DirecTV Channel Changing. Please help.

[debennett2]

Try explaining to your girlfriend why she missed the current episode of Carnivàle because a stupid emitter was bumped, didn't line up with a receiver, was moved by the cat, had dust or dirt over it, your scotch tape came loose, or some flourescent light interferred with your IR repeater. NOT FUN.

Exactly! For those of us lucky enough to have significant others, it is really difficult to even get them to accept the fact taht we have "HTPC's" let alone buy software for this that and the other thing (i.e. powerstrip, girder, Sage, BTV, codecs, DVD software, etc) that most users have no use for. Top on that the stuff not even working right and you have a unhappy household.

[dman65]

Clueless,

I did a web search on the receiver model you indicated and I can't find anything as far as SageTV or Snap Stream, but I did find a couple of references that indicated that this receiver will not work with ReplayTV. So there may be some problem with the implementation of the control language.

If dtvcon does not work, then I would be inclined to think that either the cable itself is defective or the receiver has something wrong with its implementation of the serial control protocol. I saw a lot of listings where this unit is listed with DVR40D as a TiVo package so I would guess it can be controlled, but maybe the protocol was changed.

Maybe you can contact RCA and ask them if anything was changed with this model as far as the serial "low speed" interface.

[snipeman]

If the unit in question doesn't work with Replay, then it definately doesn't use the old command set, but uses the new one. To my knowledge RCA only has 2.

DirectTV Serial Control Utility has an option to use the NEW command set.

Did you turn this on?

If you can't get it to work with the utility, it will never work with Sage. Check BIOS, IRQ Windows and cable. Move the utility to the new command set. Don't even bother fighting Sage unit you get it to work with the utility.

I suspect a lot of people (not all) who can't get their receivers to work in Sage really have non-related communication issues.

Andy

[dman65]

Andy,

I would say that some people are having communication issues. However, most of the problems I have seen in my searches on the board indicate that the cable is controlling the receiver okay with BeyondTV and DtvCon. This was my case. I finally just stopped trying to get the native control to work in Sage and just installed the ExeTunerPlugin and I have been successfully using that in conjunction with DtvCon for two days.

I wrote my own software about 18 months ago to interface with DigiGuide to change the channel using the serial port and start recording using the WinTVCap program and interfacing with the RCA receiver over the serial cable was the easiest part of the project even using my home made cable.

[debennett2]

interfacing with the RCA receiver over the serial cable was the easiest part of the project even using my home made cable.

which is why it is funny that it does not work for a paid for program. Ugghhh

[salsbst]

Well the locusts will be resurfacing in DC this summer and I guess the angry have resurfaced in all of the serial control threads.

As dman65 said, it's easy enough to do with the EXETunerPlugin.

[debennett2]

it's easy enough to do with the EXETunerPlugin.

That may be, but, that is also another program I have to worry about on startup (time, reliability, conflicts, etc).