Still having problem changing channels (MCE IR blaster)

[judy2304]

I have done a lot of searches on the forums on how to set up an MCE remote and blaster to change channels with both Girder and HIP. All of them explain pretty well how to use these programs with the MCE drivers. I need only the numbers to be programmed to change channels on my satellite box from DirectTV. It's a D10. So far I have had no success. Using HIP I get double number entries using the MCE plugin. I found out it's because the MCE and standard driver are both sending the entries on the remote. I don't get any channel changes. Moving the ExternalTuner.dll to the Common file in Sage doesn't give me another selection in SageTV for tuner. Without any external programs, my MCE remote does everything I want it to do except change channels on my satellite box. Using HIP, the channels seem to train OK, but they don't do anything when I test them. I've tried new batteries in the remote with no luck. I have followed some of the detailed instructions to the letter, and still no luck. Even though I don't get an input selection for ExternalTuner, Sage shows double entries for channel numbers that I enter. So it seems it is getting input from both drivers when I use HIP with the MCE plugin. I have spent hours on this and I'm about ready to tear out my hair. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Jynxed]

Hi Judy,

I ran into both the problems that you did. However, I was able to get everything to work right in the end. I'm not using the blasters anymore but I hope I can help.

Moving the ExternalTuner.dll to the Common file in Sage doesn't give me another selection in SageTV for tuner.

To solve this problem I had to do a fresh install of SageTV and move the file to the common folder before I setup the video sources. I'm pretty sure it is a key step to have the IR blasters output the signal so you need to get this working first.

Using HIP I get double number entries using the MCE plugin. I found out it's because the MCE and standard driver are both sending the entries on the remote.

Thats not really the case. Sage/Windows is dectecting when you push and button and HiP is telling windows to push the same button again. To fix it open up HiP goto File -> Preferances then click on the Alternate Inputs Tab and delete all the entries 1, 2, 3, up, down... Bascially any input that you didn't custom define.

Let me know if that doesn't work.

[judy2304]

Thanks so much for the reply. I was wondering if anyone would try to help. I did de-install Sage and re-install it, and finally got the choice for EXTtuner.
I also found out how to get the MCE drivers installed, but I really don't want to have to re-program everything. Another thing that I found out that may help someone else is all MCE IR receivers are not created equal. I had one that I had gotten from Hauppauge with my 500MCE video tuner. With it I finally did OK until I tried to get to send the signal to change channels. It trained OK, but didn't change channels when I tested the IR codes in HIP. I also had a receiver that I had gotten from Dell with a Media Center system. When I connected this reciever, it used all of the IR codes that I had trained with the Hauppauge receiver, and also used the Hauppauge 45 button remote. So now I finally got through all of the training for 0-9 and the channels are changing in Sage TV, but I hit a new problem in trying to send the IR codes for channel up and channel down in HIP. When I try to get them into HIPWSend using CH+ and CH-, the second send tells me that the entries are not the same. Do I need to use a different ASCII code in HIPWSend to get the channel up and channel down IR codes.

By the way, thanks on the double entry suggestion. It worked great!!