How do I know my IR blaster is working in Sage ?

[brewston]

Hiya

I'm the final stages of setting up Sage 6.0.16 to control my Sky satellite set top box. After playing for ages with Haupauge's different versions of IR blaster I can now :

change channels through the blaster wizard
view the channels through wintv2000 (I added an antenae tuner on channel 68, then added the satellite channels (101, 102 etc as IR blaster inputs)

However, when I try to set up this tuner in Sage ( add new tunes, choose tv tuner chan 68, choose Haupauge IR etc) I can't see any video at all, just static. I'm currently battling with the xmltv stuff but as a I test, I told sage not to use an EPG and it then showed me 999 channels. When I flicked between them, I wasn't seeing the IR blaster flicker like it does with wintv2000. Even without EPG I would expect to see something right ? I did with the antenae

My concern is that since I installed the correct IR blaster from Haupauge *after* configuring Sage (its been working on terrestrial for a long time) I might have missed something, I can see a file in c:\program files\sagetv\common called hcwirblaster.dll - its 56k and created 27th Oct 2004 - is this correct ? Also, I don't have anything in c:\program files\sagetv\common\remotecodes\haupauge ir blaster - should I ?

Since this is 6 I have debug logging turned on and see no reference to *blast* on that file at all

Thanks

Tim

[mike4352]

From my understanding, if you install sage BEFORE configuring the remote, it won't work. You have to uninstall sagetv, delete the sage tv folders, and reinstall sage tv.

Also, make sure to click the little check box in the remote software that says "allow external app's to control" or somthing like that.

[brewston]

Thanks

Do you mean the remote or the blaster ? I've already restored my previous irremote.ini from before I upgraded the Haupauge apps and drivers. The remote works fine, its the blaster that doesn't appear to be doing anything

I've done quite a lot of configuration since installing Sage (SageMC, web radio, etc) and im loathed to blow the whole lot away...

Tim

[Opus4]

irremote.ini won't have anything to do with the blaster, unless Hauppauge's blaster config stores info in that ini for some reason.

I don't have a 150 + blaster, but you should be able to use the Hauppauge blaster config utility to set things up, then start SageTV & tell it to use the Hauppauge IR blaster as the tuning plugin. The Hauppauge IR software needs to be running, but any other Hauppauge software that tries to use the blaster and/or tuner should not be running.

Try configuring the source w/o using service mode (if you are using service mode now). If you continue having problems with it, check with SageTV to see if some step might be missing.

- Andy

[brewston]

Looks like the blaster writes to c:\windows\hcwblast.ini - i can see its written my STB's codeset in there. i've made sure the only haupage app running is ir.exe (I need that to control it all)

I will try it without the service running, otherwise will contact support.

Thanks

Tim

[brewston]

Hiya

The IR blaster is now changing the channels. I can see the red light flicker and when I change my TV back to STB its picked up the change. However, Sage doesnt display the video

My question is more generic - wintv 'detected' that my STB RF output was on channel 68 - this should be the same for Sage right ? I'm getting confused between RF channels and the channels the STB uses (101 for bbc1 etc) In the tuning screen it lets me remap to logical and physical channels (whats the difference ?)

I should explain Im trying to get a picture outside of EPG to prove the concept, once i can see a picture in Sage i will commence battle with XMLTV (I'm in the UK )

Tim

[Mahoney]

I'd try using a Composite video connection rather than the aerial to feed the output into the PVR150.

[brewston]

Will I get sound from that ? the pvr-150 doesn't have the red & white composite inputs, only the yellow one. I was going to try s-video

Tim

[Mahoney]

Ah. You won't get sound from Compostie or S-Video then, sorry. No experience of getting a set top box via an RF input, I'm afraid, sorry.

[brewston]

Ach.. s-video doesnt do sound does it ? I can see that haupauge sell an expansion thing for the pvr-150 that does have red & white RCA inputs but I only have 1 PCI slot. Their cards with audio RCA seem to come with MCE remote and I read somewhere that the MCE IR blaster wont work with Sage

Can I configure my tuner in sage such that the video comes from s-video on the pvr-150 and the audio comes via line in ?

Tim

[Opus4]

The Hauppauge PVR-150 shown here has a stereo line in jack for audio. You would use a stereo RCA (2 inputs) to stereo minijack (1 output) adpater when using the svideo or composite video inputs.

- Andy

[brewston]

cheers

Shows how often I look at the back of my pc :-) I will try this out

Tim

[brewston]

Cool, I hooked up the sound and the composite and could see the STB picture in Sage and tuned the channels OK.

The only remaining problem is that the IR sender is unreliable. It frequently gets the channel changes wrong but either missing digits or taking too long and some digits get sent to the next channel change. I think this is a Hauppauge problem as it does it outside of Sage.

Thanks for everyone who replied with tips, its appreciated

Tim