Three Tuner / Digibox System in UK with Actisys

[Mambo]

Hi there,

is there a limit to how many Actiysys IR you can connect to a PC?

I would like to set up a 3-tuner system with three sky digiboxes (one FTA BBC, one BBC-Card with ITV and one with Sky Digital) and wonder, how to remote control them

Should I get three receivers of the same type and use 3 Actisys IR with it or should I try to get 3 different tuner and perhaps try to control them with one Actisys IR?

[mlbdude]

I posted a similar question and am still looking for an answer.

http://www.freytechnologies.com/foru...=&threadid=971

I hope that once Jeff gets the USB UIRT (<- is that right?) going that will be able to do it (since we can have more USB devices than serial).

Thanks!

[dkardatzke]

Originally posted by Mambo
Should I get three receivers of the same type and use 3 Actisys IR with it or should I try to get 3 different tuner and perhaps try to control them with one Actisys IR?

Either way you will need to use as many IR devices as you have boxes to control.

[mlbdude]

Does sage currently support this?

[Narflex]

If the boxes each support an independent infrared codeset than it currently does support it. So if you got a different receiver brand for each of yours, you're OK. In this scenario, you only need one IR device to control multiple boxes, you just select a different codeset for each of them in the SageTV Setup Wizard (Dan was incorrect in his statement for this case).

There's also a way to setup multiple serial controls using Girder and a special EXEMultiTunerPlugin that I developed. But it's somewhat tricky...

Very shortly I'll be adding support for setting up multiple IR/serial devices so it's as easily setup as multiple tuners are....more than likely it'll be in the next release.

Mambo, if you can get 3 different receivers it's your best bet (or get a receiver that has an ID# attached to its IR codes that you can assign and give each reciever a different ID#)

[dkardatzke]

How does Sage handle sending the IR commands for multiple receivers? Does it send one after the other or try to send all channel change commands at once if it needs to record a new show on all the tuners at the top of the hour?

[mlbdude]

This is something that has been perplexing me. I am thinking about getting DicectTV (two recievers) and using both with Sage. I can not visualize how Sage could do this

[Narflex]

It'll do them one after the other if multiple are requested at the same time. It just queues them up in one of its threads.

If you look at the thread for the Tivo remote for the USB-UIRT, that's a good example of how one remote control can control 2 separate devices. That's exactly what the Actisys would be doing. If you have more questions, let me know.

[Nigel]

Originally posted by Mambo
Should I get three receivers of the same type and use 3 Actisys IR with it or should I try to get 3 different tuner and perhaps try to control them with one Actisys IR?

All Digiboxes use an identical remote control & set of IR codes.

[Mambo]

Ouch. That's what I was afraid of.

So 3 IR-Controls and some sort of encapsulation of the boxes to prevet stray IR light are imperative

THanks for the hint.

[Nigel]

Originally posted by Mambo
So 3 IR-Controls and some sort of encapsulation of the boxes to prevet stray IR light are imperative

I have a video sender that I use to view programmes from the Sky Digibox in the bedroom. The receiver in the bedroom also transmits the remote control codes back to the living room. The sender has a little blob on the end of a piece of wire that you stick onto the sensor of the Digibox. The popular ActiSys 200L doesn't seem to have this but in any case you can't have three of these as they are serial port devices. The USB-UIRT now supported in the beta version of SageTV does have a 1/8" socket for external emitters although it doesn't appear to ship with one. Windows MCE uses a USB box that has two sockets for external emitters although only one STB is supported.

So I don't think that you will have to wrap up your Digiboxes after all.