How to control Dish Network from a Hauppauge 250?

[Trouble]

I have the following setup:

SageTV
2 Hauppauge 250 Cards
Dish Network 625 receiver
Dish Network 322 receiver

I used to have cable, and I split the signal to the two 250s. No problems; worked like a champ. Only one long coax cable to the computer.

Now my tuning is done by the Dish Network 625 and 322 box. How can I get this to work with SageTV? It is no longer able to use the 250s as tuners. I believe this means that I need to run another coax cable to the computer since I can not use the splitter for separate channels any longer.

I have the two RF remotes upstairs next to the TVs, and some how need to hookup the IR capability in the 625 and 322 to SageTV. I've seen the USB-UIRT in the forums, but I am uncertain if it needs the 56KHz IR Sensor or not. Do I need one of them for each 250?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Kanati]

The USB-UIRT doesn't need the extra 56k sensor... And it can also do multiple devices. I haven't tried more than one box but it works with my dish setup just fine. I have one box that my 250 handles, and one that I use for channel surfing (and hdtv stuffs)... I'm not sure how it will handle IR on both the boxes as I think the IR is the same between them. It may or may not work for both at once.

[SHS]

It dosen hurt to get with extra 56k sensor who know may it come handel and $5 more of cost really not that big of deal in long if ever do not it.
Beware that Dish Network 322 receiver you can only use TV1 output not TV2 becuase it remote is not IR base.
By the way you can assigne diff Remote Address on each Dish box or could do the USB-UIRT Zone thing.
Is both Dish Network 322 and 625 close by? you may need go to Remote Control IR Extender.

[Trouble]

Thanks for the information. I have the Dish Network recievers in the basement, and use TV2s for rooms upstairs. Which leaves me with two IR based TV1s in the basement next to the SageTV machine.

I did a little reading of the manual and it states that you can change the address for each IR remote. Haven't tried it yet, since I just ordered the USB-UIRT.

For some reason I can only setup one Hauppauge 250 to the Dish Network Reciever. When I attempt the second 250, it gives me the channels I want to make available, but no button to say that I am done. In fact it was completely blank of channels until I minimized and then maximized the screen. I know the data is there, because I can go backwards in the setup then forward, and it is missing again until I change the screen size.

I also seem to have a problem with the Dish Network going into standby mode, where they flash the logo around the screen every few seconds. I guess they don't want to burn in the screen on some of the TVs, but what is going to be a pain, is that you have to hit "select" before changing channels.

[Kanati]

Relatively sure you can turn off that screen saver in the dish tuner. Mine did that too but I'm pretty sure I turned it off (don't remember, but then I don't ever see it recorded any more either so..................)

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Trouble

I have the following setup:

SageTV
2 Hauppauge 250 Cards
Dish Network 625 receiver
Dish Network 322 receiver

I used to have cable, and I split the signal to the two 250s. No problems; worked like a champ. Only one long coax cable to the computer.

Now my tuning is done by the Dish Network 625 and 322 box. How can I get this to work with SageTV? It is no longer able to use the 250s as tuners. I believe this means that I need to run another coax cable to the computer since I can not use the splitter for separate channels any longer.

Wow... almost the same thing as what I am going to be going through...!

I have Sage setup with two tuners right now (Charter cable...) and am moving to Dish Network.

I need to be able to run Sage and the two tuners in the PC and still run a separate tv for the kids upstairs. I am using a splitter and the S. Atlanta box right now for my use with cable, but a simple splitter won;t do anymore with Dish. What sort of new hardware do I need?

I was thinking of either
A) 1 Dish322 downstairs to run 1 tuner in the PC and the TV upstairs and 1 additional 311 to run the second tuner in the PC.

or

B) 2 Dish 311's downstairs to run the Sage server and 1 311 upstairs to run the kids tv.

Being new to the Dish network lifestyle, am I 'configuring' this correctly? How does the 322 control the TV upstairs in terms of it's wiring (coax...)? I understand that it will channel change via RF as opposed to IR, but am I missing something?

-Jason

[Trouble]

My setup uses two Dish Network Recievers. (625 and 322). I have both Recievers located in the basement. I have a dedicated machine for my SageTV which I placed next to these dish network Recievers.

Both of my Dish Network systems have 2 tuners. Each reciever has a IR and a RF remote. As far as I know, SageTV can only be controlled by the IR remote. That means that I have two tuners (in different recievers) that go to my TVs upstairs (via coax cable). They are controlled via the RF remotes.

I bought a USB-Uirt from Frey Technologies. This allows you to control the Dish network tuner, since it is no longer tuned by the Hauppauge 250 cards.
There are also serial port versions.

I then bought two S-Video cables to connect the Dish Network Recievers to the two Hauppauge cards for video. You can use Coax, but it did not look very good in my opinion.

I also bought two RCA cables for the audio. One end was RCA the other was the thin single pin connector (don't know the name) that fits in your Hauppuauge card.

Here is the frustrating part with Dish Network, and how I overcame the problems. Dish Network will turn off the recievers at 3 am (this is configurable) and download daily programming information. It will not turn itself back on. This means that you need to hit the power button on the remote to turn it on. SageTV only knows about changing channels. The end result is that you see the off screen, when you should have been recording your show. To get around this, I wrote a program that sends the power on/off IR command to the units. I then set up a windows task to run at 4 am every day to execute this program.

The pain does not stop there. If SageTV is running as a service, you can not get the USB-Uirt to listen to your program. (SageTV also can not learn the IR remote channels using the USB-UIRT). You must run SageTV as an application to allow the power on/off program to function.

In addition I had to mess around with the IR settings for SageTV to control the Dish Network Recievers. I added a field called "RepeatCount 10" to get the USB-Uirt Working.

Also Dish Network makes you press the channel up or down key if you happen to select a channel that you do not subscribe to. That means SageTV is stuck on that channel until you change it with your remote. Because again, SageTV can only select channel numbers, not channel up or down.


--Brian

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Trouble

Both of my Dish Network systems have 2 tuners. Each reciever has a IR and a RF remote. As far as I know, SageTV can only be controlled by the IR remote. That means that I have two tuners (in different recievers) that go to my TVs upstairs (via coax cable). They are controlled via the RF remotes.

So you have to run coax from WHERE the Receiver is located to the actual TV? I know that sounds at least partly stupid, but based on my estimation of Standard installs are, that seems like a lot of interior wiring, when they only give you 120'. What are the pro's of the 322 aside from just the minimalist approach to the actual boxes? It seems that using 3 dish311's and having them install a Quad LNB on the Sat would allow me much greater flexability... Anyone care to comment?

I bought a USB-Uirt from Frey Technologies. This allows you to control the Dish network tuner, since it is no longer tuned by the Hauppauge 250 cards.

Yeah, I have my usb-uirt to control the S. Atlanta cable box. Seeing as how you are controlling two zones with your single usb-uirt, could you post your .ir file here, or even better, on the Wiki? Crashless posted his file some time ago, but you seem to have some issues with your repeatcount...

http://www.sage-community.org/index....ki/DishNetwork

Here is the frustrating part with Dish Network, and how I overcame the problems. Dish Network will turn off the recievers at 3 am (this is configurable) and download daily programming information. It will not turn itself back on. This means that you need to hit the power button on the remote to turn it on. SageTV only knows about changing channels. The end result is that you see the off screen, when you should have been recording your show. To get around this, I wrote a program that sends the power on/off IR command to the units. I then set up a windows task to run at 4 am every day to execute this program.

Can you attach your program, or even better yet, make it available in the downloads?


-Jason

[Jason]

I think that I answered my own question in regards to using the different boxes...

It seems that, just like the cable companies, Dish charges $5 for each box that is currently in use... by using 3 Dish 311's vs 2 Dish 322's you would be getting charged $15/mo vs $10/mo. Also, with Dish's promo, it seems that I might be getting Dish625's...

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.r...ef9e218ba4c135

As an aside, while slightly OT, is there a way to 'share' the drives on the DishPVR's to a PC ala TIVO? WOW! Now I'm actually getting excited about the change!

Also, does anyone know if there is an RF blaster for the PC that integrates with Sage like the USB-UIRT? I am sure that it has been answered before here, but most of the answers were from some time ago... I was hoping that someone found an answer to allow control of the 2nd tuner from within Sage.

-Jason