Actisys IR-200L ?

[pterodyne]

Having ordered this item (Actisys IR-200L) last week, I now find posts that seem to indicate that it can only transmit, and not receive. Is this true? I bought it with the intentention of not having to have two ir units attached (removing the pvr250 one), and additionally I wanted to program a universal remote to control everything. I was interested in the USB unit that frey sells, but it seemed that it had less direct support at the time.

I should get it tomorrow, I hope I haven't wasted my time and money!

Thanks for any information.

[ErsatzTom]

From Jeff the SageTV creator:

An important clarification on the Actisys:

It can receive IR signals but ONLY for the purpose of learning them.

Not owning either, I couldn't really say which has more direct support, but there is a TON of user based support for the usb-uirt and the developer of the product posts here regularly.

t

[glbrown]

I have some time with the Actisys and I shelved it for the uirt. Now I'm happy.

[pterodyne]

I got the unit yesterday, hooked it up last night. So far it seems to work fine for its primary role of changing channels on my General Instruments digital cable box. I chose the Motorola DCT definition. It seemed like one time it didnt change the channels, and one other time while using the channel buttons to surf SageTV beta crashed. I'll probably upgrade to a USB unit when I get a dedicated htpc put together, but for now I am happy as it changes the channels. It has been a long road to get here starting with a DVCR/various software, and finally ending up with sage and pvr250/actisys IR.

[pterodyne]

Who hooo! I had Comcast update my box over this past weekend, and now I have serial control of a motorola dct2000 series digital cable box. Im not looking back. (towards the actisys). I havent had any problems with channel changing since. And no I didnt need to call Comcast about enabling the serial port, it must have been enabled already.

[Cayars]

Any chance you could share you "secret" with us on how you got Comcast to update your box? I've tried numerious departments and have had service guys come out twice to no avail.

Any insite would be greatly appreciated!

Carlo

[pterodyne]

I didnt actually do anything. When scheduling a quality of service repair, I asked comcast to send me a bring me a new box with Svideo, knowing that it would be a motorola and hoping it would have a serial port. (the GI that I already had didnt). They DIDNT bring me a box with Svideo to my annoyance, but the motorola they did bring happened to have the serial port which just worked when I hooked it up. Sorry, I wish I had better news.

The comcast guy knew less than I did about the various models, and features. I did ask him about the serial port and his reply was, "Thats just for features comcast hasn't implemented", which is effectually same as the real reason for the port if it is not enabled! Not Implemented! Someone on a thread suggested call support, ask for tier 2, if the person you get doesnt understand, explain that it is a "tivo" thing and ask for a supervisor. If that doesnt work you might just try what I did and ask them to send a new box when they schedule a repair (be vague about your problems, signal strength etc, its always worth a checkup of signal quality right??). I asked the comcast tech to replace the box and the remote even though there was no evidence of a problem and he did. In that scenario there is a equal possibility that you will improve or worsen your problems.