Serial Control of DirecTV Receivers

[norm911]

I'm starting to build a Sage infrastructure for my new house, and this one will be based around DirecTV reveivers rather than cable. I was planning on buying 4 cheap RCA receivers on eBay, but I want to control them via serial and can't find many references to which models work well with Sage. I looked through the postings here but couldn't find much on working configurations of Sage controlling DirecTV receivers via serial.

Does anyone have this working? If so, please drop me a note or respond to this post with what reveivers you are using, where you got the cable, what interface on the PC you're using (i.e., digiboard, onboard serial, USB2serial, etc). If there's a link i've missed that covers this topic, please send it.

Thanks ,
Norm

[phenixdragon]

I use done of the Sony boxes but can not think of the model. I heard the new D10 works fine though. I also used a USB to seral cable. I did have issues if I were to remove the source and readd it. it wouldnt see the cable anymore in Sage. But if I didnt remove and readd it it worked fine.

[abbott_m]

This page is a good reference for the cables and models that work, http://dtvcontrol.com. I used it to do exactly what your looking to do and picked up a couple DTV receivers for about $10 each, made the cables and it works like a charm.

[Wakecrash]

Here is a link
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...ectv#post77936

The basic directv D10 is fine, just make sure you get -100 manufacture code. Directv sells the same box, but it is built by 4 different manufacturers. The -100 is built by Thompson/RCA. Probably want to buy from best buy or circuit city to make sure what you get.
go to www.dtvcontrol.com for pinouts, serial control is the best.

[Drazi]

I have one D10-100 and two RCA DRD420RE's. Receivers one and two are hooked to onboard serial ports, number three is a usb to serial adapter.

There is one small quirk with this setup. The D10-100 uses the new command set and the RCA's use the old. When I first start Sage I must make sure the D10-100 changes a channel first. If one of the RCA's goes first the D10 will ignore all future channel changes. I guess the Directvserialcontrol.dll is a little flaky in this combination.

If you are starting out I would suggest getting all D10-100's or all RCA (or another old command set receiver). You can get RCA 420's really cheap on ebay, just remember to factor in an additional $20 per unit for an access card. The D10-100 is available at Circuit City for $50.

[norm911]

Thanks for the help. I'll likely buy 4 of the same receivers and try to run them all from the same machine into 4 Hauppauge PVR-150MCE cards via S-Video. Since the server only has two native serial ports, I was planning on using USBtoSerial converers for the other two.

If anyone has seen any issues running USB serial along with native serial please let me know.

Thanks for the help,
Norm

[Jesse]

Hello Norm,

One thing to keep in mind about older Directv boxs: Many of them do not support the <100 channel range. This means that you may not be able to receive local channels. Sometimes they are available in the 900's range, but sometimes not. This can also lead to problems if the channel ranges are not the same on all your boxs.

As others said above, the Directv D10-100 boxs are available from Circuit City for around $50.00, and they work great with serial control.

Have fun,

Jesse

[abbott_m]

Just a data point but I picked up 2 DRD430RG receivers off E-Bay. One is controlled by the mobo serial, the other is by USB serial. Both work flawlessly with serial control. The one note about the $20 for the access card should be taken into account when determining the total price of the unit. Any receiver that comes with a card is fairly useless (The card I mean) since DTV will have to send you a new card anyway.

[norm911]

Great info. This is really helful guys. Do the DRD430RG receivers support channels in the <100 range? I wasn't aware that this was a limitation on earlier receivers (as described above) and that would definately be a problem for me.

Looking through the eBay listings, it looks like the DRD430RG's can be had fairly cheap but when you add in the $20 for a card the total price averages out to something like $30-40 per unit total. If I can get the D10-100's new from Circuit City for $50 each, I might just do that to start with factory new equipment and warranty.

One last question: Are you guys making your own serial cables for the D10-100's and DRD430RG's? Or are you using factory cables from somewhere? Send links to items that are known to work if you have 'em.

Thanks,
Norm

[abbott_m]

My locals all show up fine on it. I've got cable on another tuner and all the local cable channels and DTV locals show up just fine in the <100 range. The serial cable for the unit I made. Isn't terribly hard if you have a crimper and some spare phone cable (or any cable with 4 conductors). The actually connector is a bit of a pain since it's not a standard RJ11 connector but is a 4P4C connector. I bought a bag of them from Mouser and just made the 2 serial cables I needed.

Mike

[LowTech]

One last question: Are you guys making your own serial cables for the D10-100's and DRD430RG's? Or are you using factory cables from somewhere? Send links to items that are known to work if you have 'em.

Chaeper to DIY but if you're all thumbs here's your links...

http://dtvcontrol.com/

http://store.snapstream.com/dicaparre.html

[norm911]

Thanks for the cable links. I'll probably just make them. The final setup is going to be all rack mounted in my new house so the components won't be moving around. Making the cables will be best because I'll be able to make them exactly as long as I need them. The plan is to put the server and four DTV receivers in the rack with my networking gear.

Thanks,
Norm

[dbfresh23]

I had setup Sage to use a new D10 receiver, but hated the huge receiver osd that showed up behind the sage osd so i switched to a sony sat B50 and it's working great. Only catch is that it doesn't support channels <100 - not a problem for me since i can get locals in the 300s and 900s as well. Just keep in mind when you buy them - that new D10 box looks nice, but that osd is HUGE and annoyed me enough to switch to an older model.

[eruji]

so the sony b50 allows you to disable the osd? does anyone else know of any recievers that allow you to disable the osd?

[dbfresh23]

no, the Sony Sat B50 doesn't all you to disable the osd, but when you change the channel the only thing that shows up is a very very small channel logo, no huge splash screens or bars across the whole screen like the D10.

[JUC]

Yea, the D10's OSD is horribly huge. I bought a Sony SAT B3 and the OSD is great, nice and small---unfortunately i need my local channels below 100 and the Sony doesn't support it...

[eruji]

ah i see.. too bad. im moving at the end of this month and need to get directv, so i will be going down this route soon. I wonder if i sign up as a new account i can get the install deal with the D10's..