multiple IR receivers with pvr350?

[aberson]

Does anyone know what's in the PVR-350 IR receiver dongle? Is it an entire IR receiver/demodulator IC? or just an IR transistor/diode where the demod circuitry is on the pvr350?

I'd like to have a single sage box in 1 room, controlled by remotes in more than 1 room of the house. Instead of having a client, I was just going to pipe video from the sage box to each room, and I was hoping to put an IR receiver in each room, piped back to the sage box. [Not sure yet how I'd do the video distribution - either try to run 75Ohm coax and just use the RCA outputs of the 350, or possibly modulated it onto channel 3 with a VCR or standalone modulator]

Short of buying one of those "wireless IR sender" things, I was thinking I could build/buy a second IR receiver and OR them together. Alternatively, I could build something like this IR extender circuit, but I might be able to do without the opamp and LED's if I can pipe it directly into the PVR 350's IR receive port.

Along the same lines, any idea how far I can extend it that cable? The IR data is modulated at 30-60Khz, and it looks like the IR data itself is only around 2 or 3Khz, which means I don't have to be too concerned with wire impedence squashing the signal... (Even if the demodulation occurs in the 350, I should be ok with a pretty decent distance to carry 60Khz)


Adam

[aberson]

well, I'll reply to myself about 6 months later, in case anyone else is wondering:

1. I've successfully extended the IR dongle using some spare phone wire I had laying around. I did at least 25' worth, no problem.

2. With a few emails from hauppauge, who was reluctant to tell me many specifics, I've found an IR receiver that works with the PVR-350. In fact, it works WAY better than the one that comes with the 350. I think the angle and sensitivity on the 350's receiver are not very good. The part I've found is the GP1UV701QS, made by Sharp. [The ones I actually have end in "QSOF", but that might just be the "lead free" version.] It looks like Digikey.com doesn't have any in stock, but will let you order in small quantities for $1.14 each.

The center pin is ground. One of the outer pins is 5V, the other is a signal pin (active low). I just tried the chip both ways until it worked.

3. I've successfully put 3 of these guys in parallel, with extension cables and whatnot, so I have 3 rooms in the house with IR receivers feeding into a single Sage. The video signal is distributed via coax to all 3 rooms.

Adam