USB-UIRT and IR Emitter

[jaydub]

I've got V9 installed on Win10-64 with Colossus 2 using a DirectTV HR-24 STB. I'm looking for an alternative to the Hauppauge IR setup, which doesn't seem to work dependably. So I just ordered a USB-UIRT box. I'm looking for a high quality 3.5mm IR emitter to go along with it.

- Any suggestions as to what brand of emitter, or are they basically all the same?
- With this set up, does the IR jack on the Colossus 2 go unused?
- I also want to be able to control SageTV channel changing with my mouse. Will I need anything else to make that happen?

Many thanks.

[wayner]

I think the emitters are all the same. How many STBs will you be controlling with the USB-UIRT? If you are just using one then no emitter is required as the USB-UIRT blasts out of the front of the unit - but you don't want it to do that if you have multiple boxes as it will be changing the channel on all boxes in the room, unless you can assign different IR codes to different DirecTV boxes. And if you can do that then you may not need the emitter even if controlling multiple boxes. You just teach it the codes when setting up your tuner.

The IR jack on the Colossus will not be used.

I am not sure what you mean by changing the SageTV channel with your mouse. Do you mean that you will use the mouse to select a channel in the guide while watching live TV? For recordings you don't actually change the channel yourself, the computer initiates that. And even with live TV it is the same thing happening - the PC is initiating the channel change on the box, not your remote or mouse as you are just changing the channel on Sate.

[jaydub]

I have a simple setup...just one tuner.

You indicate that the USB-UIRT blasts out of the front. It seems that the front of the USB-UIRT has to be facing the viewer in order to receive IR from the remote. What is the point of the USB-UIRT blasting toward the viewer rather than the device? How will the device pick up the blast if not pointed to it?

[wayner]

The main blaster of the USB-UIRT is pretty powerful - perhaps I should have said it is omni-directional instead of coming out of the front. I am pretty sure that you will not need an emitter unless there is no line of sight at all between where you put the USB-UIRT and the IR input of your DirecTV box, and even then it may bounce off of walls or furniture.

[jaydub]

Thanks for the info. The USB-UIRT will be on a book shelf, and the STB is positioned two shelves above that. Both face a window. Think that will work.

[wayner]

You can give it a try - any reason why you can't move the USB-UIRT to the same shelf as the STB? If required you could get a USB extension cable - the cable on the USB-UIRT is pretty short - I would guess around 2 ft.

[jaydub]

I guess I could put the USB-UIRT on top of the STB. Would that work?

[wayner]

That should probably work - especially if you place it so that the USB-UIRT front is slightly in front of the STB front. In my ASCII art below the USB-UIRT is the === and the DirecTV box is the rest of the diagram.

        ===
----------|
DirecTVbox|
----------|

[jaydub]

Got it. Many thanks for the tips.

One last question, how do you program the USB-UIRT to work with the remote and STB? I plan on using a Hauppauge 45 button remote, since I have it. Is than done is Sage?

[wayner]

I think you just tell it what remote you have in the Remote setup and it should work. There was, and maybe still is, an issue when you are using the USB-UIRT as both receiver and transmitter where there can be an issue with the user running certain processes. See https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47567