DIRECTV IP CONTROL - OVERVIEW & HOW-TO TUTORIAL Introduction or newer receivers using the homes network. This guide will show you how to setup the DirecTV receiver to a static IP address, and how to set it up to allow for external device control. As well as using a second DirecTV driver to make favorite stations a snap. What Does the Tutorial Cover? This guide covers the seven steps to get your DirecTV IP Driver up and running: Setting up the DirecTV Receiver Static IP address and allowing external device control. DirecTV Driver setup in Builder Feedback Setup - Requires Pro Builder License Creating TV Favorites using DirecTV Direct channel driver Adding and Editing an Entrance to start the Feedback* Gateway and Feedback inside the App 127
How long will it take? Following the step-by-step instructions in the guide should only take you about 10 to 15 minutes. This guide will walk you through the setup of your DirecTV receiver, as well as implementing the 2 DirecTV IP drivers. This guide will also show you how to use feedbacks and how to use entrances. Finally you will be shown how to setup the HTTP gateway, and then you will see how the feedback appears inside the App. * The DirecTV receiver will not give any updates unless you ask for the status updates. So we get around that by creating a repeating entrance which will repeatedly get terval. * Entrances are used to automatically send commands when entering a Page. This is useful to send a query command to get the status of a device feedback. Since the DirecTV feedback does not automatically update the irule we use the repeating status query. 128
SETTING UP YOUR DIRECTV RECEIVER Step 1. Menu Press the Menu button on the DirecTV remote control. This will take you to the Main Menu. Step 2. Settings Select Settings Menu. This will take you to the Settings Menu of the Receiver. Step 3. Network Setup Under Settings select Network Setup. Now Select Advanced Setup. Step 4. Setting Static IP Use the Navigation buttons to set the Static IP address for the DirecTV receiver. Step 5. Connect Now Select Connect Now. This will check that the DirecTV receiver is properly connected to the internet Step 6. Whole-Home Select Whole-Home Menu. This will take you to the screen that will enable external control. Step 7. External Devices Under Whole-Home select the External Devices Menu. This will allow you allow control from other devices. Step 8. External Access Set the External Access to Allow. This will allow us to control the DirecTV receiver from irule. 129
DIRECTV IP DEVICE BUILDER SETUP Step 1. Import both DirecTV IP drivers When you browse for DirecTV devices you will notice that we have 2 DirecTV IP Drivers. However, if you look closely you will see that one is channels only. That is because we give you access to every channel through a direct access code. So you do not have to create your favorite channel macros. All you have to do is drag one code onto the button and you are done. So you will want to import both devices into your project. 130
BROWSING FOR FEEDBACK Step 2. Browse and Import Feedbacks Now we are going to browse for and import the DirecTV feedback so that we can show your customer channel information from the DirecTV receiver. You browse for feedbacks by clicking on the Feedbacks tab above the Actions window and clicking on the drop-down arrow and select Browse Feedbacks. Find the DirecTV feedback and import it. Then we are ready to place the feedback and attach the device that will be giving us the feedback. 131
ATTACHING FEEDBACK Step 3. Attach the Feedback a device so that we can actually pull the information off of the DirecTV receiver. Click on the DirecTV HTTP feedback. In the properties window click on device. Scroll down to and click on DirecTV Satellite (HTTP). Now we can place the feedback onto the page. 132
PLACING FEEDBACK Step 4. Placing the Feedback Now you can place the feedback into the project. As you can see under the feedback that you imported, there are a lot of choices. Simply choose the ones that you want to show and drag them onto a page. We have one more step to complete before our feedbacks are ready to use. 133
2 3 1 ADDING AN ENTRANCE Step 5. Add an Entrance For the DirecTV feedback to work we need to do something called query the DirecTV receiver. This means we need to query, the DirecTV receiver will not tell us anything. So to ask the query we can do it a couple of ways. We can put the code on a button, and when the customer hits the button they will see what channel they are on. Or, we can place the code into the entrance of the Watch TV panel. This will start asking the question whenever the customer is watching TV. 1. 2. 3. Now we can edit our Entrance to keep getting information for us. 134
1 3 2 EDITING THE ENTRANCE Step 6. Edit the Entrance Now that we have created an entrance and assigned a code to that entrance we now need to change some properties so that the query will keep repeating. If we did not repeat the we entered the Panel. To make those changes, 1.Click on the Entrance in the Panels window. 2.Change the repeatable setting from No to Yes. A note of caution, choose your timing carefully. You will want something around 15 seconds. If you choose something too often it can make the receiver unresponsive to other codes such as channel up and down. Now lets create some favorite station buttons. 3.Select how often you want the code to be repeated. 135
CREATING FAVORITES Step 7. Creating Favorites With the DirecTV Channels Only driver making a channel favorite is very easy. Open the DirecTV Channels Only (HTTP) Codes Click and Drag the code that you want onto the Favorite button. Its really that simple. Now lets Sync and test it out. 136
GATEWAY & FEEDBACK IN THE APP Step 1. Gateway The DirecTV needs to be setup as an HTTP gateway. So lets add a new HTTP gateway. Step 2. Assign Devices Since we are going to use 2 drivers to control the DirecTV Receiver we need to add both device drivers to the gateway. Step 3. Gateway Setup Setup the gateway as you see above. Use the IP address that you setup in the DirecTV receiver earlier in this guide. Step 4. Feedback Now we can see an example of what a feedback looks like. Step 5. Favorites We can see the TV favorites that we setup. We can now test them and easily create a custom list to every DirecTV customer that you have. 137