serial control of dtv

[ashenshugar]

Hi all finally got sage tv to work and i have to say i really like it so far.

I have one question that is driving me crazy though and would like to get clarified. I tried for hours to get sagetv to change channels on my directtv without any success. Per the instructions and reading the thread on this forum i did the following.

Im using the following Hardware/Software combo:
Sagetv beta 1.4.7
WinTV PVR2 USB 2.0

- D/L the external tuner zip
- C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\Common
- Ran DTVCon.reg (im using dvtcon to change channels)
- D/L the dtvcon files from http://pcmx.net/dtvcon/
- Started DirecTV Control.exe
- Tested dvtcon on my rca dtv unit and was able to change channels fine. Left DirecTV Control.exe running per reading the board messages
- copied the dtvcmd.exe and dtvcl.exe to C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV
- Started sagetv and configured my channels for directtv usa via serial control
- Changed channel and saw that sagetv reported a channel change in the banner but the channel was still the same.
- Check the registery to make sure the reg setting was there for the external tuner
- Still no luck with changing channel in sagetv
- Opened a command prompt and typed in dtvcmd #290 and channel changed in sagetv live tv screen
- Read some more and found the SageDLLPatchForDirecTVSerial.zip posted so i D/L it and extracted the sage.dll to C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV overwriting the original.
- Changed channels again in sagetv and still no luck
- Opened a command prompt and typed in dtvcmd #500 and channel changed in sagetv live tv screen
- At this point I was ready to give up, but decided to read the log file just for fun and found the problem. Everytime i tried to change channel I got the following message
Wed 8/6 4:28:16.845 Could not open COM1
Wed 8/6 4:28:16.845 ERROR Cannot open serial port for DTV control: COM1
- So just as a test i closed DirecTV Control.exe and tried to change channels again and this time it worked.

So my question really is did you change the way sagetv changes channel such that it can now do so without DirecTV Control.exe running because everywhere else on this forum it states that you have to have DirecTV Control.exe in the background for sagetv to change channel via serial port with dvtcon. Im not complaining if you did do this, but hope that my post would help anyone else get serial control to run without spending hours trying to figure out if he was just plain dumb and could not follow simple instructions or there was something missing.

Cheers

[JasonJoel]

Yes. It was mentioned in the beta release notes. You should not need DTVControl.exe anymore.

Jason

Originally posted by ashenshugar

*SNIP*
So my question really is did you change the way sagetv changes channel such that it can now do so without DirecTV Control.exe running
*END SNIP*