Two Extenders in Same Equipment Rack

[itanic]

I just purchased my second HD200. They are not actually located in the same equipment rack but do get hit with the same IR signal via my IR network. What is the best way to isolate the IR commands so that I only control one (or the other) and not both extenders?

[MitchSchaft]

Electrical tape and some fancy engineering.

[itanic]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

Electrical tape and some fancy engineering.

I'll take that to be an answer of "no".

[sic0048]

I think what he meant was to tape an emitter on each HD-200 and cover them up with black electrial tape. This will prevent stray IR signals from getting to the IR receiver on the HD-200. If your IR system doesn't use the little emitters, you can still build a "tent" to cover the larger IR blaster and create a tunnel in which the blaster sends out the IR signals. Point the tunnel at each specific HD-200 and make sure the tunnel is small enough to prevent stray IR signals from hitting the other HD-200.

Obviously you need a zoned IR system to do this. Otherwise both blasters/emitters will be pushing out the same IR signal to both HD-200 which is counter productive. But you sounds like you already have a zoned system and are just dealing with stray IR signals. MitchSchaft's solution would fix that.

Don't make the solution harder than it needs to be!

[jgscott987]

You can also 'reprogram' the HD200 to respond to different IR commands. It would take some work, but you could go into one of the HD200s and unlink all of the existing IR commands and re-learn a whole different set of IR commands (from a different remote).

[itanic]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Don't make the solution harder than it needs to be!

Nothing is ever easy (for me anyway). I have the extenders connected to a matrix switch so that you can watch either box from a single room so IR zones won't work well. What I'm looking for is something similar to my TiVos in which you can select different remote codes for different units.

[sic0048]

Just out of curiosity, how are you controlling the matrix switches? If you are using some sort of automation system, check to see if it has the ability to control the extenders via IP. Fonceur has created an API for interacting with the extenders via IP. CQC and some other automation systems use this to control the devices without having to use IR at all.

That is actually how I control my extenders which are also located in a central equipment rack.

[itanic]

I have both MainLobby and Homeseer for home automation. I do use Fonceur's MainLobby Plugin and that works fine if I want to use my PC interface, but does not do much for the wife and kids that want to use the IR remote which is much easier for them to understand.

[heatvent]

Ideas:

You could have HS receive the IR codes and then forward the commands on to the extenders. I would imagine this could be done with USB-UIRT (maybe 2 separate ones?), some kind of zoned IR controller, or as suggested you could try to integrate using Fonceur's SageTV TCP plugin.

I believe Tallus has a SageTV plugin for mainlobby too. So HS->ML->Sage should be possible.

Also, as suggested, Sage can "learn codes" but again lots of work.

All of it sounds complex and like a lot of work.

Out of curiosity, why 2 extenders for a single room? Why not just 1? Do you have multiple servers? Multiple TV's?

[itanic]

Originally Posted by heatvent

Out of curiosity, why 2 extenders for a single room? Why not just 1? Do you have multiple servers? Multiple TV's?

It's not so much that I have two extenders for a single room as I have two extenders connected to a 8x3 matrix switch. The three outputs run to TV's in the theater, bonus room and master bedroom and allows the user to select any of the eight inputs to view in the room. I have two extenders so that one family member can watch sagetv in theater on extender 1 while another watches something else on extender 2 in the bonus room. This setup also allows you to watch either sagetv extender in any of the rooms.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by heatvent

Ideas:

You could have HS receive the IR codes and then forward the commands on to the extenders.

This is exactly how I do it. I have my IR distribution system output the signal to a USB-UIRT. CQC knows these commands and then acts on them. When I am watching something on the extender, then it sends out any commands via IP (play, stop, menu, delete, etc, etc, etc).

I use some Harmony remote controls and have set them to use a different device code in each room. So if the system receives a "Play" command from a Sony device code - it must be from the Den because that is the room that has the Harmony set up for the "Sony" device. If it is a Emerson device, it must be the masterbed room, etc.

[Fuzzy]

If you've got 2 HD200's feeding 3 rooms through the switch.. perhaps you might look into just buying a 3rd HD200? What other items are feeding the matrix, and are they something that could also be moved into sage? (DVD, CCTV, BluRay, etc)

[src666]

Seems like he missed the post that explained that he can reprogram one of the extenders to use a different set of IR codes. No fancy solutions necessary.

Don't make it more complex than it has to be just because you have the ability to do so.