Installation guide

The following procedure will force a net connect once a week at a set time. If the ReplayTV is past the 7 day maintenance
reboot, the forced net connect will force the maintenance reboot.
1) Install perl on your PC running WiRNS. (Here's one source for perl:
http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/.)
2) Download and unzip netconnect.pl from netconnect.zip and place it in your /perl/bin directory.
3) Modify netconnect.pl for your ReplayTV's IP address and the directory for WiRNS.
4) See if the script works from a command prompt in the /perl/bin directory by typing: perl netconnect.pl (then press enter).
5) If the script works, add a shortcut to your Scheduled Tasks to automatically run the script at a set time once a week when
your ReplayTV is not likely to be doing anything important (like recording).
For multiple ReplayTVs you can either modify the script accordingly, or run scripts specific to each ReplayTV's IP.
I slightly modifed moyekj's script from here, under the section labelled: "Automating forced net connects through Wirns once
daily". (Specifically I commented out some commands that only apply to the older version of WiRNS).
Thanks to moyekj, there's an additional script available that takes care of multiple ReplayTVs in one script. It's available
here: netconnect_multiple_replaytvs.zip.
If you're running the older version of WiRNS (1.1.2b) you can use his original script and directions.
I do not know what will happen under the following situation:
1) The ReplayTV is past the 7 day maintenance reboot point.
and
2) A recording is in progress.
and
3) The script runs.
This information is provided for entertainment purposes only. No warranty as to performance and/or suitability is implied nor
offered.
• Burning ReplayTV mpegs to DVD
Here is Jim Barr's web site with a ReplayTV 5XXX to DVD How-to. A useful collection of software for manipulating
ReplayTV mpegs is rtvtools. Here's one link to rtvtools info, and here's a link to Lee Thompson's rtvtools web
page. (If Lee's site is down, click here for a backup location.) Re-imaging only the system partition will not recover
recorded shows, as the record of what shows exist on a drive is kept in the system partition. Re-imaging the system partition
wipes out the record of what recorded shows exist so there is no way for the OS to access those shows.
• Can you use a ReplayTV without activation?
Early ReplayTVs (20XX and 30XX series) as well as the ShowStopper line from Panasonic were sold with service activation as
part of the purchase price. These models do not require activation verification during the net connect process and can be
used as a manual recorder even if the modem dies and the unit can no longer download guide data. Later ReplayTV models
were either sold with lifetime activation (40XX series) or required the purchase of either monthly or lifetime activation (45XX
and 5XXX series models). These later models require activation verification during the net connect process and if they can no
longer complete a net connect will cease to function. (Although already recorded shows can be accessed via another activated
ReplayTV on the same local network). Activation should not be confused with downloading guide data - a ReplayTV downloads
guide data on a regular basis, but activation is not merely the purchase or use of guide data. Activation is a separate process
and is required to use any ReplayTV later than a 20XX or 30XX ReplayTV or ShowStopper.
Activation and the verification of activation use an encrypted key in the communication between the ReplayTV and the
mothership. It is not currently possible to circumvent activation or the activation verification process. So, any ReplayTV
model from the 40XX series and later cannot be used with activation.