GBPVR, Winlirc, and hauppauge 350 remote

[brickhouse]

I'm working on setting up a GBPVR system which has been going great and now the only step I have left to complete it is the serial IR blaster sending signals to my STB. I have been searching through the forum and just can't seem to connect the dots on how to do it. I have winlirk and the serial Transmitter that the winlirk website shows how to build. The hauppauge remote works fine with GBPvr so am I on the right track in thinking that all I need to do is setup Winlirk to recieve the remotes commands though GBPVR? I have read some on HIP but not clear if I really need that to make this work. Any pointers or threads I should be looking at?

[stefan]

The theory is that you should, in the config app (channel changer), point your channel changer (.exe changer plugin) to winlirc.exe and you should be all set to go.

That said, I never did get winlirc.exe to work at all. I never did get it to change channels on my STB, not even as a stand alone app. But when you have gotten it to do that, you should be all set to go...

If you get stuck, buy a USB-UIRT You might save yourself a trip to the shrink

[brickhouse]

Thanks stefan! I will give it a couple more trys with the winlirk but if that does cause me to make an appointment to the shrink I will be getting a usb-urit.:o

[stefan]

I think I spent 2 hours a day for a month trying to get that thing to work. Bought a sending ir device thingy, a learning device thingy, hunted down friends with linux boxes so that I could create ir definition files in case the one I managed to create in Windows was flawed for some reason (I got the exact same file out of a linux ir learning kit, by the way, so nothing was wrong). But I just couldn't get the darn thing to send any ir signals to any devices

[pBS]

try changing the serial port speeds in device manager...
i found a good 2400 or 9600 worked best for me and it's defaulted to 57600..
i got my vcr's ir reciever working with winlirc and now i use the original remote that came with it...lol [thru the onboard irda port no less!]
but it is almost exactly the same as the regular serial port in this respect..
[serial worked for me too after playingwith the port speeds]
also try turning off the buffer or turning it down some

oh and check the output is coming out with a digital camera preview...it will show the ir transmitter as red light..

[stefan]

I think I got receiving to work pretty well. It was sending ir signals to my STB I never got to work. And believe me, I did try almost every setting I could think of. I guess I either never found the sweet spot, or my ir transmitter was broke

[pBS]

as an alternative, try IrAssistant...
i got it working rather well with the plugins it has for many remotes..
there's a generic serial port one, but i use the Pinnacle remote driver..
[i have one] but it worked great and stable with my other homemade design as well..
[basically it's the same thing, an ir on end of long serial port and that's it,no extra anything...came with pinnacle pctv]

the ir transmitters are really finnicky, gotta have correct type and tape it right on top of stb eye really to get it to work...
i ripped some out of a vcr rabbit and a RCA vcr that had them on dongles..
[so definitely good, remote control mimicking ir leds]

also try the built-in generic ir port driver in gbpvr...
it is pretty similar in hardware and really uses same signals and i got mine to recognize some stuff with it
[the IR200L one] or was it the Redrat? hmmm

[brickhouse]

Thanks, for the feedback all. Currently I got the winlirk to control the STB using the winlirk.exe. I'm now at the point of trying to figure out what to put in for parameters once I have the winlirk.exe selected in GBPVR channel changer. Through all the searching I did in the forum I came across one thread that talked about using a java script as part of the setup but I'm hoping that was old news and GBPVR has it built in.

pBS, When using the IR200 option I see that I can just select the serial port my IR transmitter is connected to and then select the dishnetwork. I can't seem to get it to change channels. Was the actual signal output for IR200 on the transmit pin of the com port?

[pBS]

yea, it was on mine... i never got the 'existing' dishnet profile to work so i had to make a new one...and looking inside it i don't think it was complete anyways..
[not enough keys i think]
now i have an MCE dongle so i don't use anymore but wanted to make it work for another box i have..
most of the serial port types use just raw data to send to port so usually use identical data files [for simplicity]...but ymmv..

here's a program you have to find called 'transmit.exe'

Code:

transmit.exe was written by Scott Baily <baily@users.sourceforge.net>
usage: transmit remotename codename reps
reps is an optional number of times to repeat the code (default=0).

glad you got it working..

might have to figure out something to cut the numbers up tho as it only expects a single digit at a time and gbpvr send all at once like "123" in stead of "1" "2" "3"
i had to do that for another util i made so i'll see if i can port it over..

[pBS]

here is a little app to cut the channels into single digits and run app with them individually..
[i re-wrote cuz i can still use with my app and needed to add 4 digit ability]

just run it with the channel number first, and the appp name second and any params after that..
put "digits.exe" in run cmd, and:

Code:

{channel} transmit.exe sony_remote repeat#[optional]

for params in gbpvr exe channel changer in config.xml
[replace sony_remote with the remote name in .cf file you use]