USB-UIRT, Receive + Blast IR, and RCHDX

[null_pointer_us]

SageTV 7.0.20 (RC4) Media Center
Windows 7 64-bit
USB-UIRT
Sage RCHDX Remote

I tried to setup one of these newer remotes this morning with USB-UIRT.

http://store.sagetv.com/mm5/merchant...tegory_Code=HD

Prior to this, the USB-UIRT was blasting IR fine to 2x STB on Zones 1 and 2.

So I moved the USB-UIRT next to the TV and proceeded to configure the RCHDX remote to work with SageTV. Everything appeared to be working OK as I entered the remote codes. When I called a family member to try using the device, we ran into several problems:

1. IR Blasting died. No channel changing worked. Restarting did not help. SageTV logs reported failed attempts to acquire COM port 0 and then said damn -- no further information. Internet search revealed an old thread (2009?) that claimed the USB-UIRT has an undocumented API failure when the same thread tries to receive and blast, regardless of which zones are configured to do what. Blasting just fails with code 0. No fix, no workaround, no resolution except that perhaps SageTV needs to be handling the USB-UIRT differently.

Specifically:

I would like to also add to the debugging for jrhees the following.

1. Blasting IR works fine.

2. Receiving IR works fine.

3. The scenario that blows up is is calling a transmit inside a receive signal. So basically the USB-UIRT is receiving IR and then trying to blast out IR in the same thread inside the Receive Method.

So its calling UUIRTTransmitIR(...); inside of the Receive Callback method set using UUIRTSetReceiveCallback(...);. Hope that helps!

OK we have solved this thanks to USB-UIRT support. Transmits and Recieve IR cannot be called in the same thread. So upon receiving a IR command I queue the Transmitting of IR in another thread.

Thanks to UBS-UIRT team and mwebber for the hints and testing!

2. The RCHDX + USB-UIRT is very slow to respond to commands (relative to the old StreamZap remote). Oddly, the remote was extremely responsive while programming in SageTV's IR code mapper, but in actual usage it was dog slow. Nothing physically changed as far as IR device/user location or the placement of other IR devices. It's just extremely slow in actual usage.

3. The RCHDX + USB-UIRT stops responding to commands unless the IR signal hits the receiver dead on. You can see the red light flash on the USB-UIRT and yet SageTV does nothing. No matter how long you hold the remote's button down, SageTV does nothing. Let the button up and try to hit it dead on again, and this time it might respond.

4. The RCHDX + USB-UIRT has an an insanely low repeat delay. Half the time I can't tell whether a quick press will have any effect at all (see problem 2) and if I hold the button down it may not see the codes (see problem 3), but in problem 4 if I do hit the receiver dead center it may pick up 3-4 commands before I realize it has responded at all.

Overall a frustrating experience and I quickly reverted to the StreamZap remote, which works fine.

NOTE: While testing the RCHDX + USB-UIRT, I was very careful to disconnect and hide the StreamZap IR receiver to make sure that it did not interfere in any way. Moving the USB-UIRT, holding the remote practically up against it, etc. had very little effect on the above issues.

[Spectrum]

The IR blasting dying may be because you are trying to access the USB-UIRT from Sage Client as a receiver and the Sage Service as a blaster. Due to the way Windows 7 is designed there is a problem accessing a device from 2 different security contexts (userland and service land) is problematic. Jon released a beta driver that cures that ill. More details are here. I can't comment on the rest of your issues, but if you are running Sage as a service and a client on the same box and want to access the USB-UIRT from both take a look at that link

[null_pointer_us]

Thank you very much!


EDIT:

The updated .dll you provided definitely fixed the security context issue.

I'm still experiencing flaky response from SageTV client, so I'll look for some settings.

Summary:

Issue #1: IR Blasting is fixed now!
Issue #2: still very slow response to commands
Issue #3: caused by reflections from glossy TV base; putting matte surface under USB-UIRT improved this
Issue #4: still very fast repeat rate

Maybe this is my problem:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...4&postcount=35

[null_pointer_us]

Yep, every button on the remote had at least 2 codes, usually 3 but one button seemed to have 5 codes. Detection angle, range, button press length, etc. all seem to be working fine with the default delay repeat rate.

It's now far superior to the StreamZap.