Updated IR Blaster Drivers!

[amit]

New IR Blaster drivers have been posted which now give several options for the user to customize how to control the IR Blaster.

- specify the delay between sending each channel code
- ability to pad channel numbers to a fixed number has been added. e.g: If your cable box needs 004 to be entered to tune to channel 4, you would set padding to 3.

http://www.snapstream.com/products/i...er/actisys.htm

Please send comments to development@snapstream.com

[carl2nasa]

I received the IR blaster cable pack today. Am trying to set it up . Tried the old drivers and they hung while trying to detect the bitrate. Uninstalled them and found the new set released today. The setup is telling me that it now can't find my device when trying to detect it. The old drivers at least detected the device. Any thoughts ?

WinXP Home
700MHZ celeron
512 MB Ram
40 GB HD

[starwalker]

Thursday, May 23, 2002 * 12:03 PM EDT USA

Same result here. Got passed detection by tweaking Com1 settings. Then the problem was back to lock up on frequency detection! I couldn’t find “happy” com settings to suit the IR and XP simultaneously. The program would go to “Not responding” in Windows Task Manager, either immediately or after a slight delay.

Really frustrating.

I’d hoped to find somebody here talking about this, but didn’t think anyone else would so soon. Good that you have.

[amit]

carl2nasa:
It sometimes takes some tweaking to detect the device. Have you tried perhaps plugging in a different com port or renaming your com port?

starwalker:
The program does indeed stay in non-responding mode while it is trying to recognize the frequency codes of your remote. It sometimes takes a good 45 seconds for it to recognize the codes.

[carl2nasa]

Hooked an external modem to both ports I have and it worked perfectly. Tried renaming the port and changing the settings. Should 9600 8,N,1 be the settings for this. When I click detect device, and select the actisys IR, it searches a few seconds then comes back with the message:

Unable to locate and initialize the selected device. Please ensure the device is properly connected to your computer.

Are the older drivers available for me to try them again? With those, the IR was detected but the would lock up on frequency or bit rate detection. I did get as far as bit rate detection at one point with the older drivers.

[srigby]

Same problem for me - no detection - on both COM ports. The old software used to work for me.

[patrick]

I have tested it out on 2 different machines here. I have not problems with it seeing the IR Blaster. The only differeance between the old one and the new program is that you can set the delay your self. If you had no trouble with the old version then I would go back to using that one. If you could not get the older version to cause of the time dely and the new version does not recognize the IR Blaster then let me know please.

[starwalker]

Friday, May 24, 2002 * 11:22 AM EDT USA

Amit wrote

starwalker:
The program does indeed stay in non-responding mode while it is trying to recognize the frequency codes of your remote. It sometimes takes a good 45 seconds for it to recognize the codes.

Following Amit’s advisory made no difference in and of itself. I held keys over two minutes, I held keys till they timed out, I held the keys till my fingers were numb... all to no avail -- all this at a distance of about 8-10 inches from tuner remote to Actisys IR. At the same, the data-trans indicators on the Belkin USB to serial port periodically, every four or five seconds, flashed green, while at the same time Windows Task manager reported on the one hand that the task was not responding, and on the other that the CPU usage indicator for irtuner.exe popped back and forth from 99% to 98% CPU usage. Hmmmm.

I made no com-spec changes and left them at 9600, 8, None, 1, None.

Instead, I placed the remote nose to nose with the IR at a distance of about two inches. Voilà! It seemed to work then, virtually instantaneously. I have a fast system otherwise, as you will read below.

I did not change the defaults in IRsetup. These are the contents of my irtuner.ini:

[IRTuner]
Driver=as_ir200l.dll
ComPort=4
UseEnter=1
UsePadChannel=0
SetPadChannel=3
TimeDelay=100

My satellite particulars are:

Sat Provider: DishNetwork
Service Tier: Top 100 + Showtime
Sat Tuners: EchoStar Technologies Model DP301’s
Tuner Remotes: EchoStar Technologies IR Remotes 103602

This is the latest equipment from DishNetwork, and was installed approximately May 1. I've had no problems previous to that with DirecTV and a straight serial connect I put together myself following info I found on SnapStream. Worked like a charm.

I suspect the problem is unique to this DishNetwork equipment.

In another post and it's threads... Topic: ActiSys Help illianj posted tvr contents for other DishNetwork equipment that appears far more detailed than mine below so I've got to question the adequacy of mine (see that post & threads).

The contents produced in my irtuner.tvr are:

irtuner 57600 152
CHANNEL1 65 n f8 ff ff ff ff cf
21 r fc
34 r fc 9f
35 r fc 3f
CHANNEL2 65 n f8 ff ff ff ff cf
21 r fc
34 r fc 9f
35 r fc 3f
44 n f8
CHANNEL3 65 n f8 ff ff ff ff cf
21 r fc
48 r fc 9f ff e7
47 r fc 9f ff f3
49 r fc 3f ff cf
44 n f8
CHANNEL4 64 n fc ff ff ff ff e7
21 r fc
35 r fc 3f
44 n f8
34 r fc 9f
CHANNEL5 65 n f8 ff ff ff ff cf
21 r fc
34 r fc 9f
22 r f8
35 r fc 3f
CHANNEL6 64 n fc ff ff ff ff e7
21 r fc
35 r fc 3f
34 r fc 9f
CHANNEL7 65 n f8 ff ff ff ff cf
21 r fc
47 r fc 9f ff f3
48 r fc 3f ff e7
44 n f8
CHANNEL8 64 n fc ff ff ff ff e7
21 r fc
49 r fc 3f ff cf
34 r fc 9f
48 r fc 9f ff e7
35 n fc 3f
CHANNEL9 65 n f8 ff ff ff ff cf
21 r fc
61 r fc 9f ff f3 ff fc
60 r fc 9f ff f3 7f fe
62 n fc 3f ff cf ff f9
CHANNEL0 152 r fe ff ff ff f7
125 r fe
266 n fe ff ff ff ff f7 ff ff ff ff ff ff fb
152 n fe ff ff ff fb ff 7f ff ff ef ff fb
189 n fe ff ff ff ff fb ff 7f ff ff ff ff ff fe ff df
97 n fe ff ff ff fb

Of course I have no way of knowing whether they are correct!? I only know that so far they don't appear to work.

What I do know is that running the diagnostic test over and over again to produce channel changing test recordings did NOT change the channel already manually set. I was able to see the data-trans indicators flashing on the Belkin USB to serial port, a total of three sets of signals each (I was using channel 201 as my target in the test recording setup, while the tuner was already set to channel 135 (BBCA)), so it appears the data were making it through the serial port to the IR. But that the first digit transmission didn’t even change the channel to “2” suggests to me that the codes generated for my irtuner.tvr are somehow incorrect.

Again my satellite particulars are:

Sat Provider: DishNetwork
Service Tier: Top 100 + Showtime
Sat Tuners: EchoStar Technologies Model DP301’s
Tuner Remotes: EchoStar Technologies IR Remotes 103602

Anyone have any experience with this particular hardware?

My system specs are:

Computer: vpr Matrix 2200
CPU: Intel Pentium IV 2.2GHz
RAM: 512 MB
MB: Intel/Intel 845 ChipSet
FrontSideBus: 400MHz
HardDrive: 120GB 7200RPM ULTRA DMA4 Western Digital
OS: WinXP Home Edition
Com Port: Belkin F5U103 USB Serial Port (COM4) with flashing data-trans indicators

TV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI
Driver Type: VFW

I myself have been working on this ever since I received my two IRBlaster Packages from Snapstream about two weeks ago.

I'm feeling somewhat weary, so close yet still so far from solution. Any and all help will be appreciated.

/s/ Joe Borda

I am in the same boat also except I have a model 4900 Dish Network Receiver. I have made sure that the receivers do accept other IR inputs. And the Model 301 is an IR only system. I have the problem under both set of drivers.

I did make sure I tried multiple distances and changed to Remote IR channels too.

I believe this is a harware problem with the IR Blaster.

Patrick or Amit, do you have any other Ideas for us to try.

Thanks

[TV Scheduler]

I have finally added support for the ActiSys 200L to TV Scheduler. I'm very impressed with the hardware. I do have one odd remote here that I had problems with. I added a quick and dirty fix by allowing a change in transmit timing.

What I'm seeing in the posted data looks like the frequency was learned incorrectly. If you fell like playing around with the remote you can download the current beta of TV Scheduler. This is just the executable. If you download and run the setup program it will change some of the file associations that SnapStream uses for TitanTV.com and then you would have to change them back in folder options - file types.

I am able to use commands learned by SnapStream's little setup program so you might be able to do the reverse. You would have to edit the command as written in the file but that isn't hard to do.

Oh, I have no idea how TV Scheduler will behave under new version of Windows. I don't have it so I can't test it. It works fine under 98 and ME.

Bob

Any Ideas on this yet?

I did some checking with people at Dish. I did find out that the dish remotes send out multiple frequencies. I will try to get more info.

My question is that will the IR-200L output multiple frequencies when it sends a signal? Will it pick them up when learning the pushed keys?

Thanks

[starwalker]

Sunday, June 02, 2002 * 3:30 PM EDT USA

I have to wonder how many of us with DishNetwork satellite service are lining up to return Snapstream’s IR Blaster Cable Packs--failing the promise Use this cable pack to connect your Dish Networks Satellite Receiver--because we don’t have a completely working software solution still yet?!

I bought two of them.

Even a “We’re working on it” response ya’ll at Snapstream would be better than nothing.

Those of us with the problem have been providing more than ample, detailed information.

[amit]

Sorry for the delay in responding. We are going to further test Dish Satellite and the IR Blaster. We are not sure why DISH doesnt work with the IR Blaster. I will post some results as soon as possible.

[starwalker]

Monday, June 03, 2002 * 11:46 AM EDT USA

Thank you amit for your response. I do appreciate that ya’ll are dancing as fast as you can. So many dances to attend, and so little time.

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />