Actisys IR blaster and missing digits

[Pantheis]

I've had my SageTV setup for a couple months now, upgraded to the 2.0 betas as they come out and have been experiencing some almost showstopping issues with my setup.

I'm running:
Amd Thunderbird 1Ghz processor
640MB of ram
20GB Main System drive (on IDE0)
6X DVD drive (on IDE1)
120GB 64K cluster size Data drive for video (on RAID controller, IDE2)
SageTV 2.0 beta (Version 2.0.12)
WinTV PVR-250
ATI Radeon 9000
Actisys IR blaster

Comcast is my cable provider. I'm using the standard Comcast digital cable box (not their new HDTV boxes, they won't give those out unless you have a HDTV compatible TV, or so I've been told).

The issue I'm having is that either SageTV, or the Actisys, keeps missing the first digit while sending channel changes. It doesn't always happen, but happens enough that I keep missing shows.

As an example, it needs to change to channel 52, it should spit out 052. When you type numbers in to the cable box to change the channel, the numbers show up onscreen and are therefor recorded by SageTV.

I will see the 52 show up, then it will time out on the channel change as it did not get the full 3 digits. While changing to 253, or some other full three digit channel, you'll see 53 show up.

I've tweaked the timing settings for the IR multiple times, tweaked the pretune settings in the sage.properties file, and still cannot get around this issue.

At the moment, I have it delaying 8000ms after receiving a channel change request before it issues the commands to the Actisys. I have 1000ms timeouts between each digit and 5000ms timeouts between each channel change.

I am not able to track down any specific reason why it would sometimes send all three digits and why sometimes it will miss sending the first digit and only send the last two. It is ALWAYS the first digit that is dropped.

The cable box receiver isn't the issue in this case, as the Actisys is simply not transmitting the first digit. I have confirmed this by watching the LED inside the Actisys and it is simply not lighting up for the first digit.

I can cause it to skip digits by changing channels using the guide screen, then using the page up / page down keeps in rapid succession to scroll through the guild while it is trying to change the channels.

This has led me to the believe that it has something to do with the serial control of the Actisys requiring large amounts of CPU time and the OSD taking away enough that it is not sending the correct commands to the Actisys within a timeout period.

I was wondering if anyone has had any luck getting the Actisys to behave itself? I know IR control can have some issues, but there's no real reason why it shouldn't work more often. I'm seeing failure rates nearing 50%.

I was considering purchasing the USB-UIRT controller as I honestly believe this issue is related directly to the Actisys, but I wanted to ask here if anyone has experienced this issue before and managed to solve it, and if so, how, before I dropped the $60+ on another IR blaster.

I do not have the option to use a direct serial control to my cable box, so IR is the only option. If it helps at all, my friend has a TiVo, uses IR for channel changes, has the exact same cable box as I do, and never misses a channel change, even with his TiVo IR config set to the fastest timings available (which is around 250ms between digits).

[Pantheis]

*bump*

In the hopes that somebody (anybody) has an answer, I am bumping this to the top.

[Pantheis]

Anyone from Frey want to comment on my support request?

I'm willing to drop the $$ for a USB-UIRT if it will solve my issues, but I want to hear from people who have had a similar situation or at least hear from the devs some sort of response, even if that response is "We don't know what causes that issue, upgrading may or may not fix it."

I just want some sort of response that this thread has been noticed and that somebody cares about this issue. It is highly annoying when I keep missing shows because it fails to change channels.

[SHS]

I think that solve your problem in long run being the Actisys IR blaster is so outdate.
Look back your Comcast digital cable box you should find other info on it like who really make it and model number

[roxy99]

I am having the same problem using USB-UIRT. See my recent thread started. Sage support is trying to help me but so far its a mystery what's causing it. It only started giving me grief when I enabled my Sage TV as a Server. Previously it functioned properly as a standalone Sage TV with no server or MVP.

[JUC]

Originally Posted by Pantheis

Anyone from Frey want to comment on my support request?

have you submitted a support ticket yet? If you haven't yet, submit a request to tech support as these forums aren't directly monitorred by sage's developers and tech's.
JUC