Hello all, I've recently built a new PC to control my new DTV receiver (model H23-600) where I use SageTV for a DVR. I've used the software for years on another PC with an old RCA receiver.
The new receiver has the USB port to control it, so I picked up a Paterson cable (serial on the PC end, USB on the receiver end) on the recommendation of some of the folks over on the SageTV forums.
When I first got it the new box up and running, it would change channels sometimes, but not for very long without stopping completely. To fix it, I would need to pull the cable from the PC, attempt to change channels, plug the cable back in, and then it would work again for a bit. That worked the first day, but after that it just failed to change channels at all no matter what. After messing with the hardware, I've gone from a PCI card with serial ports on it to a USB adapter cable and software driver that lets me use one of my USB ports on the PC. I don't think the hardware (ports or cables) is the problem based on behavior I'm seeing.
I've been using the DTVControl program (not allowed to posts URLs because my post count is too low, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about) and a lot of the stuff in it does work fine. For example, there's a command to get the date/time from the receiver, and that works fine. Also, the Guide and Menu buttons work as expected, as does the Get Signal Strength button. On top of that, I can use the number keys in the application to punch in a channel number, and that works too (where you see the numbers popping up in the DTV banner area as if you were punching them on the remote). But there is a channel area of the application where you can read the current channel by clicking the Get button (that works), and an edit control where you can type in a channel number and click Set. It's the Set button that always fails, and I'm guessing that whatever method it's using is also the method the DTV serial control in SageTV is using also, and that's why it fails.
Here's a dump of the DTVCon output window when I try to do a channel set:
--> FA A6
<-- F0 Valid Command
--> 01 62 FF FF
--- Timeout
I've tried messing with the Experiment part of the app where you can enter hex encoded bytes to send directly to the receiver, sending things like "FA A6 01 62 FF FF FF FF" thinking maybe they (DirecTV) extended the size of the data being sent for the channel number and the receiver was waiting on more bytes and not getting them, but that just gets the same Timout failure.
I've tried countless PC reboots and DTV receiver unpluggings, but no luck. I really can't think of what could be going wrong here since so much (all?) of the other suff works correctly. Has anyone seen behavior out of a receiver like this before?
--Brad
The new receiver has the USB port to control it, so I picked up a Paterson cable (serial on the PC end, USB on the receiver end) on the recommendation of some of the folks over on the SageTV forums.
When I first got it the new box up and running, it would change channels sometimes, but not for very long without stopping completely. To fix it, I would need to pull the cable from the PC, attempt to change channels, plug the cable back in, and then it would work again for a bit. That worked the first day, but after that it just failed to change channels at all no matter what. After messing with the hardware, I've gone from a PCI card with serial ports on it to a USB adapter cable and software driver that lets me use one of my USB ports on the PC. I don't think the hardware (ports or cables) is the problem based on behavior I'm seeing.
I've been using the DTVControl program (not allowed to posts URLs because my post count is too low, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about) and a lot of the stuff in it does work fine. For example, there's a command to get the date/time from the receiver, and that works fine. Also, the Guide and Menu buttons work as expected, as does the Get Signal Strength button. On top of that, I can use the number keys in the application to punch in a channel number, and that works too (where you see the numbers popping up in the DTV banner area as if you were punching them on the remote). But there is a channel area of the application where you can read the current channel by clicking the Get button (that works), and an edit control where you can type in a channel number and click Set. It's the Set button that always fails, and I'm guessing that whatever method it's using is also the method the DTV serial control in SageTV is using also, and that's why it fails.
Here's a dump of the DTVCon output window when I try to do a channel set:
--> FA A6
<-- F0 Valid Command
--> 01 62 FF FF
--- Timeout
I've tried messing with the Experiment part of the app where you can enter hex encoded bytes to send directly to the receiver, sending things like "FA A6 01 62 FF FF FF FF" thinking maybe they (DirecTV) extended the size of the data being sent for the channel number and the receiver was waiting on more bytes and not getting them, but that just gets the same Timout failure.
I've tried countless PC reboots and DTV receiver unpluggings, but no luck. I really can't think of what could be going wrong here since so much (all?) of the other suff works correctly. Has anyone seen behavior out of a receiver like this before?
--Brad
