Non-techie needing some general advice

[jal]

Ok a little more progress. Current settings are:

Digits per channel...0
Channel Change Prefix Code...None
Channel Change confirm Code...None
Delay Between Codes...80ms
Delay Between Changes...2000ms
Repeat Factor 1

The last setting is supposed to change the Repeat Factor but one guy said it doesn't work - he says you have to manually edit the "Repeat Count" setting in the file. I set mine to zero and it worked! (At least it worked with the keyboard, haven't tested it on prescheduled recordings).

[jal]

Well, I don't have consistency yet with the keyboard. Part of the problem is the ongoing tendency to flash the current channel, even if it's two digits. So if I'm "really" on 38, and trying to get to 39, it will sometimes flash something like this
3
38
9 - and I end up on 9 instead of 39.

How do I prevent the current channel from re-registering? I've tried two different DTA boxes and still having this problem. I tried putting in 0 as the prefix but not much luck there either.

[jal]

Getting better results now. My mistake was to think it sufficient to sit the USB-irt in front of the DTA. Problem was that the Comcast sensor-on-cord was hanging down below the DTA. When I place the USB-irt in front of the sensor-on-cord instead of in front of the DTA, I'm starting to see some consistency. Not sure if I'll need to tweak this anymore. Time will tell. Current settings
Digits per channel...0
Channel Change Prefix Code...None
Channel Change confirm Code...Enter
Delay Between Codes...500ms
Delay Between Changes...3000ms
Repeat Factor 3...(Doubt this affects anything)
RepeatCount...5..(I edited this value directly in the file)

[jal]

Instead of messing with these sensors-on-cords, I would have preferred a way to run a cord from the Usb-Irt directly into the DTA's IR port. Is there a cord that will do this job?

[dcardellini]

I'm surprised that nobody suggested to do a quick check to see if the cable company is passing 5C flags on their STB. These 5C flags are a completely different deal than "encrypted channels," and may not be applied to any channels in your area (case-in-point, my cable company has nearly every channel encrypted though).

I have three STB's connected to my HTPC via simple firewire cable, and I get all of my cable channels, premium included into Sagetv without the complication of yet another piece of equipment (HD-PVR), and IR channel change stuff.

I have had this for over five years (still hold my breath for them to apply the 5C flags), and it works flawlessly. The firewire cable simply passes the raw compressed digital stream direct to a file on your hard drive (no CPU encoding/decoding).

How can you check for 5C? The simplest way, without an HTPC, just an STB hooked to TV, is to go into the STB menus and look, channel by channel, for those that have 5C set.

The next easiest is to load a firewire driver on your HTPC, run VLC, configure VLC to look at the video device on firewire, and manually increment the channels on the STB box to see which ones come thru on the VLC video display (takes about 1-2 seconds for video to change as you externally change channels).

If you are lucky, you can get everything you subscribe to on cable, and it is not difficult to make this work with SageTV.

Just a suggestion.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by dcardellini

I'm surprised that nobody suggested to do a quick check to see if the cable company is passing 5C flags on their STB. These 5C flags are a completely different deal than "encrypted channels," and may not be applied to any channels in your area (case-in-point, my cable company has nearly every channel encrypted though).

I have three STB's connected to my HTPC via simple firewire cable, and I get all of my cable channels, premium included into Sagetv without the complication of yet another piece of equipment (HD-PVR), and IR channel change stuff.

I have had this for over five years (still hold my breath for them to apply the 5C flags), and it works flawlessly. The firewire cable simply passes the raw compressed digital stream direct to a file on your hard drive (no CPU encoding/decoding).

How can you check for 5C? The simplest way, without an HTPC, just an STB hooked to TV, is to go into the STB menus and look, channel by channel, for those that have 5C set.

The next easiest is to load a firewire driver on your HTPC, run VLC, configure VLC to look at the video device on firewire, and manually increment the channels on the STB box to see which ones come thru on the VLC video display (takes about 1-2 seconds for video to change as you externally change channels).

If you are lucky, you can get everything you subscribe to on cable, and it is not difficult to make this work with SageTV.

Just a suggestion.

That's because these DTA's likely don't have any firewire ports on them. They are purposely extremely stripped down STBs. It sounds like you found the problem (that being improper aiming of the USBUIRT).

[dcardellini]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

That's because these DTA's likely don't have any firewire ports on them. They are purposely extremely stripped down STBs. It sounds like you found the problem (that being improper aiming of the USBUIRT).

Oops......sorry for not reading post closer...just assumed that DTA=STB. I'm way behind in this game.......

[jal]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Your 1600 may have come with an IR emitter included. Maybe check the box???

I doubt if a local electronics store would carry any. FWIW, here's the IR emitters that I purchased online: http://www.avhifi.com/shop/speakercr...sible-led.html

Thanks again, Keitha and Fuzzy! I ordered two IR emitters from your link and they are working fine. Everything's working fine. I'm using one DTA box for the 1600 card and the other DTA box for the pvr-150 card, with a USB-IRT setup for two zones.

The only thing I haven't tried yet is to make full use of the 1600 (since it's a dual tuner). This would probably require a third DTA box and a channel combiner and a third IR emitter (I'm guessing). I really don't think I need three tuners at this point in my life anyway so I probably won't bother.

Or maybe I'll just try to get the clear QAM benefits of the 1600 in which case a third DTA box might not even be necessary...

[jal]

Well, things are not so good as I hoped. When I tape the Comcast IR sensor to an emitter using black electrical tape, they remain flush only for a couple of days, and then seem to shift. (Well, I can't see any visible shift, but the channels no longer change until I retape them). How do I solve this? Should I use super glue? The Comcast sensor is very large, it's a circle about one inch across. Given this large surface area, I really don't know why a slight shift would forfeit the communication.

I love my SageTV when it works, but at this point I'm a little frustrated. I'm considering two possibilities.
(1) Tivo
(2) Hd Homerun Prime - I think this accepts a cableCard, so I won't need an STB hopefully. Comcast only charges 2 bucks a month for a cablecard. But I will probably have to buy a new computer to handle the Homerun and playback (I'm about due for a new machine anyway).

I'm already cutting back on other expenses (for example I got rid of Netflix) as to budget for Tivo or Homerun. But I'd still like to find a solution to the Comcast sensor issue, since that is the cheapest solution.

[Fuzzy]

possibly just a poor beam pattern on the emitter you have if it's that tight of a tolerance. I made my own emitter back when i was using cable STBs from parts at radio shack (they sell IR led's in two packs i think). I placed them inside of a small bubble-pack (likely one of them from the LEDs themselves), lined with slightly wrinkled foil (to make sure the IR was going everywhere it needed to), then taped that bubble-wrap to the front of the STB over the emitter with black tape. This had the double advantage of caging the IR in to just that box, and ensuring really good coverage on the reciever. Basically, all light emitted from the LED would bounce around randomly until it hit the reciever - worked great for years without ever having to touch it.

[jal]

Thanks!

I'll give it a try.

[jal]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

possibly just a poor beam pattern on the emitter you have if it's that tight of a tolerance. I made my own emitter back when i was using cable STBs from parts at radio shack (they sell IR led's in two packs i think). I placed them inside of a small bubble-pack (likely one of them from the LEDs themselves), lined with slightly wrinkled foil (to make sure the IR was going everywhere it needed to), then taped that bubble-wrap to the front of the STB over the emitter with black tape. This had the double advantage of caging the IR in to just that box, and ensuring really good coverage on the reciever. Basically, all light emitted from the LED would bounce around randomly until it hit the reciever - worked great for years without ever having to touch it.

Well, here's my latest attempt. I found two old cans of spice (those little rectangular cans made out of soft metal, presumably aluminum?). It was a spice called "Cream of Tartar" which we rarely use in cooking. I pried off the plastic lids (I threw the lids away but come to think of it I probably should have kept them to help seal the arrangement). In each can I adhered the sensor to one wall and the emitter to the opposite side, facing each other. Maybe the aluminum will cause the signal to bounce around just like with your aluminum foil. Well it's worked fine for the last 24 hours or so, let's hope it keeps on working.

Thanks again!

[jal]

Well I'm happy to report it's been working well for a week now. One time it misfired and recorded the wrong show but I'm happy with a 90% success rate.