PVR-150 Hauppauge irblaster problems

[Axeman]

I have 2 PVR-150's and 2 DishNetwork vip-222k boxes. The first 150 uses an USB-UIRT irblaster to change channels and everything works perfectly. The second 150 uses the Hauppauge irblaster that came with the card. It only works correctly about 50% of the time. It misses one of the 3 digits in the channel but not always the same digit. For example to change to channel 123 it will miss the 1 sometimes, the 2 sometimes and the 3 sometimes. I have tried varying the settings in the irblaster options but nothing has helped. Physically, I have the little irblaster taped to the box with electrical tape to try and shield it from stray IR signals. Any ideas?

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by Axeman

I have 2 PVR-150's and 2 DishNetwork vip-222k boxes. The first 150 uses an USB-UIRT irblaster to change channels and everything works perfectly. The second 150 uses the Hauppauge irblaster that came with the card. It only works correctly about 50% of the time. It misses one of the 3 digits in the channel but not always the same digit. For example to change to channel 123 it will miss the 1 sometimes, the 2 sometimes and the 3 sometimes. I have tried varying the settings in the irblaster options but nothing has helped. Physically, I have the little irblaster taped to the box with electrical tape to try and shield it from stray IR signals. Any ideas?

The USB-UIRT supports 3 zones. One blasting out the front and 2 using the bugs like you are using with the Hauppauge blaster. Pretty simple to let the USB-UIRT do everything assuming everything is in close proximity. See here for more details.

[Tiki]

I recently upgraded one of my cable boxes and was having symptoms similar to what you describe. It turned out that the IR sensor in new the cable box was moved (the old box had it to the right of the clock/channel display area, the new box had it on the right). Taping my IR Emitter to the right spot made all the difference. Are you sure you have your blaster emitter taped right over the receiver on your box?

Aside from using a different device (like the USBUIRT), your other option is to adjust the delay and repeat settings. I don't remember how to adjust these with the Hauppauge blaster (probably inside the Hauppague blaster configuration utility).

Another option is to just use your USBUIRT for both cable boxes. There are two possible ways to do this:
Option 1: Use Zone control
Option 2: Set your STB's to use different remote codes and then you can use 1 zone on the USBUIRT for both boxes.

With most Set Top Boxes, Option 2 isn't really an option. But, AFAIK DISH network lets you select from a couple of different sets of remote codes (I think there is a switch in the battery compartment of the remote to tell it what remote codes to use). They designed it so that you can have two boxes in the same room controlled with 2 different remotes and not have them accidentally changing the channel on the wrong box.

[Axeman]

thanks Spectrum and Tiki, I'm going to try the 2 zones option tomorrow and see if it helps.