How's your remote's response time?

[Archerkit]

When I was using the X10 Lola, the response time was VERY slow. And this varied with where I placed the RF receiver. I suspect I had a lot of interference

I switched to a USB-UIRT with a Radio Shack remote. It's faster than Lola, but still slower then the keyboard. (and that's an IR keyboard with a dedicated receiver, hooked up over lengthy PS/2 cables)

[Alex Wai]

I just tried a few things. I'm using a USB-UIRT without girder. Just letting the Sage plugin do it's thing.

With my Scientific Atlanta remote, the response is pretty fast. I also noticed that the SA remote blasts out repeats lightning fast (as I keep a key pressed down) and Sage responds to them pretty quickly. Not as fast as the keyboard, but not bad.

With my JVC remote that came with my dvd player, the response is also pretty instant. Sage responds as quickly as I can humanly press the button repeatedly. But when I keep the key pressed down, I see USB-UIRT receiving codes, but the cursor doesn't keep on moving.

Finally, with a $20 Philips Universal Remote, the response is terrible. Same as the JVC in that the USB-UIRT continues to receive codes if I keep the key pressed down, but the cursor doesn't interpret them. Sage responds slower than I can humanly press the button repeatedly, so I end up pressing the button about twice for every time the cursor actually moves.

More or less fresh batteries in all of them.

So, I guess not all remotes are created equally.

[rrussell]

So from the looks of this thread, using the StreamZap - available thru Frey and with support "built in" to sage - will be slow?

Is this the case?

I ask 'coz I'm about to leap from a dedicated PVR machine under the TV to a server in the back room and two clients... Since the hauppauge card is moving into the server, I need to get remotes for the clients...

[jptaz]

rrussell,

I would strongly discourage you from buying a streamzap. The remote looks good, but it has a really bad IR design. The down arrow on both of my Streamzaps when held down or hit repeatly will randomly decide to send a menu ir code instead of a down arrow. Streamzap confirmed this, but has offered me no solution. I am not alone in this. Personally I would go with other remotes. I like my ATI Remote Wonder, but it does require a pluggin or using girder.

John

[rrussell]

Well. That's just... dumb.

My other option is to get a USB-UIRT and continue using the remote I currently have, but yes - with girder. And I've looked at girder, and it intimidates me.

(No, really, I swear, it growled and I ended up hiding under the couch! It's not my fault!)

Besides, from OTHER posts in this thread, it sounds as though the USB-UIRT plus girder will ALSO be slow...

?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by rrussell

My other option is to get a USB-UIRT and continue using the remote I currently have, but yes - with girder. And I've looked at girder, and it intimidates me.

There is no need to use the USB-UIRT with Girder, since SageTV can use it directly. (I didn't look to see what people reported about response time when used that way.)

(No, really, I swear, it growled and I ended up hiding under the couch! It's not my fault!)

Hmmm... that's what my cat does when the doorbell rings.

- Andy

[turak]

I use USB-UIRT's without girder. The responses from my remotes (two Tivo remotes and a harmony) are instant.

[rrussell]

Zippy!

(runs off to place order)

So, basically, that means in the Sage setup, you just select the function you want to program, hit a button on the remote, and Sage says, thanks!

[turak]

Originally Posted by rrussell

Zippy!

(runs off to place order)

So, basically, that means in the Sage setup, you just select the function you want to program, hit a button on the remote, and Sage says, thanks!

yeah

[Crazedz]

Old silver hauppauge remote no girder

Response time seams pretty much instant i haven't noticed any lag. Thought about other remotes but this one works fine so i still use it.

[rrussell]

Originally Posted by turak

yeah

Holy...

if I'd known that 6mos ago, I wouldn't have bothered futzing around finding a JP1 programmable remote and setting up hauppauge's IRREMOTE.INI to work with it only to have the file overwritten with every beta install and wasting all that time and and and and...

Thanks for the info! I am suddenly VERY excited...

[turak]

Originally Posted by rrussell

Holy...

if I'd known that 6mos ago, I wouldn't have bothered futzing around finding a JP1 programmable remote and setting up hauppauge's IRREMOTE.INI to work with it only to have the file overwritten with every beta install and wasting all that time and and and and...

Thanks for the info! I am suddenly VERY excited...

Ouch...Once you plug in the UIRT and install the driver for it, sagetv should detect it. Then you can use any remote you want. Just go to detailed setup -> commands and teach it your remote.

[rrussell]

OK, next q, then - and this ties in with another thread I've been active in - how does this work with the Sigma XCard and its OSD? I understand there's an inherent delay because it needs to re-render the UI in 256 colors, BUT it also runs best when Sage is asleep.. and therefore not receiving commands?

This is all too complicated.

[Opus4]

SageTV can receive & respond to commands while sleeping, it just doesn't show its ui in a window. (If it didn't receive commands, you couldn't wake it once you put it to sleep.) It controls the USB-UIRT directly, so it doesn't matter if it is sleeping or not.

I control it that way with irremote.ini. BTW: If you customized that file, you should have kept copies of the ini file & then not told the SageTV installer to add SageTV support to the ini file. Then, the only way it gets overwritten is when a new IR version is installed & then you can simply restore the saved ini file. (And, yes, I realize it doesn't apply to you now that you are not using that remote on the clients.)

- Andy

[bartley9]

Originally Posted by Alex Wai

With my JVC remote that came with my dvd player, the response is also pretty instant. Sage responds as quickly as I can humanly press the button repeatedly. But when I keep the key pressed down, I see USB-UIRT receiving codes, but the cursor doesn't keep on moving.

Finally, with a $20 Philips Universal Remote, the response is terrible. Same as the JVC in that the USB-UIRT continues to receive codes if I keep the key pressed down, but the cursor doesn't interpret them. Sage responds slower than I can humanly press the button repeatedly, so I end up pressing the button about twice for every time the cursor actually moves.

I was experiencing similar problems with my remote until I got Girder and discovered multiple command codes and auto-repeat.

It seems that some remotes differentiate between multiple presses and keeping the button pressed by sending different codes. Each press of the button sends a different code: first press code A, second code B, third code A, fourth code B and so on. Holding the button down sends the same code repeatedly. This makes sense if you think about and is the same as a PC keyboard If you press the button 10 times you expect to move 10 times but when you hold the button down you expect the action to repeat and to stop as soon as you stop pressing.

Sage was learning only one of my up channel commands eg code A so responded straight away sometimes, when the remote sent A, only on the second press on other occasions when it sent B followed by A and then on every other press . And very frustratingly, if it was on B and I held the button down the light flashed on my USB-UIRT and Sage did absolutely NOTHING but when I pressed it again the cursor shot off faster than I could follow

If you have a remote which only sends single commands you will not have this problem(It is actually the more powerful remotes which have this problem)

I switched to Girder, sending windows messages to sage, and have never looked back. (Girder, luckily, displays the latest command it receives in the status bar so I twigged when it was ignoring every other command and displaying a different code.)I have a PVR which only runs sage so have no task switch problems.

[rrussell]

Hotay, my usbuirt arrived today. I'm a'gonna plug it in tonight and see what's what!

(I'm very excited about this )

[mkanet]

How can I change the poll rate time and the repeat delay? Will I gain ANY noticable speed by making polling quicker?

Does the Hauppauge 45 button remote emite it's code any faster than the older Hauppauge remotes?

My biggest problem is the performance of the remote when holding it down (ie, when holding down the "down" or "up" button in the EPG).

-Michael

Originally Posted by Opus4

It wouldn't surprise me if the remote input is slower -- the keyboard input may still be interrupt driven (I don't remember that part of internal Widows), so Windows gets it & can process it almost immediately. Plus, the keyboard repeat rate is probably faster.

With a remote, you are adding extra layers to deal with. I don't know about the other remote software, but the Hauppauge IR code, I believe, is poll driven, so it only checks for remote input every so often, then it processes it & finally either sends a key code or event message to SageTV. If you hold the button down, there will be a delay as it skips a few polls before entering repeat mode. Once in repeat mode, it can only process repeats as often as it polls the IR receiver. The poll rate time can be adjusted, as can the repeat delay, but even if it could poll every millisecond, the remote will still emit its code at some rate that isn't that fast.

- Andy

[Opus4]

A long time ago, someone at Hauppauge told me about this registry setting:

KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Hauppauge\IR DWORD:PollRate controls the polling rate in Millisecs; but it must be at least 10ms and no more than 1000. The default is 85 (about 11 times per sec, just slightly faster than the nominal auto repeat rate of most remotes)

In the [Remote] section of irremote.ini, there is this setting to control the number of IR polls between the same code before it will auto repeat:

RepeatDelay=3

- Andy

[mkanet]

Hmmm... For me, the default value for PollRate=200. I wonder if thats 200 miliseconds.

[mkanet]

I am happiest with PollRate=77, RepeatDelay=3

I'm not sure why the default was 200 for the latest IR remote install for the PVR USB2.