Hauppauge IR Dongle hack

[rheslip]

I spent some time hacking the IR Blaster that comes with the PVR150 today, figured I'd post my findings.

I was trying to make the blaster work with my Starchoice Satellite box. I had to download the latest blaster app (feb 05) to get the correct codes for this box. I verified it was sending the right codes with a scope, but the sat box still would not respond. Turned out that the IR LED in the Hauppauge just doesn't emit in a spectrum that my sat box will recognize. I had an IR LED I knew worked, so it was a matter of wiring it to the Hauppauge dongle.

The plug on the dongle has 4 connections - going in from the tip of the plug:

1 - (tip) +5volts - appears to have some protection on it because I mistakenly grounded it to my scope and it didn't smoke (whew !)
2 - IR receiver data out
3 - IR led driver
4 - ground (the ring embedded in the molded plastic part)

The IR led anode is connected to +5v, the cathode is connected to the driver. The IR LED in the dongle is not like any IR led I've seen before and seems to have a coupling cap in it. I inserted a 220 ohm resistor in series with the new IR led because I wasn't sure if the card has any current limiting in the led driver circuit. It seems to work fine with the 220 ohm in there.

Hopefully this will help somebody who needs to extend their blaster cable or use a different IR led as I did.

Rich

[Pioneer4x4]

The cover fell of my dongle's led, and it appears to be only a led, no cap or anything. Plus it appears to be a visible led, not IR. That might be whay it wasn't working well with your box. I'm not using it at all, I should have bought a MCE card.

[rheslip]

The cover fell of my dongle's led, and it appears to be only a led, no cap or anything. Plus it appears to be a visible led, not IR. That might be whay it wasn't working well with your box. I'm not using it at all, I should have bought a MCE card.

Thats whats weird about it - the cap seems to be INSIDE the led ! It could be a visible led but does emit some IR because I could easily pick up the signal with another IR receiver module. My sat box didn't like it tho.

Rich

[daphatty]

Is that the difference between an MCE and a regular 150, one comes with an IR Blaster and the other doesn't?

[Pioneer4x4]

I remember reading that all LED's xmit infrared to some extent, just some are designed to be more efficient at it. I bet they used a visible, so that the generic population can see that it is actually doing something. It's kinda a bummer that I ahve it and don't even use it. I'll try to find an excuse for it.

[timbau]

Difference between 150 & 150 MCE is as follows:

150
Included in this package

WinTV-PVR-150 PCI bus card with 125 channel cable-ready TV tuner, hardware MPEG-2 encoder, dbx-TV stereo, S-Video/composite plus audio inputs

Infra-red remote control transmitter and receiver

WinTV CD-ROM

150 MCE
125 channel cable ready TV tuner

High quality MPEG-2 video and audio encoder based on the Conexant -416 MPEG encoder

Composite/s-video plus stereo audio inputs to connect to VCR, camcorders or set top boxes

Auxiliary A/V header on-board for connecting to an audio/video input set

dbx-TV stereo decoder

FM radio receiver

Basically the 150 has different inputs but comes with a remote. The 150 MCE has no remote and has more input connections

Hope this helps

Just my 2 cents

Tim

[glensh]

Hi Rich,

I just bought a PVR-150 and I have a Starchoice Satellite Receiver. I'm planning on building my pvr in the next few days.

You say the IR Blaster is not going to work? Can you describe what type of IR LED I'm going to need to buy, and where I can go to buy it?

Thanks.