If you want to use your Pix-Star to stream pictures with UPnP/DLNA from an Actionec MI424 WR router be careful that depending on the software version of the router u may have to adjust some parameters in the configuration of the router.
Basically you need to disable IGMP Proxy. Everything is explained in this thread on-line:
http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/Actiontec-MI424WR-DLNA-Problems/td-p/452389/page/4
Then it works!
If your frame is not receiving photo-mails and shows ‘offline’ in the web site account check this:
1- First make sure that the Wi-Fi is configured and that it shows connected in the frame’s main menu. There is an icon showing the strength of the Wi-Fi signal on the top right of the main menu, see if it is showing connected and that you have at least 1 blue bar.
2- Next to this icon, on the left, there is the ‘globe’ icon. See if shows a RED color exclamation (!) point or not? a Red exclamation point means that the frame cannot access internet. You need to double check your network or contact us.
3- If all this is ok, you may simply try to restart the unit to give it a “fresh start”. For this use the ON OFF button at the back of the unit, next to the power cord.
REMARK: the red button on the remote puts the frame in sleep mode with LCD switched off, this is not restarting the unit. To completely restart the unit you must use the ON/OFF button at the back of the unit or unplug the power cable.
After the frame restarts wait about 5 minutes, see if the pictures start to arrive or if the ‘offline’ becomes ‘online’ in the web site.
If your wireless router is a CISCO LINKSYS E Series E1000 E1200 E1500 E2500 E3200 E4200 be careful NOT to connect your Pix-Star to the ‘GUEST’ access.
This access requires the device to enter a password in a web page. This mode is not supported by the Pix-Star currently has there is no web browser embedded in the device.
To use these CISCO E-Series routers to access Internet with your Pix-Star you MUST connect to the MAIN access (main SSID) of the router and enter a WPA2 security key / password.
Everything works then smoothly!
By default your Pix-Star displays the current date and time on top of the slideshow (overlay).
If you want to remove this just press MENU when a slide show is playing, on the menu bar on the left side that pops up move to the second logo starting from the bottom, called “options”, inside you can then de-activate the display of the date and time.
If your Wi-Fi router is a D-link DIR-615 Hardware Rev. C be careful a firmware update is needed in the router so that the router’s DHCP server can provide a correct IP address to the frame.
The DIR-615 h/w C needs to be at over 3.13 for the Pix-Star to get an IP address.
This firmware update package is not easy to find actually because this hardware rev. C is not supported anymore by D-Link.
Probably that your current version is v3.10. So u need to upgrade to v3.13 to make this work. There is apparently a bug in their DHCP server software that got corrected in revision 3.12.
The firmware is not listed on the D-Link website but can be found on their FTP site (ftp://ftp.dlink.com), under gateway.
If you have any issue implementing this fix do not hesitate to contact us at: info@pix-star.com.
(Many thanks to William M. for finding this fix)
If you have not yet installed a UPnP/DLNA server on your PC, MAC or NAS server and you are looking for a solution reading the lines below should help.
Pix-Star is a generic DLNA rendered (player) so it should be compatible with all DLNA servers on the market. But by experience we now know that… some DLNA server works better than others! Not only with Pix-Star but also in terms of stability, simplicity of use and many other things.
Among the chargeable solutions (sometimes with a few weeks of free trail though) Twonky works well (be careful that currently the version 7 seems a little buggy, may get better avec a few updates…), Eyeconnect on MAC gives very good results, TVersity is also a good solution.
But another solution that should also be considered because it’s totally FREE is “miniDLNA” (http://minidlna.sourceforge.net/), it’s a “tiny”, “light weight” and based on some comments on the Web it “Works with ever DLNA client I have tried”!
And of course it works great with Pix-Star!
One on the other hand does NOT work AT ALL with Pix-Star is Serviio (www.serviio.org). So avoid this solution for the moment.
For some reasons the Pix-Star cannot find the Serviio server and whatever the profile you choose inside the configuration panel of the Serviio, no luck, it still does not work.
If you are using your Pix-Star to stream pictures from a Netgear ReadyNAS 1000S or 1100 models be careful to check that you run the latest software version in the ReadyNAS.
Versions below 4.10.1 seem to have some stability issues in the connection with the frame and also folders inside the NAS are not visible from the Pix-Star.
Upgrading to the 4.10.1 proved to work and have those issues disappearing immediately.
When uploading files to your Pix-Star account (web albums) or when sending pictures by email to your frame’s email address you use any size for your pictures. The Pix-Star will adapt automatically to the size it receives.
But there are a few things you need to take into account to better “optimize” your pictures uploads and sendings.
The current resolution of the 8 inch and 10.4 inch is 800×600 pixels, this means that:
- sending pictures that are bigger than 800×600 is not necessary as they will be resized to 800×600 pixels upon receiving them by the frame. So for optimising your files upload speed and email sending you may (if you have the possibility) resize them to lower resolution providing it is higher than 800×600 pixels.
- on the other hand, if you send or upload pictures that are SMALLER than 800×600 pixels then the frame will display them but they will display small on the screen. This is normal. They don’t have enough pixels to fill in the whole screen. Your Pix-Star doesn’t “stretch” pictures to fit the screen as the result is usually “ugly” and “pixelated”.
To summarize:
Try to send files with a resolution close to 800×600 pixels, but always above 800×600 pixels.
Enjoy your Pix-Star!
When using your Pix-Star to connect to a Netopia router from Motorola you may have this situation that the Wi-Fi is properly connected but then the frame has no internet access.
This is due to a a special situation with the default configuration of this router which requires a little manipulation to allow the Pix-Star to access the internet.
Log into the configuration interface of your Netopia (check with the Netopia user manual). Once inside this configuration interface go to the section:
IP PASSTHROUGH
You should see something similar to this:
netopia Motorola ip passthrough interface config for pix-star
Here just select the IP address of your Pix-Star then press ENABLE button.
Apparently on some other software version of this router there is no “ip passthrough” interface instead you need to go to DMZ, see this:
Clicked on Advanced Settings.
Under security on the broadband settings he clicked on the DMZ hosting.
Three steps:
1. click on enable
2. type in IP address for Pix-Star
3. clicked on apply and reboot
(to find the IP address of your Pix-star: go to the CHANGE SETTINGS menu of the Pix-Star then to Wi-Fi menu, move the selector to the line which is your network name and to which the pix-star is connected to (make sure it is connected) then press OK/PLAY in the window that pops up there is your Pix-Star IP addresss)
Done!
You may have to restart your frame just in case.
Out of the box your Pix-Star comes with some pictures in it’s memory. These files may show in the slide show while you start receiving photo-mails during the first days of use.
If you want to delete them just follow one of the 2 options below.
From the SLIDE SHOW:
When the picture you want to delete is playing in the slide show press the MENU button, on the menu bar on the left move down to the “dustbin” logo then press OK/PLAY button. A pop up message ask you to confirm or cancel. If you CONFIRM the picture will be permanently deleted.
You can just do this for each of the pictures you want to delete.
From the FILE MANAGER:
You can also go to the file manager. First go back to the main menu (quit the slide show if necessary by using the back key, press it 2 or 3 times). Then enter the FILE MANAGER.
Once inside go to the folder called PIXSTAR then to INBOX.
Here you select the pictures you want to delete by moving the SELECTOR on it then press OK/PLAY. Once you’ve finished the selection press MENU button. In the menu list that pops up choose “DELETE SELECTED” then your pictures will be permanently deleted.