DTV Serial Control in sage 1.48

[kevthor]

I have been using 1.48 great with the EXE tuner plugin as I could never get the native serial control in Sage to work. Now that I have bought a another capture card, and have setup two inputs I now NEED the serial control to work as I can't get the EXE tuner plug in to control both receivers. However I am not sucessful in doing things?

What am I doing wrong?
What I have done is:

Remove the registry entry DTV con enters.
Removed Direct Control.EXE from loading
Remove the exe tuner plugin from the sage directory
Setup the serial control using the wizard set to com1, (which I know is the correct com port as that is what I used to use with the EXEtuner plugin)

What else can I do?

Thanks

[mikbro]

If I am not mistaken the serial control built into Sage didn't fully work until the current release 1.4.10. Sounds like you will want to upgrade to that version.

Although you don't mention it, I assume also that you have two serial ports, each attached to a different receiver?

[kevthor]

Yes I have 2 serail ports which are setup correctly. I just PCanywhere'd home (into my Sage box) and it turns out I am running version 1.4.10.

Any other suggestions folks?

[mikbro]

What are the make/models of the Directv receivers?

[kevthor]

They are both RCA DRD420RE's. And they both work great using the EXE tuner plug in.

Thanks

[mikbro]

I know that in the history of DTV receivers (that are controllable via serial port) that there are 2 different protocols used. I believe Sage internally only uses 1 (the older, 1st protocol). It is possible that the receivers you have require the newer protocol and that the exe tuner plugin detected it and sent the required protocol, while Sage itself is still trying to use the older protocol.

From what I have read though, it *seems* that the 420re should use the older code... that said, who knows if DTV sent a firmware update that changed the serial code for these models to use the newer Sage incompatible serial code.

On a side note, the serial code Sage uses is a *little* different than the standard (older - 1st) DTV serial code. I had to change my code to recognize this subtle difference when I updated my TuneItAll software to handle Sage channel changes.

[kevthor]

So what does this mean?

Is there anyway I can get run 2 exe tuner plugin's to control 2 different receivers?

[kevthor]

Anyone else that can help??

[jkaisre]

Since it seems to work with EXE tuner plugin (what ever that is) I am assuming that you have slow data connection set up on your DTV box. My old RCA unit had the serial port defaulted to Home Control.

The only other thing to watch out for, and I believe you should get an error message, is that 2 applications are not using the same comm port. Oh, and the two comm ports are on seperate IRQs, right?

[kevthor]

No other applications are using the com ports.

Yes it is a low speed data port on the receiver.

[mikbro]

Just to verify, your receiver is set to low speed data port and NOT Home Control, correct?

Another option would be to download a port monitor that allows you to see what data is actually being transmitted over your serial port. This would at least verify that Sage is sending codes over the proper serial port. At that point it would be a cable, or incompatibility problem with the receiver.

[kevthor]

Well there is not really a setting on these receivers to switch is there?

My port is labelled LOW SPEED DATA PORT. So I am assuming that is what it is using.

The cables are not at fault as they work great with the EXE Tuner Plug In.

And I can't see it being the receiver since I was told the RCA DRD420RE's are compatible?

Thanks for the reply, I will try to find a serial port monitor to verify traffic.

Any other suggestoins?

[kevthor]

Anyone please help?

There must be someone out there with a DRD420RE receiver that has this working (as the receiver is quite common)

Thanks

[kevthor]

I have now borrowed a receiver off of a friend who has the a directv receiver with a low speed data port on the back however his low speed data port is just a direct serial port while mine is the small telephone jack. His receiver works perfectly.

So what is it with the DRD420RE receivers and the small telephone jack low speed data ports that will not work with the built in serial control of SageTV 1.4.10?

[mikbro]

You may want to check out the Tivo forums (www.tivocommunity.com). Since the Tivos communicate in the same manner as a Sage box, you may find helpfull information there. Just try searching on "drd420re".

[kevthor]

Like I said, my reciever, the DRD420RE works great with the EXE Tuner Plugin just not sage's native serial control. So it HAS to be something in there software.

I will try searching on the Tivo's forums.

[kevthor]

I still cannot get this receiver to work.

Any more thoughts? Maybe from Jeff or Dan?? There must be people with this receiver out there since it is quite common?

Thanks

[dkardatzke]

kevthor,

I apologize for the confusion but it looks like we didn't add the support for the newer DTV protocol until after 1.4.10. However, it's integrated in V2 and the beta version will be available soon so make sure you've signed up based on the information available at www.sage.tv/beta.html

Dan

[kevthor]

Great, thank you for the reply. Now that I know I can stop pulling my hair out.

Bring on V2!! And yes I have already signed up.

[dkardatzke]

kevthor,

Send us an e-mail to support@freytechnologies.com about a possible fix for this that may work in v1.4.