Is a plugin still required for DCT2000 serial connection?

[zubblwump]

I've been away from the boards and the general HTPC scene for a little while now (6-8 months), happily running SageTV 2.1 for a couple years. Everything has worked ok, using the serial port lpugin for my DCT2000 cable box, except that after every reboot, it would change the channel one time, then not again until I killed the dct.exe process. Then it would work flawlessly until the next reboot. Now for some reason, that doesn't work; in fact, it won't change channels on the box at all. After it stopped working, I've done some system cleanup, removing old, unused PVR apps such as GBPVR, etc, but it stopped working before I did anything to the system.

First question, then: Is the plugin still required for new versions of SageTV? Or is serial support (cross my fingers) now intergrated into SageTV? If so, from which version on?

Second question: Anyone have any tips to get the plugin working again without upgrading? Maybe even without the dct.exe bug, even?

Last question: Are intermediate versions till available? Can I download SageTV 4 anywhere still?

Thanks guys, I'm confident someone will be able to chime in with some advice.

[geogecko]

I believe serial control is built-in to Sage now, but I have no idea when.

Why would you just not upgrade to the latest version 5? It's free, and it's got WAY more features than 2.1 had.

[hemicuda]

Try this thread:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1606

Had to use that setup to get the laptop to change channels on the STB Charter ( ) uses.

[zubblwump]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

Try this thread:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1606

Had to use that setup to get the laptop to change channels on the STB Charter ( ) uses.

Yeah, that's the plugin I'm talking about. Never worked reliably without my intervention, and now not at all, so i was hoping that I didn't have to deal with it anymore.

[mayamaniac]

yes, there's a newer one somewhere near the end of that thread, its called MultiDCTTuner 1.2, the direct link is here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/multidcttuner

The zip file includes a text file with instruction on how to install it. Follow it step by step and it should work. I use it to control my DCT2224 and it works flawlessly.

[zubblwump]

I was aware of the newer plugin added to that thread, from back when I was following it regularly. I guess I was always confused by the thread because I could never tell which of the two was being discussed in any given post. Not sure why it was never split into two threads to help us make some sense of it. Nevertheless, I had never tried the Multi version because I was under the impression that they were basically the same with the newer one being only for those with multiple STBs.

Anyway, the included instructions are not that easy to follow, but I tried the MultiDCTTuner plugin after upgrading my Sage installation to v4.0. I'm sure I'm being overly cautious (and probably causing myself more headaches in the process), but I felt more comfortable upgrading from 2.1 to 4.0 than to the relatively new 5.x version. After installing the MultiDCTTuner plugin, everything appears to be working again, as far as I can tell at least. This is because my cable provider updated their lineup last week and Sage is pulling the old lineup, so I'm getting a lot of problems when Sage tells the box to go to a channel that either is now something else or is no longer in use.

I did notice however, that the older plugin actually seemed to change channels much faster (when it worked). Also, unless there's an update to it somewhere in that thread that i missed, it doesn't work with the new directory structure you get when doing a complete fresh install. The dct.exe program is apparently hard coded to the old 'Frey Technologies' directory.

So after about 16 hours of uninstalling, researching, installing, configuring, and tweaking, I think I'm back in some semblance of a working condition. At least once my SageTV channel lineup again matches the cable providers. This kind of time commitment is why I've avoided upgrading in the past.

Thanks for the help guys.

[mayamaniac]

yes that thread's first post should be edited by a moderator to include the link to the latest plugin, it would help people find it quicker rather than reading through 8 pages of posts.

As for the plugin installation, yes there is some confusion there are also, but its actually quite easy. The Multi-DCTTuner plugin does NOT require the dct.exe file at all, this file should not be running. For me, I had to actually uninstall the original dct.exe plugin, delete the entry it makes in the sage.properties, then install the Multi-DCTTuner plugin.

[CPA]

Will this work with a Moto DCT6200?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by CPA

Will this work with a Moto DCT6200?

I use Firewire to change channels on my 6412 works great. I would try that if "this" doen't work.