Set Top Box Control Question

[LowTech]

Hello all,

First, I’ve been trolling GBPVR forums and the website (obviously down for now) for some time now out of curiosity. GBPVR has always come across as an extremely competent PVR but I have always taken different approaches to my HTPCing software for no real apparent reason.

I have a situation now, which will allow me to take GBPVR “out for a spin”. I am currently using Vista VMC in my living room entertainment system but because of the lack of H.264 support I cannot record any HD (albeit somewhat compressed) programs from my DirecTV STB. As a result I’m am going to bid adieu to VMC in short order and either return to SageTV or maybe GBPVR so that I can record my programs in glorious (compressed) HD.

Rather than totally submerse myself in a VMC replacement in the living room (and risk a plummeting WAF) a situation has arisen which is the perfect vehicle to allow me take a good look at GB without leaving a permanent mark on my person. In the past whenever the missus and I had competing programs showing at the same time, one of us would retreat to the guest bedroom where another DTV receiver/TV is available to resolve the conflict but now I have another locale that would provide a more comfortable setting for me as opposed to the guest room.

If you’re still with me, here’s the crux of the post…

I plan to run coax cable from one of the spare LNBs on my satellite dish to my office and have DTV activate on of my spare SD STBs so that I can watch TV on my PC’s 22” monitor. My choice of STBs is an old (and still functioning flawlessly) Hughes model HIRD E1 or a DirecTV D11-300 I’ve never used.

My quandary is over the control of the STB in my office. I don’t particularly care to rig up some sort of blaster when the Hughes has a low speed data port (RJ11) and the D11 has a USB port. After performing a search on these forums for more information on the topic it appears at this early juncture that the best way to go would be with the old Hughes STB because of the simpler RJ11 to DB9 connection. My search may not have been as thorough as I would have liked so I might have missed some salient points. Any advice from the forums would be greatly appreciated, as I will be converting the office PC to a quasi-HTPC in short order.

Which way should I proceed? Use the box with the RJ11 data port or the USB port?

Oh, BTW, I am planning on using something like a cheap Hauppauge HVR-1250 to serve as my tuner card on a rig with the following specs:

AMD A64 X2 S939 4200+ CPU
2GB (4 X 512MB) RAM
nVidia 9600GT video card
2 X 250GB HDD

Thanks in advance.

[sub]

Do you realise you wont be able to record highdef video from a DirecTV STB using a HVR-1250? The only device you could use to record HD from a STB is the Hauppauge HD-PVR (which supports 720p/1080i over component video from the STB). All other capture devices would only receive standard def via the composite/svideo/rf inputs.

[LowTech]

Oh yeah, I’m clear on that. The HD STB stays in the living room. I guess I should have gotten right to the point rather than ramble on like I did (cocktail hour posting).

Both STBs are SD only hence the cheap capture card. I just want TV on my office PC and thought that this would be a great time to try GBPVR. I was curious as to which one of my STBs I should go with based on the data port that I would use to control the box. RJ11 or USB?

Thanks.

[martint123]

I'd guess it would depend on the availability of a command line tool to change channels.
gbpvr doesn't control the devices directly but calls an external exe file to do teh channel changing.

[LowTech]

I found an .exe file that someone had posted while I was searching and gathered that that file was specifically for an STB using a low speed data port, aka RJ11. What I wasn’t clear on is if that file also works with a USB interfaced STB (from what I briefly scanned I doubt it).

Using the older STB, with the RJ11 port, is fine but it was extremely slow back in the day when used with SageTV. I was hoping that the faster speed of USB might, in turn, speed up the channel changing experience. I realize that there’ll always be a lag due to the recording buffer but I’m hopeful nonetheless.

[zehd]

I found an .exe file that someone had posted while I was searching and gathered that that file was specifically for an STB using a low speed data port, aka RJ11. What I wasn’t clear on is if that file also works with a USB interfaced STB (from what I briefly scanned I doubt it).

Using the older STB, with the RJ11 port, is fine but it was extremely slow back in the day when used with SageTV. I was hoping that the faster speed of USB might, in turn, speed up the channel changing experience. I realize that there’ll always be a lag due to the recording buffer but I’m hopeful nonetheless.

Hi there... RJ11 is a phone port. Rarely used for anything else. Sometimes STBs need a phone line to confirm PPV purcahses...

The command line tool was probably for a com port maybe called din9. using either com3 or com4, possibly using com1 and 2.

A USB generally uses different data transfer, memory points than the old COM3 and 4, and it uses mostly emulation which probably doesn't work on the simple tool you have (I tried quite a few of those little tools and gave up when I finally got an answer from the cable company saying they purposely block DATA connections as it's a security vulnerability)

The final answer is to use an IR blaster and some IR command software (I use IR Server Suite) and connect the IR bead close to the IR sensor of the STB...

I was able to by a Microsoft MCE remote/Beanbag/IR blaster combo from a good computer store for much less than a hundered CAD when $ was terrible...

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PI...5(ME).aspx

Interesting that they are completely out of stock now. Wonder if that's a trend... Oh well Online, there's lots...

[LowTech]

Doh! My bad. It's an RJ9 connector, smaller than the typical phone jack. Most commonly used as the male jack on the ends of the wired cord between the telephone base unit and handset.

Nonetheless, it appears that maybe my question has been answered and I'll have to resort to a blaster but I was trying to keep this on the cheap and just use what I already had available.