Viginmedia Samsung STB channel changing

[cameluk]

My SMT-2100C has had the Virgin makeover, and I don't have any problems changing channel with the redeye serial IR remote

channel changer settings I have are -port=com1 "={channel}"

[New_bloke]

Sounds like you have a serial ir blaster, so you can try "digits.exe" and winlirc to send the signals. It's at least something free to try before you spend any money. Here's a pretty good posting on how to set it up http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...digits.exe.

Let me know if you have any questions about how to set it up.

Many thanks for the input. I'm not sure if this solution will work with my current IR sender, which is one of these. If I don't make any further progress with it, I'll try your solution - what sort of hardware does one need to use digits.exe?

Cheers,

john

[flyswatta]

Digits.exe works in conjunction with WinLirc. You can can see if your STB model already has a config file here http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/samsung/ (oh, if your model isn't listed, try a similar model, apparently a lot of model "families" share the same IR codes - my dish 322 uses the same IR codes as a dish 301)

You install WinLirc (download and unzip it) oh, and the current version is missing "transmit.exe" which you'll need from the previous version (0.6.4), actually you could probably just use the previous version if you wanted to. Download the config file from the URL above, and run WinLirc.exe.

Browse to the config file, select the com port number (probably 1, but maybe 2), set the Transmitter settings to DTR.

Select Okay, and you should be able to select your remote in the drop down box. You can send a code from here to test. Winlirc will only send one "command" at a time, but you can verify that it works here. Send a couple of commands to make sure it works at this point. If not, try changing your com port.

Basically this is where digits.exe comes in. Since GBPVR will send the channel as 1-4 digits, (ex. 8402) then a way was needed to actually send the digits to winlirc one at a time. Download digits.exe and put in the winlirc folder. You can test it from the command line here.
The syntax is: digits.exe {channel} transmit.exe {remote name} repeats
example: digits.exe 8402 transmit.exe dish 1
(where dish is the name of my STB - I shortened it 'cause I'm too lazy to type the full name

Getting it to work with GBPVR you can get from the posting I listed earlier. It sounds like a lot, but if your STB config is listed, it should take about 10 minutes to be up and running.

[flyswatta]

Many thanks for the input. I'm not sure if this solution will work with my current IR sender, which is one of these. If I don't make any further progress with it, I'll try your solution - what sort of hardware does one need to use digits.exe?

Cheers,

john

I guess I didn't answer your original question :p It looks like your IR sender is similar to mine , at the very least it's RS232 compatible, so it should work with winlirc.

[cameluk]

After trial and error, I found that if I changed the line to {channel}1 - adding the extra digit 1, the STB reads the first three characters 100% of the time, and ignores the extra character on the end. The log file shows that its sending 4 characters but the STB only acts on the first 3
Live TV is now far easier to use

[New_bloke]

After trial and error, I found that if I changed the line to {channel}1 - adding the extra digit 1, the STB reads the first three characters 100% of the time, and ignores the extra character on the end. The log file shows that its sending 4 characters but the STB only acts on the first 3
Live TV is now far easier to use

Thanks for that - I'll give it a go! Do you have problems with selecting the same channel twice in a row? That seems to cause problems for me...

Cheers,

john