a device that that is compatible, you would probably benefit from installing a cracked version made available on this site, called Stage2. Otherwise it is strongly recommended to get the latest official update, since there are many unpleasant bugs that might have been fixed.
All the (first) described methods and solutions in this document will be with the best free software packages available. They are certainly usable, but the commercial are often much better though expensive.
Congratulations on your Linksys – KiSS player and good luck.
--Simon Rigét 00:43, 31 March 2007 (CEST)
