Local IR Control Possible?

[smarty]

This is a general question that I should know...but I am now questioning.

Is it possible to have an IR receiever (like a USB-UIRT) control the Sage UI on a stand alone PC?

I am not talking about using Sage with any extenders, or even having Sage change channels on any external STB's. Sage would be running on a machine with an internal tuner. The IR control would just take the place of the keyboard and mouse control.

Should be easy, right???

[davephan]

You can use the USB-UIRT to control both the set top box and control SageTV with another remote control without an extender. The USB-UIRT has to be aimed at the STB and in the direction of the seating area of the room where the remote control will be used. Program SageTV to use one remote for the STB and another remote control for the SageTV functions. I used SageTV this way before I bought my first extender.

The downsided to not using an extender is if you have two STBs in the same room, the STB IR signals can control both boxes if you do not physically box the IR signals, unless the STB has the option to use different IR channels. Another downside is that you may not be able to playback compressed video without an extender.

Dave

[smarty]

Thanks for the reply.

I thought I could indeed control the Sage UI on a stand alone computer (thanks for the confirmation).

I now beleive my real issue is that my USB-UIRT is not being recognized by Sage or even by the IR LrnHelper software.

My system is an XP Pro (all updates applied). I have downloaded and installed the latest XP drivers from the UIRT site. Under "Hardware Managament", it appears that all USB functionality is OK.

So I am kinda stumped on how to get my sytem to recognize the UIRT.

(I don't believe any other software is using the UIRT, but when I load up PowerHome and intentionally use the UIRT on the same system, it does work). So why DOESN'T sage recognize and use the UIRT?)

[davephan]

You've already tried using the IR LrnHelper program, which is a good way to verify the USB-UIRT functionality. Has the USB-UIRT ever worked for your either on that computer or a different computer?\

Try connecting the USB-UIRT into a different USB port on the computer.

Also check Devices: Right click on My Computer, Manage, Device Manager. You should not see any yellow items, and you should see "USB-UIRT Device" in the "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" section.

Are you using a USB extension cable with that USB-UIRT? If so, try plugging the USB-UIRT in directly, bypassing the USB extension cable.

Try plugging in another USB device into the same USB ports on your computer system to determine if they work.

I am not sure if the USB-UIRT works on the older USB 1.1 standard or requires USB 2 jacks on your computer.

Make sure you are using an IR remote control to test the USB-UIRT, not an RF remote control.

Try hooking up the USB-UIRT on another computer to see if that computer recognizes the USB-UIRT. If it does recognize the device, then run the IR LrnHelper.exe program on the second computer and test it with a remote control.

If none of those things work, then it sounds like you have a bad USB-UIRT unit.


Dave

[GKusnick]

Back up a bit. Have you actually tried configuring Sage to use the USB-UIRT as an input device? Go to Detailed Setup > Commands and look at the bottommost button on the right. Does it say USB-UIRT or does it say None Selected? If it says None, click that button and choose USB-UIRT. If that works, then use Link Infrared/Keystroke to SageTV Command to program Sage to recognize the buttons of your remote.

[smarty]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Back up a bit. Have you actually tried configuring Sage to use the USB-UIRT as an input device? Go to Detailed Setup > Commands and look at the bottommost button on the right. Does it say USB-UIRT or does it say None Selected? If it says None, click that button and choose USB-UIRT. If that works, then use Link Infrared/Keystroke to SageTV Command to program Sage to recognize the buttons of your remote.

That is the problem. I have the UIRT phyisically connected to the computer, all drivers installed, and all SHOULD work, but SageTV will not let me select the USB-UIRT menu choice. It gives me an error message; acting as if the UIRT is not connected (or is not connected properly).

The lrnhelper also gives me the same error message, so I assume the problem is outside of SageTV. I have unistalled and re-installed the drivers etc. I know the UIRT works (cause is works on my PH machine). Not sure what else to try.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by smarty

The lrnhelper also gives me the same error message, so I assume the problem is outside of SageTV.

Check with USB-UIRT support. They have a forum or you could try the email link there.

- Andy

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by smarty

(I don't believe any other software is using the UIRT, but when I load up PowerHome and intentionally use the UIRT on the same system, it does work). So why DOESN'T sage recognize and use the UIRT?)

I guess "PowerHome" is the problem, it must have loaded the USB-UIRT driver and the USB-UIRT driver doesn't like to be shared by processes with different security context.

So try first to disable PowerHome to see if SageTV (or the LrnHelpler) can now see the USB-UIRT. If yes, then you'll have to find a way to stop PowerHome to use the USB-UIRT.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[smarty]

All, Thanks for the possible fixes....

To test out the notion above, I fully uninstalled PowerHome. Still the same error message from SageTV and from lrnhelper.

I should add that this was the same behavior experienced even before PH was loaded onto this machine.

I will post of at the UIRT forum

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by smarty

To test out the notion above, I fully uninstalled PowerHome. Still the same error message from SageTV and from lrnhelper.

weird...

What is the error message you are receiving exactly?
Can you confirm that PowerHome is able to play with the USB-UIRT?