Controlling an antenna rotor - almost there...

[mtmsol]

Hi all. I started thinking about this after reading a similar thread:
usb-uirt and beyond tv to switch atenna inputs
Basically, I am installing an outdoor antenna to receive OTA HD, but the stations I want are spread out in different locations sol I'm going to need to use a rotor. The rotor I'm looking at (Channel Master) supports a remote control, so I want to use my USB-UIRT to send commands to rotate the antenna when required.
I know there's no way to do this inside BTV, but what about handling it externally? There's a simple utility (uutx.exe) that allows you to send IR commands through a USB-UIRT from the command line. I noticed that there is an upcomingrecordings.xml file that stores info on the recordings that are comming up. So, I want to find a way to parse that XML file, and when I find a recording comming up on an OTA channel then I want to schedule uutx to send the appropriate command to the rotor just before the show starts. I took a look at the XML file, but it's pretty cryptic and I don't have a lot of experience with this sort of stuff. Even looks like the start date and time are in some weird format. Here's some of the info from the XML for an upcoming recording:

<p><n>Channel</n><v>7</v></p>

OK, looks like I can determine what channel the recording is on.

<p><n>VideoDeviceName</n><v>@device:pnp:\\?\usb#vid_07de&amp;pid_0600#6&amp;62e9164&amp;0&amp;5#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\capture</v></p></pc>

Looks like I can identify which device is going to handle the recording, so this could help ID the OTA recordings

<p><n>TargetDuration</n><v>36000000000</v></p><p><n>TargetStart</n><v>128221056000000000</v></p>

Here's the cryptic start date, time and duration - not sure how to decode this...

So, I think all of the pieces are there to make this work, I just need a hand trying to figure out how to parse the XML. Anyone want to help figure this out?

[merrypig]

Have you looked into getting a custom 'tuner' dll created? It should be possible to create one that will send cmds to the rotor as well as a stb.

[Fonceur]

Take a look at 64 bit integer date stamps for the date and time format used by BTV...

But in principle you don't need that, as merrypig said, if you build a custom tuner, BTV would use it for that specific capture card.

If you can't come up with a simple solution, I could always add that to BTV-Externinator... It would be simple enough for me to monitor a tuner and send a specific command based on a Table of channels, since that is basically what I am already doing when recording on tuners not supported by BTV...

[grandpaken]

Originally Posted by merrypig

Have you looked into getting a custom 'tuner' dll created? It should be possible to create one that will send cmds to the rotor as well as a stb.

I was thinking SSExeTuner could be used along with a small program that calls the IR program. I've got some VB code I wrote that changes channels through my Global Cache unit based on being passed the number from BTV. SSExeTuner passes the channel number to the application that in turn could call a program that looks up the OTA channel in a table and passes the antenna direction to the IR program. BTV would need to be setup to start the recording a minute or two before the show starts. The only pitfall I see is if you have back to back recordings on different channels. My antenna is pretty slow If you have make a big change in direction.

[mtmsol]

Originally Posted by merrypig

Have you looked into getting a custom 'tuner' dll created? It should be possible to create one that will send cmds to the rotor as well as a stb.

Sounds perfect. I tried searching the forums form some info on creating a custom tuner, but could not find much. Could you provide some more details on what's involved?

[Voxelflinger]

Check this out. http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/merging.html
Read the section on DTV and rotor problems.