USB IR blaster/reciever that works with SageTV?

justme · #1 06-09-2003, 04:42 AM

I'm looking for a good USB IR blaster/reviever that will work with SageTV. I don't want to have to turn on my motherboard's serial(eck) port. I don't have the IRQs to spare, I plan on building up a Multi-PVR HTPC system. I use the coax input right now for my basic cable, and will add a second source to use the SVHS input on the PVR250 for digital cable. I had an IR Trans but my cat killed it. Either way I never set it up for SageTV and I don't want to spend that much a second time. I'm considering the USBUIRT metioned in one of the other threads on this site. It's 50$ and is both a IR blaster and reciever. It has girder support so I have no doubt about setting it up to control SageTV. What worries me is setting it up so SageTV can change the channels on my digital cable box. I see there is a exported girder group for Sage that talks about channel changing. It says it in no way overlaps with the functionality of the other(thera are two groups at girder) SageTV group.
Does anyone know if this is refering to changing channels on a external cable box?
Has anyone tried this group?
Or has anyone else used girder and an IR blaster(other than the actisys) to control a cable box with SageTV?
Is it possible to use another IR blaster with SageTV?

Any help would be great. Thanx

salsbst · #2 06-13-2003, 01:10 PM

Yes, I have SageTV changing channels on my cable box using Girder, USB-UIRT, the two exported groups from www.girder.nl and the tuner plugin DLL from http://www.freytechnologies.com/EXETunerPlugin.zip.

Post back if you have questions as you set this up. I did have to make a little change to the registry settings for the EXETuner plugin so that it would send the correct events to Girder (it is set to send DSSTUNE events but the exported Girder group wanted "SageTVsomethingsomething". I'm not at home now so I can't check, but it was something like that.

HTH,

salsbst · #3 06-13-2003, 01:11 PM

And another thing: USB-UIRT sends a very powerful signal. In my case, the transmitter seems to get in touch with the cable box after bouncing off the rear wall, although no real aiming seems to be necessary at all. It just works.

justme · #4 06-13-2003, 04:09 PM

Thanx so much salsbst.

My USB-UIRT is supposed to ship today, so it will be a few days before it arrives. I can tell you right now though that I will definitely accept your offer of help. I'm still new to Girder and IR blasters, but ini files or editing the registry doesn't scare me. The confirmation of success is a relief, my wife would have killed me if I couldn't get it working.

She's used to Tivo. So I set my Tivo and it's remote up to think there is another Tivo in the house. Now my Tivo only works with the remote switch set to 1, that leaves 2 for SageTV. This should allow her and I to control SageTV with the Tivo remote with just the flick of a switch. I hope the IR codes are different enough for the USB-UIRT/Girder to tell the diference.

SHS · #5 06-13-2003, 05:43 PM

Is this the one you got?.
http://home.earthlink.net/~jrhees/USBUIRT/index.htm

justme · #6 06-13-2003, 06:58 PM

Yep, That's it SHS. I just got email confirmation of shipment today.

dkardatzke · #7 06-14-2003, 07:44 AM

We've contacted the creator of the USB-UIRT and will look into possibly integrating it with SageTV as an alternative to the IR-200L in the coming weeks.

justme · #8 06-14-2003, 07:47 AM

Great!

Thanx, dkardatzke, this is some of the best news I've gotten in awhile.

You guys are the best. This is the second time I've critized your software in some way and you have addressed or fixed it in no time.

The first time was on SHSpvr forums and I felt it necessary to apoligize there for my comments. Now I go and make myself look like an idiot again with my comments on IR support in another thread on this site. So I'm very sorry once again. Man, every time I say anything critical you guys fix it. Are you doing this to make me look bad or what?

Seriously, keep up the great work. I'll try not to stick my foot in my mouth again.

SHS · #9 06-14-2003, 05:04 PM

justme I was taking to jeff about this one becuase I think it may be better alternative to the Actisys ACT IR-200L which I'm kind of hoping will better for DiskNetwork and Multiple Tuner support being DishNetwork support Multiple Remote Addressing.

justme · #10 06-15-2003, 12:09 AM

It looks like a great product SHS. It seems to be gaining a large following in the HTPC community. The fact that intergrated support for NetRemote is planned , and now possibly Sage as well, confirms this. I've been looking for a good USB IR blaster/receiver for over 8 monthes. I found this one thanx to a post by another Sage user. I love the idea of the stereo IR dongle jack on the back. I can't wait til mine arrives.

I just sent an email to the manufacturer(Jon), encouraging him to cooperate with Frey in every way possible. He says he has already sent Frey all the info on programming, and is willing to try and help more if asked. Hopefully Frey and Jon will be able to work out a great solution.

Narflex · #11 06-16-2003, 11:05 AM

My USB-UIRT is on the way.

Jon and I are working together on developing Sage support for it.

justme · #12 06-16-2003, 09:04 PM

Mine just arrived today. I'm going to play with it tonight. I have to say it's a lot smaller than I had imagined. But the cable is plenty long and I like the black. My whole system(Case,LCD,KB,mouse,printer,cable modem) is black.

To salsbst:Could you please post the changes you made to the registry?
I'm refering to the ones you mentioned in the post quoted below. I'm still very new to setting up my own Girder control system, so any help would be great.

Quote:

Post back if you have questions as you set this up. I did have to make a little change to the registry settings for the EXETuner plugin so that it would send the correct events to Girder (it is set to send DSSTUNE events but the exported Girder group wanted "SageTVsomethingsomething". I'm not at home now so I can't check, but it was something like that.

dir · #13 08-13-2003, 08:05 PM

Just noticed that this thread hasn't been updated in a while (2 months). Can someone update us on the status of incorporating the USB UIRT functionality into SageTV?

Thanks,
Dir.

dkardatzke · #14 08-14-2003, 07:42 AM

The receive portion has been integrated for v1.4, but the transmit portion has not. We will probably try to get the Transmit portion in for the next version after 1.4.

justme · #15 08-14-2003, 09:28 AM

I love it. My USBUIRT allows me to use our Tivo remote(switch2) or my universal Sony remote to control SageTV. The native IR recieve works perfectly. I can't wait for the Sage to intergrate native IR transmit support.

One caveat is that you can't use SageTV's native USBUIRT support if you want to use Girder to control your USBUIRT. This is no problem for me since I'm almost clueless in Girder. I want SageTV to control everything. So for now I'm happy with just native IR recieve. When Sage intergrates IR transmit then I'll probably put in a second PVR250 and properly* intergrate my Digital cable box into my Sage setup. I'd also probably buy that client license I've wanted for so long. Hint. Hint.

*Right now I have SageTV setup to record all my analog channels using the PVR250's tuner(coax input) and occasionally use the PVR's composite input to record a digital show. I just manually tune the Digital cable box when I record a show only on a digital channel. This setup is not that bad for me since my digital box is really only used for two worthwhile channels, that aren't duplicated in my analog lineup. So 50% of the time I don't need to do anything besides let SageTV do it's thing.

Mambo · #16 08-31-2003, 02:58 AM

Hi there,
just wondering, can I use USBUIRT with the new version instead of the actisys to control Sat-Receiver?

I wish to connect 3 USBUIRTS to my barebone mini-atx system at home, in order to be able to control 3 Nokia Digiboxes.

I woud prefer them as they are connected to my pc via USB. I do not have room for more than one rs232 port in my system and with USB I could connect more USBUIRTs and be able to control all my digiboxes.

Or has the USB-Actisys been working with sage, and I didnt notice?

justme · #17 08-31-2003, 03:19 AM

How would Sage uniquely identify the individual USB-UIRTs in that case?
As I understand it the way Sage deals with multiple cable boxes of the same type is to access each Actisys by it's unique serial port. Does the USB-UIRT driver allow different/multiple installations to be assigned a unique usb port #?

EDIT: Whoops I just realized that this is actually mostly a Girder issue at this point. Since native IR transmit has yet to be added to SageTV.

Mambo · #18 08-31-2003, 04:51 AM

With my current setup I have 3 Actisys connected via RS232 to my pc.
Due to Actisys-driver-problems sagetv only is able to control on Actisys IR-Adapter.

To get things running, I use 2 instances of Sagerecorder in encoding server mode on that same machine. Each instance controls one PVR card and one of the remaining actisys IR.

This workaround allows me to control three different boxes of the same type with three different IR-Adapter.

MixTracks · #19 09-02-2003, 02:08 PM

First post!

I am going to buy the winTV-250 and Sage software package this week.

I was also going to buy the USB-UIRT to controll all the HTPC madness, but after reading this thread, I don't know if it can be done.

Can the USB-UIRT control my Dish Network receiver to change the channel to record programs?

Even if I have to set up Girder in some way, can this be done?

Thanks,
Bryan

JJarmoc · #20 09-02-2003, 04:33 PM

USB-UIRT can be used to control any device that has an IR remote to change channels. It may take a little while to get girder configured properly, but it's very doable. I've got Girder and USBUIRT controlling my DCT2000 cable box. In my case, it took about two hours. It should be noted that this also includes time spent configured my Tivo remote with Girder to control SageTV.

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