Motorola Cable Box serial port?

[ShadeD1]

I'm trying to replace my Tivo with a PVS box and am pretty successful so far. I want to add a digital cable box and want to know if I will be able to have PVS control the channels via the computer and set top box's serial port. If it helps I'm a warner cable subscriber in houston texas.

[michael brault]

I am also intrested in configuring a motarola box and have not found any info. For $100 you would think ss would be easly configured or at least clear on how to.

[ShadeD1]

I found another thread that said SS could only control RCA or Sony via serial....I'm waiting on the patch before I invest in any other hardware. I'm trying to replace my tivo so I think I'll need a IR blaster to controll the cable box and a a Hauppauge 250 to get everything working the way I want..

[michael brault]

I thought those were dss boxes?

[ShadeD1]

Does anyone know if the point release will support the serial port on the back of my Time Warner Cable Mortorola Digital Cable box. I'd be suprised if they won't support it since I live in houston where snapstream is made

[Terminal]

Although they say they don't support it (competely ?), the IR blaster works well on my Motorola DCT2000 cable box. I would think a company in this market would have a better stance on IR support. Again it is working for me and working well, but I could see where someone just now getting into the product would be a little hesitant to purchase this product without a solid IR solution.

[RobertH]

technically the IRBlaster support is not supported as it has been having troubles sending signals when the system is under high load (like when recording using SS) and they have mentioned (I think in this section of the forum) that they are looking into a different method to do the IRBlaster stuff, some of the people on here have been using HERemote or something to that effect with good luck, but it seems to depend on the model of the motherboard as to wheter or not the IRBlaster stuff works (some motherboards have good hardware serial ports while others are kinda software driven and thus are not as responsive with high cpu load even on ghz+ machines) IR thru the serial port isnt very good on systems where the clock for the serial port isnt done with good timing hardware because it will cause the IRBlaster to either send incorrectly timed IR signals resulting in the cablebox receiveng garbage or having the IR not send at all

If you really want to get into it I would suggest searching the board for IR or IRBlaster and seeing what you get, there are some good and informative posts on here on how to get it working. I wouldnt get your hopes up as there where several people that have had problems with it (especially those with cable boxes requiring you type 3 digits (ie 123) as the ir blaster had problems with that in the past (I remember seeing it somewhere but since I dont use the IR stuff I dont know if it has been fixed.)

Good luck, and it never hurts to try (it just might cost a little)

[silver]

I also have the Motorola digital cable box, and have certainly had my share of problems. However, I, like Terminal, am now extremely happy with the IRblaster's reliability. With the most recent release version, as well as the current beta release, the irblaster trained flawlessly, and has successfully changed the channel for every recording. It has missed a very few times during the high CPU usage that watching live tv requires, but that doesn't really bother me, as the critical usage is for unattended recordings. For the price SS charges, I think it's a great solution. I'll also add that I made my decision to purchase SS way back solely because of it's support for the IRblaster - but am really impressed with the current responsiveness of the staff and how the software is coming along.

[ShadeD1]

I agreee about the responsiveness of the staff, but I was hoping one of them would tell me if the point release would allow serial connections to this cable box before I shell out for an IR Blaster. I suspect High CPU usage is not going to be a real issue because I never watch live tv with my TIVO and I don't expect to start now (this box is going to replace the TIVO). I also intend to buy a PVR-250 when the point release comes out which should solve high cpu usage during recording. Currently I can watch different recordings on all 3 of my network systems at the same time without a hitch as long as the server is not recording anything.

Great work SS staff

[RobertH]

Check out the HE Remote thread and the associated software, I dont know if it allows for direct serial tuning but it might, there is also a girder output plugin that someone wrote lurking around out here that is able to control a good number of devices thanks to the girder API

[Terminal]

There was another post where someone asked if they could use a serial cable on a Motorola box, and PBMAX responded saying that they did not support that. Here it is now. If you go with an IR blaster, also make sure you are not transcoding during a channel change. That has caused my system to miss recordings as well.