# ASK DBSTalk: Controlling the 921 with HTPC



## BCat (Feb 7, 2004)

I'm building a home theater with all functionality centrally controlled by a Home Theater PC. How can the PC tell the 921 what and when to record?

-Brian


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Good question. About the only way that I can think of is to use an IR transmitter controlled by the HTPC software to change the channels on the 921. But, I'm not sure how you'd run the 921 output through the HTPC unless you're using a Holograph3d card to take the component outs from the 921 through.

SageTV uses the Actisys IR-200L for this task. There's also a USB IR transmitter that has been developed by one of the guys over at AVSforums. Either John Rhees or Jeff Kohn I think - don't remember for sure.


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## BCat (Feb 7, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Good question. About the only way that I can think of is to use an IR transmitter controlled by the HTPC software to change the channels on the 921. But, I'm not sure how you'd run the 921 output through the HTPC unless you're using a Holograph3d card to take the component outs from the 921 through.
> 
> SageTV uses the Actisys IR-200L for this task. There's also a USB IR transmitter that has been developed by one of the guys over at AVSforums. Either John Rhees or Jeff Kohn I think - don't remember for sure.


When are these set top box companies going to realize that they are not the only content providers, and that consumers do not want to have to program each device individually? I don't know anyone that wouldn't want a single point of control (assuming it controlled everything and was easy to use) for all their media devices.

-Brian


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## Ronald K (Jan 11, 2004)

The 921 is unable to control the 921.


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## Kagato (Jul 1, 2002)

Considering the price of the box the 921 needs some simple USB serial functionality. It's just the kind of thing high end companies like Creastron like to see. It's not like we're talking rocket science. A simple text protocol to change channel, modes, list timmers and add an timmers. Many of the STBs that the cable companies are deploying these days have serial connections that will respond to Tivo.

Adding USB serial is pretty much a single module for the kernel. I'm guess listing and adding timers is already a fairly modular process that can be included in a small C program.

I think it would be in Dish's best interest to do this. Afterall, if they get Dish Wire going, having an interface like this would pretty much disarm most legitimate reasons people would have to crack the case open and mount the drives, and change the prom checksum (which is what people currently do with DirecTivo).


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## JoeQ (Dec 17, 2003)

Ronald K said:


> The 921 is unable to control the 921.


Never tried that but a SA TIVO will control a 921.

I just wish the S-video was active at the same time as the component (480i of course on the S-Video).


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## Doody (Dec 17, 2003)

i believe Ronald was making a joke given the current state of OTA etc. in the 921.

doody.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

JoeQ - so do I, but that's a hardware limitation.


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## JoeQ (Dec 17, 2003)

They are both active during boot so why not?


I mentioned the TIVO because the original question was about controlling the 921.

Since it will send the correct IR codes to the 921 to change channels , we know that the 921 will respond to IR commands from the TIVO (as well as the 6000's IR remote).

Course I recall that IR tidbit was long ago established.

An aside comment is that if you want to save disk space on your 921, you can let the TIVO handle the SD channels and leave the 921's disk free for just HD.

There are learning IR blaster's that can be controlled by your PC to control your 921.

I am active in the HTPC forum over at avsforum and a year or so ago, a couple of us figured out what we needed to have for our PC's to switch our 5000's to SHOHD,HBOHD with a programmable IR blaster.
That project was for automaticaly switching channels on the 5000 to feed our PC HDTV recorder cards.

I never got around to doing the project cause I wanted a seemless integration with my HD PC card. Need the source for that.

A cursory search does not turn up that thread now so I forget what the model #,etc. but if the original author of this thread is still interested, I can dig deeper.

Let me know.

Joe


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Joe, I don't have the message here, but when I get home tonight I'll try to remember to post the message I got from the engineering director at Eldon about why 1080i/720p and 480i can't be output simultaneously. It's definitely a hardware limitation, but I don't remember exactly how he put it.


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## BCat (Feb 7, 2004)

JoeQ said:


> There are learning IR blaster's that can be controlled by your PC to control your 921.
> 
> I am active in the HTPC forum over at avsforum and a year or so ago, a couple of us figured out what we needed to have for our PC's to switch our 5000's to SHOHD,HBOHD with a programmable IR blaster.
> That project was for automaticaly switching channels on the 5000 to feed our PC HDTV recorder cards.
> ...


Is it just me, or does anyone else think that using IR to control a device with a built-in FireWire port a bit ridiculous?

I would appreciate any info you can dig up

Thanks
-Brian


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## JoeQ (Dec 17, 2003)

BCat said:


> Is it just me, or does anyone else think that using IR to control a device with a built-in FireWire port a bit ridiculous?
> 
> I would appreciate any info you can dig up
> 
> ...


Try this:
http://www.usbuirt.com/

or this:

http://www.home-electro.com/tira2.htm


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