Set Top Box COntrol .. how does this work ?

[eggman51]

Hi All,

I am fairly new to HTPC .. been doing copious research into the field and am *starting* to get some basic idea of how I want my HTPC to work.

However, I need to build this around a fairly stringent Wife Acceptance Factor. We have a Motorola 22xx set top box. The EPG there is decent, but obviously the capabilities are extremely limited in comparison to what one can do with an HTPC.

I understand I can control the STB through UIRT or an RS-232 interface. However, I still don't understand the user experience around that.

What I want to understand is this:

When I am flipping through the EPG and I see listings for let's say channel 62 (which is a digital channel only available through the STB). If I click on that channel in the EPG to select it for viewing, do I go straight into that channel ?

OR...

Do I have to tune channel 3 on the Tuner Card, then tune 62 manually through the interface to the STB (serial or IR) ?

If anyone can shed any light on this I'd appreciated it - thanks!

[bluchez]

SS will automatically send the infared or serial signals to your STB to change channels. When you tell SS to change to 62, it will tell your STB to change to 62, and you can watch it.

I don't have any experience with that particular box, but this is the way it should work.

[eggman51]

Thanks very much for the reply.

Please bear with my potentially stupid questions, am still very much a n00b with this.

So... are you saying that you have the TV tuner card tuned to CH3 and then use the UIRT / RS232 interface to do *all* the channel changing from within Snapstream?

So for example, if I want to watch channel 14 (non digital, could be received through the TV tuner card) does SS tell the STB to tune ch 14?

OR....

Is there some sort of mix between using the TV tuner card and the STB via UIRT / RS232?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

[bluchez]

No, there is no such mix.

You tell snapstream to keep the tuner card on CH 3, and all channel changes will go to the STB.

[eggman51]

OK understood - thanks!