Anybody setup sage with dish remote, maybe w/ usb-uirt

[area123]

I really like my dish remote, but I don't know if I could set it up with the usb-uirt. It does do rf + ir but I don't know to what extent. I know the ir part controls the tv, dvd, etc but you have to push the buttons on top to select which device. i don't know if the dvr buttons would transmit any ir signal. Hence, I am asking here if anyone has tried this.

thanks.

[aperry]

It all depends on the version of the Dish remote you have. Prior to the current crop of receivers (and maybe even the batch before that), the remote did actually send out both IR and UHF. I believe that when they switched to "UHF pro" I think it was called, their UHF remotes would no longer send out IR codes. That kind of sucked for those that had universal remotes and wanted to use them, because you could not use the Dish remote to teach your new remote.

Dish provided for a "teach IR" screen where you could, one code at a time, teach your universal remote the IR codes for each of the buttons. Kind of painful, but it would work, and your receiver would respond to the IR codes that were learned.

All of this in a round-about way is to tell you that it may work. Fire up HIP or Girder or something like that so you can see if, when you press a button on your Dish remote, if the program sees a code (might require a plug-in to be installed). Another possible way, though not maybe as reliable is if the USB-UIRT receiver has an LED that lights up whenever it sees an IR signal, you could try pressing some of your Dish buttons with the remote in "Dish mode" and see if it lights up.

[area123]

Originally Posted by aperry

It all depends on the version of the Dish remote you have. Prior to the current crop of receivers (and maybe even the batch before that), the remote did actually send out both IR and UHF. I believe that when they switched to "UHF pro" I think it was called, their UHF remotes would no longer send out IR codes. That kind of sucked for those that had universal remotes and wanted to use them, because you could not use the Dish remote to teach your new remote.

Dish provided for a "teach IR" screen where you could, one code at a time, teach your universal remote the IR codes for each of the buttons. Kind of painful, but it would work, and your receiver would respond to the IR codes that were learned.

All of this in a round-about way is to tell you that it may work. Fire up HIP or Girder or something like that so you can see if, when you press a button on your Dish remote, if the program sees a code (might require a plug-in to be installed). Another possible way, though not maybe as reliable is if the USB-UIRT receiver has an LED that lights up whenever it sees an IR signal, you could try pressing some of your Dish buttons with the remote in "Dish mode" and see if it lights up.

My remote is the dish 501 dvr remote, uhf/ir and about 3 years old I think. So I know it does some IR, just not sure if it does IR for all the buttons like the dvr buttons.

This at least gives me some hope. I've not messed with the usb-uirt or girder or anything other than my firefly remote yet, don't really like the firefly that much.

My thinking is that if it does send out IR for every button, then w/ my usb-uirt and some third party like girder, I can set up the buttons to do whatever sage command I want. Are my assumptions right?

thanks for the input.

[aperry]

As I understand it, virtually all of the buttons on your remote would send out IR then. The big thing now would be whether the IR being sent out is something that the USB-UIRT can recognize.

My thinking is that if it does send out IR for every button, then w/ my usb-uirt and some third party like girder, I can set up the buttons to do whatever sage command I want. Are my assumptions right?

Yes, assuming that everything gets passed in by the USB-UIRT, and you get the appropriate stuff in Girder (if anything special is needed), you should be able to configure it to run Sage.

Assuming Sage is all you want to control, I would recommend using the sendmessage method. Sendmessage basically back-doors in the command to Sage rather than sending out specific keystrokes. Do a search on the forums here for sendmessage and you'll see what i mean. There is a Girder GPL file out there as well that has all the sendmessage's defined, and all you have to do is to learn the remote key you want to assign to it.

Good luck, it will take a bit of configuring, but it should work out for you...

[area123]

Yes, it does sound like a bit of work. But hopefully I can do it in small steps. First I need to get the usb-uirt working with my dish box. Who knows, maybe I'll start liking the firefly the more I use it.

Thanks for all the info.