Is there any way to send commands to my STB from SageTV?

[wayner]

I would like to send the Vol Up command X20 to my boxes when SageTV starts up. This would cause my STBs to be at max volume, which I prefer for recordings on my HD-PVRs. I use Firewire for control of the boxes.

Is there a way to do this? I used to run a program in Windows that would use the Firewire command line programs channel or channelw to do this.

Is there something analogous in the Linux Firewire control, or even somehow to do this from SageTV? Like a plugin?

[hvymetal]

Yes there is

https://www.lirc.org

[wayner]

Thanks, I will look into that, but I don't know if this works for Firewire as well.

The DVB plugin for unRAID includes Firewire drivers that allows SageTV to very easily use Firewire for controlling STBs. But I don't know how you actually control it outside of SageTV, or even within SageTV to send a command upon SageTV startup, or once a day or whatever.

[Striker:WG]

Nothing that I am aware of.... would love to be able to send a power on command every so often as a couple of my STB's seemingly randomly power off and I don't realize until a recording is missed.

[Malfunction]

USB-UIRT could do this. You could put it in a batch file before a line that loads SageTV.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

Nothing that I am aware of.... would love to be able to send a power on command every so often as a couple of my STB's seemingly randomly power off and I don't realize until a recording is missed.

What method do you use for changing channels? IR?

[Striker:WG]

I use FireWire. It's really reliable for sending the channel change commands, but I haven't been able to find a way in Unraid with a SageTV docker to send any other commands. Used to be able to send other commands via the command line app in Windows.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

I use FireWire. It's really reliable for sending the channel change commands, but I haven't been able to find a way in Unraid with a SageTV docker to send any other commands. Used to be able to send other commands via the command line app in Windows.

Exactly - I used to use a batch file to run the Windows command line program channelw.exe to send a whole bunch of Volume Up commands. There must be a way to do this from the command line in Linux as well. It seems like the Firewire drivers added by ich777 to the DVB plugin are pretty standard drivers.

I wonder if we can figure out how SageTV sends those commands to the Firewire utility? With Firewire on windows you used to have to set up parameters in the registry. I will poke around when I get the chance and see if I can figure anything out.

[c5davey]

Originally Posted by wayner

I would like to send the Vol Up command X20 to my boxes when SageTV starts up. This would cause my STBs to be at max volume, which I prefer for recordings on my HD-PVRs. I use Firewire for control of the boxes.

Is there a way to do this? I used to run a program in Windows that would use the Firewire command line programs channel or channelw to do this.

Is there something analogous in the Linux Firewire control, or even somehow to do this from SageTV? Like a plugin?

There is. I use a program called panelctl to send commands to my STBs. Man page describing the commands can be found here.

If you have a linux vm, you can simply install the libavc1394-tools package and copy the panelctl binary to the sage docker.

If you only have windows or mac, download the package from here and extract the binary with something like 7-zip.

I also copied panelctl and the four shared libraries to unraid so that I can control the STBs from outside the sage docker and use cron as well.

[wayner]

Thanks, I will try that. I am pretty sure that the unRAID DVB contains the FireWire drivers, so hopefully it also include all of the libavc1394-tools package.

[wayner]

I tried running panelctl from an ssh session within the docker and it gives an error. Any way to tell if this has actually been installed?

I could try to install it manually, but I believe it would get wiped the next time the docker restarts.

[Striker:WG]

Originally Posted by wayner

Thanks, I will try that. I am pretty sure that the unRAID DVB contains the FireWire drivers, so hopefully it also include all of the libavc1394-tools package.

If you're running the latest stable build of Unraid, the Firewire drivers should be part of Unraid itself, no extra packages required.

[Striker:WG]

Originally Posted by c5davey

There is. I use a program called panelctl to send commands to my STBs. Man page describing the commands can be found here.

If you have a linux vm, you can simply install the libavc1394-tools package and copy the panelctl binary to the sage docker.

If you only have windows or mac, download the package from here and extract the binary with something like 7-zip.

I also copied panelctl and the four shared libraries to unraid so that I can control the STBs from outside the sage docker and use cron as well.

Very interesting indeed! I will have to check this out once I get my SageTV actually working again

Is there any way to tell if a STB is currently powered on? Based on the panelctl page, it looks like it just sends a power toggle command, not a distinct power on command.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

If you're running the latest stable build of Unraid, the Firewire drivers should be part of Unraid itself, no extra packages required.

I am, but the panelctl command does not seem to be there.

[c5davey]

Originally Posted by wayner

I tried running panelctl from an ssh session within the docker and it gives an error. Any way to tell if this has actually been installed?

I could try to install it manually, but I believe it would get wiped the next time the docker restarts.

What is the error you get?

If you copy it within /opt/sagetv, then it will survive a restart.

Use the find command to see if panelctl is installed. I did not have panelctl in unraid or the sagetv container so I had to download it.

[c5davey]

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

Very interesting indeed! I will have to check this out once I get my SageTV actually working again

Is there any way to tell if a STB is currently powered on? Based on the panelctl page, it looks like it just sends a power toggle command, not a distinct power on command.

I have seen other firewire programs that can send a power on command rather than toggle the power. I'm going to look into adding that command since I have downloaded the source.