DirecTV Serial Control Guide

[Ron]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

Are you running SageTV Client on the server with ther server in service mode? OR, are you running a seperate Client PC? And if seperate PC Client describe network please.

I'm running my Sage Client on my Vista desktop computer. My Sage server is a dedicated computer and running in service mode. My DirecTV HR-21 is attached to my Vista desktop via my HDPVR and I am running a separately licensed Sage service (in service mode) on my Vista desktop to network the HDPVR to my Sage server.

I have three networked tuners, all located in 3 different places, and they all worked just fine up until yesterday. I have the HDPVR, attached via USB to my desktop, HDHR physically elsewhere, but attached to my network, and a Fios STB with the R5000 board, physically attached to my Sage server, but also shown as a network encoder.

Did I miss something in my description of my network?

[HelenWeathers]

The reason I asked was that a few weeks ago someone here was having a similar problem and I don't know if they ever resolved it or not. When they tried to change channels from the HD200 it didn't change at the server and if they moved the HD200 to the same switcher and hardwired as opposed to wireless it worked.

Have you tried running sage on the server itself? Does it change the channels then?

EDIT: Do your other tuners change channels (not the DirecTV one)?

Let me also add, I don't see how it could be the network if it was working before, but other than that, I'm out of ideas.

[Ron]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

The reason I asked was that a few weeks ago someone here was having a similar problem and I don't know if they ever resolved it or not. When they tried to change channels from the HD200 it didn't change at the server and if they moved the HD200 to the same switcher and hardwired as opposed to wireless it worked.

Have you tried running sage on the server itself? Does it change the channels then?

EDIT: Do your other tuners change channels (not the DirecTV one)?

Let me also add, I don't see how it could be the network if it was working before, but other than that, I'm out of ideas.

I've not tried running Sage on the server itself, as it's headless (no monitor, mouse, keyboard) and I control it via VNC.

My other tuners change channels, just fine, and as I mentioned a few posts back, all of a sudden, for some unknown reason, the channel changing on the HDPVR started working again. The only thing I did, and this is totally bizarre and off the wall, was to look at the registry settings on my server to determine that the DirecTV control was in there. I made no changes whatsoever.

All of my tuners are hardwired to my network.

STRANGE, STRANGE, STRANGE.......

[kkapp]

ok guys, trying to get this to work. first i bought a pci serial card for my pc, installed it, since it has two serial ports it gave me ports on 6 and 7. could not get it to work so i then tried using the usb-serial converter cord by plugging the usb side into my pc and them installing the drivers specifically for that device, this gave me the device on port 8, my problem is in the dtvcontrol software you only have the option to select ports 1 thru 4 thus since all my ports are 6 thru 7 i cannot get it to control my dtv receiver, any ideas for this?

[Ron]

Originally Posted by kkapp

ok guys, trying to get this to work. first i bought a pci serial card for my pc, installed it, since it has two serial ports it gave me ports on 6 and 7. could not get it to work so i then tried using the usb-serial converter cord by plugging the usb side into my pc and them installing the drivers specifically for that device, this gave me the device on port 8, my problem is in the dtvcontrol software you only have the option to select ports 1 thru 4 thus since all my ports are 6 thru 7 i cannot get it to control my dtv receiver, any ideas for this?

You can change the port assignments to a lower unused number. You need to go into your device manager, find the device you're trying to change, right click, and click on properties, then port settings, then the advanced settings. There you will have the opportunity to change the port number.

The above sequence I spelled out is from a Vista computer. If you are running XP, the steps should be very similar, if not the same. The objective is to be able to change the port assignment.

[kkapp]

i had figured out how to change the port number, it is a vista 32 machine, however i tried rebooting and my machine started doing mini dumps and crashing. i had to do a system restore and am back up and running. I have my serial card in and the drivers installed and it shows up in the device manager ok. i am scared to try to install the drivers for the usb to serial cable as that is the point my pc started crashing. I have not been able to get the dtvcontrol prog to do anything to my dtv box using just the cable hooked up to the serial port on my pc. I have tried both ports configured for the serial ports.

[kkapp]

my box is a d11-100 which is not on the compatability list of course.

[kkapp]

does anyone have this working on a standard stb d11-100

[HelenWeathers]

I don't have a D11 so no help there.

Are you using the Paterson USB Translator? If so contact them. They list the D11s as compatibile.

http://www.patersontech.com/products...ranslator.aspx

[woribhabor]

I got it working!!

My problem is that the Patterson configuration utility told me i was connected on COM3. I trusted it because it turned the channels. However, I could not get anything to work with sage, untill I went throught the DirectTV control and tried every single com port. Found the one that worked, and now I'm all good.

It should be noted that I don't know if any of these things helped, but I also pretty muched changed everything to match those suggestions in previous posts. So that could have helped to. Nothing like having two different things wrong at the same time.

[bhyman1]

Originally Posted by kkapp

does anyone have this working on a standard stb d11-100

I have a D11-500 and used the info here.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Controlli...TV_D11_via_USB

Given that info, I've used these to control a pair of H20's with no issues:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2

They'd probably work just fine with the D11-100's as well.

Probably just have to enabled fast serial channel changing within sage and possibly tweak the baud rate. But it should work just fine.

[camus]

Does anybody know if you can make a serial to USB cable out of a serial to data cable?

Basically I have one of the old cables that connected to my DTV box's data port and now I have a H20 I need to control.

[Beefcake550]

I'm going to assume the data end of that cable is the unused end now with the H20. So, you've got to go from serial to USB instead of serial to data. That won't work since the signalling it completely different. The USB->Serial converter is pretty cheap, $10, I think.

[camus]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

I'm going to assume the data end of that cable is the unused end now with the H20. So, you've got to go from serial to USB instead of serial to data. That won't work since the signalling it completely different. The USB->Serial converter is pretty cheap, $10, I think.

Your assumptions are correct, after a bit more research I found that out and ordered a new cable.

I thought the old cable more have bit more to it, basically it just had 4 wires directly wired to the serial jack.

[heffneil]

I have a semi stupid question but can you control multiple boxes this way? In other words can you have two HD boxes from DirecTV and use them each as a source and then does SageTV know how and when to tune which box?

Thanks!

Neil

[toricred]

You can control several boxes this way. Each time you configure a tuner to use the DirecTV serial tuning you select a com port for that particular tuner. That is how it knows which cable to use for each tuner. I personally have 4 H21's set up this way.

[scat]

Originally Posted by toricred

You can control several boxes this way. Each time you configure a tuner to use the DirecTV serial tuning you select a com port for that particular tuner. That is how it knows which cable to use for each tuner. I personally have 4 H21's set up this way.

toricred

Could you list your hardware and software?

Thanks
Scat

[Nate]

I can't get my new H23 600 to work. I'm using PC -> usb to serial -> null modem adapter -> serial to usb -> H23 600. The serial/USB cable is this one:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...1104&p_id=2276

I'm using the drivers from the Prolific website for this cable. It shows up on my PC as COM3. If I open the DirecTV Serial Control Utility and set it to COM3, it connects fine, but any commands I send it give me "timed out". I tried all the settings in the control utility, nada. I went ahead and set up Sage but it can't change the channel either. I set the Sage setting to "fast" in both the UI and registry.

What do I do now? I can't record shows if I can't change the channel! USB-UIRT isn't a solution because it misses too many changes. Is it my cable? I guess I could spring for a Patterson cable. Anything else I can try?

It seems stupid to me to use two usb/serial cables. It seems like this could be solved with software. We could connect with a USB cable and some generic driver that talks serial over the cable. I couldn't find anything online. I have the two usb/serial cables, so whatever, I just want this to work!

[toricred]

@scat

I'm using a BAFO 810 USB-Serial Adapter on the computer hooked up to a PatersonTech TVTranslator for each of the boxes. I use Sage's built-in software for the DirecTV Serial control.

@Nate

I believe you need to have the USB cable plugged into the DirecTV receiver when it is plugged in or reset for it to recognize the capability. I also had problems with my H21 when I had a network cable plugged in, but that might have been caused by something else.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by toricred

@Nate

I believe you need to have the USB cable plugged into the DirecTV receiver when it is plugged in or reset for it to recognize the capability.

Wow! I missed this detail. This is great! It works, it works!

Can someone add this info to the first post in this thread? Seems pretty important.