Controlling NTL Cable Box

[RedDom]

I Have sage working fine, except for being able to control my cable box, or being able to control it via ir.
The box in question is an ntl ditv2000 box, which is controlable via IR remote, however it is not standard ir but Irda. This is not supported by many ir blaster type products, except for the one I am using (RedRat3). I have it able to control the set-top box from girder via command lines, but i cant work out how to get sage to use girder for changing channels when it is going to record, surely this must be possible somehow?

My second problem is that the hauppage remote i have a0 does not seem to have all the buttons required to navigate sage tv, and B evn more annoyingly shares many ir signals with my tv, so for example pressing channel+ acts both on sage tv and on my TV!

thanks for any help