Control and integration

Web server

The browser interface built into the Diva

Most of what the Diva can do is reachable only from the browser interface it serves itself. Getting to it, and getting back to it, is worth understanding before you need to.

An embedded web server is an HTTP server running on the equipment itself. Point a browser on the same network at its address and the device serves its own configuration pages. There is nothing to install, no driver, no application per platform, and no dependence on a manufacturer's cloud service continuing to exist.

It suits AV equipment because the settings are numerous and a browser is already present on everything in the room. The trade is reachability: the device needs an address on your network, and if that address is wrong or lost, the interface goes with it. That is why any equipment configured this way should also have a way back in that does not need the browser.

One further habit is worth acquiring. Pages served this way are usually not live. The browser was handed a snapshot when the page loaded, and unless it polls, it goes on showing that snapshot however much the equipment has moved on since.

Reaching the HDfury Diva web server

An Ethernet cable between the LAN CONTROL RJ45 connector and your router or switch is mandatory: there is no wireless route in. By default the Diva uses DHCP and the address it was given appears on the OLED. There are three ways in. Type that IP address into a browser, for example 192.168.1.137. Use the hostname from the OLED LAN INFO page, in the form DIVA-XX, where XX is the last two digits of the serial number. Or use the mDNS name from the same page, DIVA-XX.local, which iOS and Mac users often prefer. Only the IP address is universal; if hostname or mDNS does not resolve, fall back to it.

You land on INFO, under a top tier section that stays on screen throughout and repeats the hostname, the mDNS name, the IP address and the firmware. Two versions are reported there, for example MCU: 0.25 FPGA: 0.8, because there are two processors and both are updated. From there the sections are INFO, EDID, SCALER, HDR and DV, OSD, CEC and RS232, MACROS, TOOLS and CONFIG. Everything the four buttons on the unit cannot reach, including the scaler, the HDR and Dolby Vision tools and the on-screen display, lives here.

Two buttons that catch people out

REFRESH and SEND. The web server does not refresh itself continuously, so after changing a source, changing a disc or switching resolution, click REFRESH rather than trusting what is on screen. And each group of settings has its own SEND button: custom scaling parameters, the OSD groups and the analogue audio controls all sit in the browser until you click it, which is the most common reason a change appears not to have worked.

All glossary terms