DirecTV Channel Changing. Please help.

[dman65]

I like the simplicity of the SageTV interface. It is nice and quick. It plays back well.

I am having one problem that is pretty much a show stopper. I can't get the program to change the channel on my DirecTV receiver. Actually, it will change it ONCE when I first start the application. If I start the program and go to the live tv guide it will change to the channel I select, but if I return to the LiveTV guide and select another channel it does not change the channel. BeyondTV changes the channel without a problem, but its playback just does not work well on either computer I have tried it on. Unfortunately, SageTV has not been able to change channels on either computer I have tried it on.

Is there some way around this problem? Even if I have to write my own program for SageTV to call that will be fine since I have done this before for my own recording software.

If someone could give me some direction I would really appreciate it.

[TunaBoo]

What hardware are you using to signal the directtv receiver?

[dman65]

I am using a serial cable between the computer and the receiver. I have verified that the cable is good since both BeyondTV and DTVCon are able to change channels with it. SageTV can change the channel only the first time it is used though. Any additional channel changes do not occur.

[manic_tool]

When I first installed 1.4 I had to add a favorite before the channel changing for DirecTV worked.

I have since upgraded to the beta version so I am not sure if this is still the case.

[dman65]

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, after adding a favorite it still does not work.

[Clueless]

I seem to have the same problem, but dtvcon and beyond dont want to register it. Hmm what could possibly be the problem, the wires are placed right, i have verified that..so what else is there?

Thx

[debennett2]

welcome to my world folks. I have paid for Sage a while back now being assured that this serial cable solution would work with the software...hasn;t worked yet. Snapstream/BTV works flawlessly everytime and I don;t have to pick COM ports either. What's the deal?!!!

[dman65]

Clueless - Do you know what model receiver you have? I have had trouble with SageTV controlling my receiver, but none with snapstream or dtvcon. Maybe there is something else that needs to be done to get your receiver to accept commands either that or it may be possible that the cable you obtained is "broken".

Debennet2 - I have not been able to get SageTV to natively control my receiver and finally gave up. I have finally been successful getting the ExeTunerPlugin.DLL option to work (I think. It correctly changed the channel through this morning when I checked.) If SnapStream works for you then this option should work as well. You have to download the dtvcon and dtvcmd programs as well as the ExetunerPlugin.DLL program.

These links are below:

ExeTunerPlugin Zip File

DTVCon and DTVCmd Download

The instructions on installing everything is in the Readme of the ExeTunerPlugin.zip download.

After you move the dtvcmd.exe to the SageTV directory and the ExeTunerPlugin.Dll to the COMMON directory ads in the instructions, reboot your computer. Go to the add/update source part of the SageTV menu. Go through all of the screens just as you did before, but when you get to the screen where you chose the serial connection before, choose the one that I believe says something about the "IR Remote". When you select that option Exe Tuner Plugin should be one of the options and you need to select that.

Once that is done, you need to make sure that you start the DTVCon program whenever you have SageTV running.

If you decide to try this and have any problems let me know and I will try to help you. I know how frustrating it can be to get something and not be able to get it to work.

[debennett2]

And yet no response from the developers? Why not? I have a contractor at my house right now, for instance, and if he was this unresponsive he would have been fired by now.

[dman65]

Have you sent a message to the developers from the support request page?

I don't know how closely they monitor the boards especially since they are trying to get a final release of 2.0 out in April. I would fill out the support request on the support page and see if you get an answer from them then. The boards are just a user interacting with user medium I think.

I don't think they have that large a staff and for a product in a limited niche selling at $59.95 I don't imagine they could have much of a staff and not go bankrupt. When you consider that they are supplying an up to date program guide to everyone in the U.S. that I am sure they are having to pay a subscription fee for in addition to the other regular business overhead it seems like they would have to sell a lot of copies of the software to make it worthwhile as an ongoing concern. Especially since they are locked in to providing the EPG to people who have already purchased the software and from whom they receive no further remuneration.

I didn't experience any better service trying to get BeyondTV up and running. I finally gave up on it because I could never get smooth playback from it and never received any useful information as to why.

Sage does playback smoothly and now that I have it changes channels, admittedly a bit more roundabout than I would like, I will be placing an order for it.

Have you tried the 2.0 beta? If so, did the native DirecTV support work any better for you there?

Thanks

[debennett2]

I am trying out 2.0 beta. There is no change as far as serial port support goes. I have emailed them about this twice in the past as well as yesterday.
As far as the company/manpower being little, that is not my concern. If I were to produce a car with standard transmission, sell it for $xx that no one could shift into gear, it wouldn't matter how many people were in my company..the simple fact is that the product is paid for and does not work for those people. I don;t mean to start a flame war here but when I spend money I try to spend it wisely and get a return on it.

[snipeman]

I'm running Sage 1.41 with an RCA DRD485RG (6th Gen SD receiver) and serial control support has worked perfectly since the day I installed Sage.

I have 2 friends using 5th gen SD RCA receivers (I think one is model 420).

I've not tried any Betas yet.

All of our DTV boxes are working perfectly serial controlled from Sage.

I think the element at issue here can be the serial command set and how it changes on different models of receivers. Sadly there are several different ways the the serial command set has been implemented. This is from the DTV STB manf. side, not really Sage's fault.

It's important on these threads when you post your problem, to include the model# of your DTV receiver. This will help other readers know what may or may not work for them.

I'm read some conflicting reports of receivers with different command sets working and NOT working on these forums. Some of the reports are baffling to me.


All I can confirm is a DRD486RG and a DRD420 both work.

Andy

[padre]

I'm using SageTV v1.4 on two PCs, with two DirecTV receivers (RCA models DRD435RH). They work perfectly with the serial cables. I've also tested one of the units with SageTV 2.0 and it works without any problem on the DirecTV receiver and serial control.

As far as the company (Frey) not responding to your questions fast enough, or the product not working to your satisfaction, I might want to suggest that if you're looking for a truely trouble-free, no bother ,time shift recording system - don't do SageTV (or its competitors like SnapStream). Period. It's based on a PC/Windows platform, and therefore can have issues running under certain hardware, software or operating system configuraiton settings. All PC-based applications can have configuration/setup issues.

I'm quite satisfied with my SageTV, but if you search the forum, you'll find I had problems with my config. I didn't give up, modified some configs (even swapped receivers). Now it's working like a champ. Frey, keep up the good work and I look forward to 2.0 (okay, maybe 2.1?)

[debennett2]

All I can confirm is a DRD486RG and a DRD420 both work

I have a DRD420RE that DOES NOT work with Sage (1.4 or 2.x). It does work with Snapstream however and has for well over a year now....since I started using Snapstream and trying out Sage.

As far as the company (Frey) not responding to your questions fast enough, or the product not working to your satisfaction, I might want to suggest that if you're looking for a truely trouble-free, no bother ,time shift recording system - don't do SageTV (or its competitors like SnapStream).

I have had rock-solid performance from Snapstream with my receiver and have not heard of anyone having issues with serial control. You want to know why? Because Snapstream has a LIST of supported receivers for the direct serial connection. Why not just do whatever they are doing? What's the hold up?

It's based on a PC/Windows platform, and therefore can have issues running under certain hardware, software or operating system configuraiton settings.

Which is why "system requirements" are made. I was told mine would work and it does not. What more can I do? I'm not about to stick an IR transmitter (unsightly) in front of my receiver just because no one wants to provide support that should have been there many many months ago.

No one should have to spend money on a product and then be expected to experiment with their PC's for months on end , buying and switching equipment, in order to accomodate software that should support the hardware involved anyhow. That's just plain ridiculous in my book and borderline unethical.

[padre]

I have had rock-solid performance from Snapstream with my receiver and have not heard of anyone having issues with serial control. You want to know why? Because Snapstream has a LIST of supported receivers for the direct serial connection. Why not just do whatever they are doing? What's the hold up?

Well, unless they share a brain or have the same programmer, its not unheard of to have two companies working in the same technology space doing things differently.

Which is why "system requirements" are made. I was told mine would work and it does not. What more can I do? I'm not about to stick an IR transmitter (unsightly) in front of my receiver just because no one wants to provide support that should have been there many many months ago.

No one should have to spend money on a product and then be expected to experiment with their PC's for months on end , buying and switching equipment, in order to accomodate software that should support the hardware involved anyhow. That's just plain ridiculous in my book and borderline unethical. [/B]

Are you looking for some sort of guarantee? No software manufacturer gives one. The system requirements are guidelines, nothing more. No company does complete compatibility testing on all possible hardware, software and configuration options. NONE. I know from where I speak, I'm a software instructor for a major telecom manufacturer. As far as the software working perfectly, look at the licensing that is provided with most, if not all, software (I mean read the fine print). It is sold 'as is'. But to call them 'borderline unethical' is ludicrous. The company I work for sells and I instruct on software that sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars (even millions of dollars for the larger installations). Does it have bugs! God YES! Do we provide 'hardware/operating system specifications', yes. Does it have problems function some times, even if they follow the recommended hardware/OS specs? Yes! Do we get sued for the fact this occurs and burps happen with different configurations in the customers' environments? No. Because they deal with it. Its a fact of life in the Windows, no, make that computer environment.

[debennett2]

I'm not going to argue with you anyone on this. The simple fact is that this was suppose to work and does not for A LOT of customers.

[padre]

That's fine, but to let's clear up that simple fact - "SageTV also supports the use of a serial cable for some satellite boxes" is the statement on their website (under the FAQ section). Does it guarantee compatibility with every DirecTV receiver or cable box? No. Does it list the makes/models it has been certified to operate with? No. If it doesn't work with your particular model of receiver, then the choices are simple. Stop using it, or try other avenues of access.

[debennett2]

padre,
I think you are missing the whole problem here. Have you ever heard of anyone from Sage directly responding to the fact that this does not work? If so, I'd really like to know what they said. I have a support email in that most likely will get ignored as well. The last 2 did so why should this one be any different. I have an alternative that I like quite a bit (Snapstream) but I own both and like nothing more than friendly competition between similar software products. I'd just like to open some eyes to some very basic feature (or basic support) missing.

[snipeman]

This is an issue that's very important to me. While the serial control is working for me right now, I can tell you if it did not, it would be a deal breaker.

I moved from ReplayTV to SageTV. I specifically ditched ReplayTV because they would NOT update the software in it to control the new (6th gen) RCA command set. I posted many rants about this on AVSForums ReplayTV section and was totally ignored by the manf. and basically ignored by AVSForum people.

I resented the fact that a few bytes of simple software wouldn't be changed/updated to control the now current serial command set SO much that I ditched my Replay unit, built a media server and a HTPC and bought Sage. As I saw it, over time the # of users with new command set receivers would only grow, and eventually eclipse the old. To this day, Replay STILL doesn't work with many Sat receivers at all, and requires a flakey IR blaster.

Try explaining to your girlfriend why she missed the current episode of Carnivàle because a stupid emitter was bumped, didn't line up with a receiver, was moved by the cat, had dust or dirt over it, your scotch tape came loose, or some flourescent light interferred with your IR repeater. NOT FUN.

If I had installed the software, and found that serial control didn't work with Sage, I'd have asked for a refund and moved on to the next option down the list.

I consider IR control of a DTV set top box as totally unacceptable.

So I empathize with everyone for whom this doesn't work.

I can't say it makes much sense why it works for some and not others with the same model receivers.

I can only offer some friendly help and places to look:

Is it possible other software installed on your machine is active/semi-active and has hooks into your serial port? Many people have the DirectTV Serial Control utility loaded and this could conflict with Sage.

Perhaps other trial versions of other PVR software is the culprit?

Check IRQs, BIOS, and Windows settings.

I know you say your serial control works with other software. Perhaps other software is more tolerant to serial settings being a little off. Perhaps Sage is less tolerant.

The fact that Sage controls an RCA 420 for some and not others must mean the code to talk to the reciver is correct in Sage, and that SOME sort of serial commincation error exists on specific workstations. To some degree, Sage code must be OK.

I've seend a lot of confusion in posts on this. I've seen Sage TV people post on these forums, and say that serial control options weren't working that WERE working for me. I know there are at least 3 serial command sets on DirectTV STB's. An old set (5th gen and earlier), a new set (6th gen and later) and a new variant on some HDTV receivers. There could even be more.

Hope some of this information helps,

Andy

[Clueless]

My receiver is an RCA DRD435RH. I have triple checked my cable to be sure all of the wires are hooked up correctly, and they all seem in order. If my cable is good, and dtvcon doesnt connect to the receiver, does this mean that the code set for the receiver cannot be read...or...?