Brian's Brain

The DirecTV installer just left; I've got free gear and six month's of service, courtesy of the company's settlement of a spam-fax class action lawsuit. The Hughes D11 receiver needs to periodically call home to receive program guide updates, etc; I was blown away to discover that in spite of this modern era of pervasive broadband adoption and home LANs, there's no Ethernet port on the back of the D11. Instead, it literally 'calls home' over POTS.

Of course there's no phone plug in our livingroom, so I had to set up a powerline-based phone extension via a Phonex PX-441 adapter set that I'd earlier bought on sale for $26 from Surplus Computers, in anticipation of this hiccup. Geez, DirecTV, I realize that the ReplayTV 4040 I got almost four years ago was ahead of the curve in its incorporation of Ethernet support, but you're behind the times. POTS-only? C'mon. The D11 has a USB port on its backside; put it to good use with an Ethernet adapter!

p.s...does anyone know of a way I can channel-change and otherwise control the D11 via my ReplayTV 4040 (which, by the way, is the same as the 4504)? The D10 has a serial port which an adapter from Paterson Technology will mate with, but the D11 is USB-only and Tim's (yes, THAT Tim!) adapter for it won't be ready for another few months. And I haven't (yet) come across a code that'll let me control the D11 via the ReplayTV's IR Blaster capability.