View unanswered posts    View active topics

All times are UTC - 6 hours





Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 7 posts ] 
Print view Previous topic   Next topic  
Author Message
Search for:
PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:31 am 
Offline
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 12:20 pm
Posts: 102
Hi, Everyone,

Finally got my box up and running with R5.5 but, as we've moved and now have digital cable, this is my first experience with STB's and blasters.

Previously we were on analog cable, so running three tuners was easy--just used a Motorola signal booster and all was well.

At the moment I have a single Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2100 STB, but we'd like to have at least two video sources (preferably three) so we can both watch LiveTV and have one or more recordings taking place concurrently, as we did before.

I have three PVR-150's, but only one original blaster, which I found this morning. In addition, I have three standard serial port IRblasters purchased from www.irblaster.info .

I was trying to follow the directions at the Wiki on enabling/configuring the PVR-150 blaster, but they are outdated for purposes of configuring a R5.5 box ("modules=" no longer used in /etc/lirc/hardware.conf etc.).

Regrettably, I'm a total n00b on the blaster/STB concept, and I've read enough posts to leave my eyes crossed at the moment.

Most recent post I was studying:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14096&highlight=blaster

Detailed, but refers to older KM version...

Could I ask what's the best method to get things started?

Here are my inquiries:

--Should I use two or three total PVR-150 blasters, as they do not require additional serial ports?
--Should I use one PVR-150 and one serial IRblaster, if that makes it easier, and only use a total of two tuners ?
--How does one even "assign" a blaster of either type to a specific /dev/video0 or /dev/video1 tuner device so that it changes the channel on the appropriate video source?

The motherboard on my backend only has a single serial port, so I'm willing to purchase an add-in 2-port serial PCI card if needed...

Thanks in advance for any help! I'm totally lost at the moment... :/

_________________
R5.5
p4/3.0 GHz
2GB PC3200
Abit IC7-G
3x Seagate 7200.10 SATA (raid1 /, raid5 /myth)
eVGA FX-5500 AGP
3x PVR-150 (model 1045)
MCEUSB2 remote w/Philips USB transceiver


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:34 am 
Offline
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 12:20 pm
Posts: 102
No one? No ideas at all?

Yikes. Perhaps I better try another solution.

_________________
R5.5
p4/3.0 GHz
2GB PC3200
Abit IC7-G
3x Seagate 7200.10 SATA (raid1 /, raid5 /myth)
eVGA FX-5500 AGP
3x PVR-150 (model 1045)
MCEUSB2 remote w/Philips USB transceiver


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 5:35 am 
Offline
Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2004 10:08 am
Posts: 1637
Location: Virginia, USA
I would have replied but the three-tuner aspect scared me off.

Do you have all the blasters for all the PVR-150s you have? Your message seemed to say that you only found one. My guess is that would be easiest but I was happy to get my single blaster working.

You referenced a thread which referenced the wiki page that helped me get my 150 blaster going:

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... hSetTopBox

I am pretty sure you can ignore the modules sections, as you point out, and go right to Step 3. Then if you look towards the bottom it basically seems to say that you have to run multiple instances of lirc in order to control multiple 150s. I imagine the same is true with multiple serial port blasters but don't know.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:40 am 
Offline
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 12:52 am
Posts: 187
Location: Manitoba, Canada
Up front, this is theory only on how I would try it. Can't verify that it works.

On my StarChoice sat recievers I can configer them with different ID's (0000,0001,...) so that I can control up to 4 recievers with one remote. Check your cable box for similar options, or see if you can get different brands/models that use different remotes.

Learn all the remotes into lircd.conf useing irrecord (mine are IRC451_0000, IRC451_0001)

Get a 2 or 4 headed IR Blaster http://www.irblaster.info/distribution.html

In mythtv-setup set tuner 1 to use channel_change_box1 script containing remote name IRC451_0000, tuner 2 to use channel_change_box2 script containing remote name IRC451_0001,...

My understanding of the multi IR blaster is that it sends the same signal to all of them at the same time, but since you've set you recievers to different codes, they ignore the signals not meant for them.

This would make it easy to set up LIRC as there is only one device to configure. If you can only get identical boxes that can't be ID'd, then you'll have to try to setup individual blasters for each box. And I have no idea how to do that. :)


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:52 am 
Offline
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 1:30 pm
Posts: 23
Did you ever get this resolved? I'm about to do something similar, and am curious.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 8:58 am 
Offline
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 12:20 pm
Posts: 102
No luck. It's maddening...

_________________
R5.5
p4/3.0 GHz
2GB PC3200
Abit IC7-G
3x Seagate 7200.10 SATA (raid1 /, raid5 /myth)
eVGA FX-5500 AGP
3x PVR-150 (model 1045)
MCEUSB2 remote w/Philips USB transceiver


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 10:26 am 
Offline
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 12:16 pm
Posts: 292
It sounds like your single STB has two tuners in it? If so you
do (as someone else said) need to be able to tune both
receivers, which software wise is looks like two STB's. In your
LIRC/IRBLASTER setup, set up each receiver with a different
name.

The key is to remember that you are changing the channel in
the STB and not in the PVR-150. I this means that you
will have to buy an IRBLASTER. Now, although you could use
the IR receiver that comes with the PVR-150, you will very
probably be getting another IR receiver with the IRBLASTER
that you buy so I would just go with it instead of using the
IR receiver that comes with the PVR-150.

At this point it is just a standard serial LIRC / IRBLASTER setup
which would include a slightly different channel change script
for each receiver in the STB. The difference being the name
of the receiver. mythtv-setup will have to be told to use
"external channel change scripts" and each of your PVR-150's
will have a different one, the difference being the "remote name".

All PVR-150's set up to use SVideo and connect the SVideo
from STB receiver #1 to PVR-150 #1; SVideo from STB receiver
#2 to PVR-150 #2.
One serial LIRC to receive the commands from the remote.
One serial IRBLASTER to send commands to the STB('s).
Two channel change scripts (the same except for "remote
name").
If you have two STB's or plan on getting another one, just get
a blaster with two sending units and set up your STB's with
different ID's.

Greg Frost is the man when it comes to LIRC / IRBLASTER. I
have two systems set up with LIRC / IRBLASTER, but I set
mine up manually the way I had to learn in the beginning.
It is probably more automatic now. You might PM Greg.

Here are what I believe to be the "more automatic" setup
scripts that you will probably want to run once you get your
IRBLASTER hardware:

/usr/local/bin/lirc-reconfig.sh
/usr/local/bin/irblaster.sh

Edit: Oh I see you already have serial blaster hardware. You
only need one though. I also see that the one you got does
not have a receiver. That is not a problem. Just use one of
the PVR-150 receivers.

Edit: I am not certain of your confusion level. Forgive me if I
say something that is already obvious to you. Typical STB's
only have one video receiver in them and thus you can only
record (or watch live) one channel at a time. If there is only
one video receiver in your STB, then you only need one PVR-150.
You may want to add a PVR-150 to that if you have analog TV
channels (from a TV antenna) that you want to watch. You
can watch several things that are already recorded all at the
same time though (if you add more "front ends only" computers
to your network). My Windows computers and laptops use a
program called "mythtv player" to watch recordings. My Linux
PC's run Ubuntu; just install mythtv-frontend (I think) with
Ubuntu. The number of PVR-150's you need is the number of
video sources you have and has nothing to do with the number
of pre-recorded shows you can watch at the same time. It
only limits the number of live shows you can watch / record at
the same time.

Cliff


Top
 Profile  
 

Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 7 posts ] 


All times are UTC - 6 hours




Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group

Theme Created By ceyhansuyu