Please help with dish6000 and Actisys IRter

[Rob]

I received my WinTV PVR 350 last Friday and am playing with the trial version of SageTV with it. I'm very impressed with the software features and the picture quality I'm getting on my 64" RPTV. I can already tell I'm going to be hooked on SageTV.

Anyway, I think everything is working well now except for the IR blaster controlling the dish 6000. I've tried the press, tap, tap-tap, tap-press, press-tap routine. Some of these scenarios result in not getting any blinking lights from the IR blaster (tap and press). The others result in blinking lights from the IR blaster, however, my dish6000 only responds if it gets the same number twice in a row.

Examples:

When testing during the setup wizard process. If I press the test button for a number multiple times, I get a resonse on press 2, 4, 6..... If I alternate between testing one number and another I never get a resonse. It has to see the same number twice in a row.

When trying to use sage and select from the guide. I get the same thing. So, if I select channel 105, the light blinks three times, but the dish6000 sees nothing. If I select channel 114, the lights blink three times and the dish6000 resonds with only a 1.

I'd appreciate any help or ideas.

Thanks,
Rob

[Rob]

My apologies for opening two threads.

[Narflex]

In your Sage.properties file, try setting:
irtune_repeat_factor=4

(it defaults to 2, try higher values, see if it helps) Let me know.

[Rob]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try it as soon as I get home and let you know the results.

Thanks for the help,
Rob

[Rob]

Well I had high hopes that the property change would work. I tested each number 0-9 with the property set to 2, 4, 6, 10 and 20.

I have found that some numbers (1, 3 and 6) are actually working correctly. I must have been testing with other numbers yestarday.

All the other numbers must be done twice and the dish6000 only responds to the second occurance. As the value for the property increased, I did discover that I had to wait a little longer to hit it the second time, or it would not take the second one. Other than that, each number works the same regardless of the property's value.

By the way, I'm set up with the "dish" reciever and com-1.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Rob

[Narflex]

Have you tried the preprogrammed dish IR codes that come with SageTV?

[Rob]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "preprogrammed dish ir codes".

Are you talking about the list of recievers that is presented in the setup wizard during the setup of the actisys device?

From this list I've tried the "dish" option and the option that is something like "dishsatallitereciever1". I've also tried to set up a new one called dish6000 and then program each number.

In each case I've tried the option and during testing I've had to reprogram the keys. My current setup is "dish" and each key has been programmed.

It also appears that looking at the *.ir files that correspond to the list of recievers, they have been modified since I installed Sagetv (so, I may have messed them up).

If you'd let me know how to try the "preprogrammed dish ir codes" I'd try it.

Since I'm feeling a little dense about this now, I'd like to say that I've read the user's manual and used the forum to resolve:

live tv is in slow motion ==> had to change to another audio decoder (sonic is the only one that does not cause slow motion video on my setup)

Audio is a little behind the video ==> I had to uncheck the double refresh rate box under Dscaler (later I may try cutting back the 3.25G capture rate to 2G and see how it works with this checkbox on).

Mpeg error message whet go to live TV ==> My M-Audio DIO has to be on the correct configuration.

I've also searched alot for Actisys and dish, and a ton of results come back. I've read alot of them, but I have not figured this IR thing out yet.

Thanks again for your help I appreacate it.
Rob

[Narflex]

You did try what I was referring to. Post the .ir file you made for your "dish" setup here and maybe something will pop out at me.

[Rob]

Maybe I'm starting to understand some of my confusion. In the setup wizard there is no "dishnetwork" option. I've found the *.ir files and there is one named dishnetwork.ir, but it is empty. It has a last updatedate of 8:34 pm on Sept 12. This is when I was initially installing SageTV. Somehow during the setup, I must have hosed it.

Anyway, I've atached the dish.ir that I've been trying to use. One obvious thing is that the numbers that are working (1, 3 and 6) have much longer codes than the remaining numbers.

What do you think is the best way for me to proceed? Is there a way for me to get the original version of the dishnetwork.ir file? Could you post a copy? Or maybe its better for me to re-install Sage (would I lose my other settings?).

Thanks for the help.
Rob

[Rob]

Ok, I've got it working now (at least the last ten channel changes have worked fine.

After my last post I looked on my son's machine where the client version is installed. There is no dishnetwork.ir and there is no dish.ir, but there is a dishsatellitereceiver1.ir. I copied it to the server machine, ran setup, selected it and everything seems to work fine. :D :D :D

Thanks for your help and for your patience.

Now I plan to play with SageTV the rest of this week and then try SageTV with my accessdtv card (based on a recent thread of yours).

Thanks again. I'm loving SageTV so far.
Rob

[Rob]

Well I'm going crazy. This has been working fine for 6 weeks, but now its messed up again. :( :(

It was working fine until I ran the setup wizard to change from the dish lineup to the Dallas dish lineup. Now I get all the local channels I'd been missing, but since then the actysis has not worked. I'm getting the same symptoms I had with this six weeks ago.

Just for grins I tried copying the dishsatallitereceiver1 from the client to the server, but it does not fix it this time (maybe it was just coincidence it fixed it last time).

Anyway, I'm very frusterated. :bang:

Please help.

[Rob]

I'm still hoping for ideas.

I cannot figure out how I messed it up or how to fix it.

[dkardatzke]

Did the .ir file change at all? Can you compare the old file that worked to the new one?

[Rob]

Thanks for the reply Dan.

Yes, I think I have a backup of this machine from a month ago. It was working fine then. So I'll compare the .ir files tonight and post the results.

I did check the sage properties file and confirmed "Dishsatallitereceiver1" is being used.

While I've got your eyes, I wanted to tell you that you and Jeff have a killer product. I'm very much looking forward to Sage2 and completed support for the Accessdtv card (I know this is down the road a ways, but its close now). Keep up the great work.

Thanks,
Rob

[dkardatzke]

Thanks!

[Rob]

Well I restored the backup of the dishsatallitereceiver1.ir file to a separate drive and compared to the file in the sage remote codes folder. They are exactly the same.

Then just for grins, I closed sage, copied the backup file to the remote codes folder, restarted sage and tried again. It made no difference.

Other notes:

The actisys blinks three times for each attempted channel change.

The first digit of the channel is almost always missed.

The second digit of the channel change usually works ok.

The third digit works about half the time.

Every now and then the planets line up and the channel changes correctly.

Every now and then it misses all the digits in the channel.

The physical actisys is in the same place its been for the last 6 weeks when it
was working fine.

What do you suggest I try next?

Thanks for the help,
Rob

[Narflex]

Are there any new sources of light that could be causing interference? Were there any surfaces that could have been creating reflections that were added/removed?

[Rob]

Nothing has changed with the physical setup. The lighting is the same and the placement of everything is the same.

The Actysis unit is sitting right in front of the dish receiver and perpendicular to it. I think its like a picture I saw (on the forum) of Dan's setup. I've also tried it sitting 2 to 3 feet straight out from of the dish receiver.

I'll mess around with placement some more when I get home tonight.

Is is possible I've got a bad IR blaster? Maybe I should get another one and try it (I'm planning on a second tuner in a few months anyway).

Man I hate taking your and Dan's attention away from Sage2, but thanks for the help.

[pcuoco]

I had all kinds of problems getting the actysis to work with my STB. (Motorola DCT2000) Finally I saw a post where someone downloaded HERemote and it fixed their problem. So I tried it, and it did the trick. Actysis works great now!

You might want to check it out.

http://www.tvscheduler.net/download.html

[Rob]

I definitely want to check it out. Thanks pcuoco.

[Rob]

I'm thinking that my problem is the same as Brad's in this thread:

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2151

Instead of re-posting here the reply I just made in that thread, I'll just ask you all to link to this other thread and we'll continue there.

I would like to point out to Jeff and Dan that there are multiple people having problems with the dish6000 receiver. We were working fine and then our problems started at about the same time.