[mythtv-users] Better DCT-2000 (DCT-2244, etc) serial control

[Jim Paris]

I finally got cable at my new place and it's Comcast digital with a
Motorola DCT-2244 box, so before setting up MythTV I wanted to make
sure I could nicely control it.  The attached program provides a
utility, "channel", which will set the channel on a DCT-2000
compatible box via the RS232 serial link.

An earlier program was posted, "remote.py" and "changechannel.sh",
that does this.  I tried this, but it's not very robust in that it
doesn't pay attention to any of the answers from the box.  This
version is able to communicate somewhat with the box, which means it
has the added features of

- doesn't change the channel if we're already on it
- attempts to exit menus and even power on the box if necessary
- clears the OSD after switching the channel
- will report the current channel if called with no arguments

I finished it a few minutes ago and it seems to work for me.  It takes
about 0.3 sec if we're already on a channel, or 2.9 sec if it needs to
switch (which is about the fastest the cable box can go anyway).  I
haven't tried integrating it with MythTV yet.  It may or may not work
on boxes other than mine.  It certainly could still use some work.
See README and TODO.

Released mostly under GPL, except some code is from Don Starr's
DCTTest at http://www.starrsoft.com/freeware/DCTTest.zip, and the
licensing status of this code is unclear (I'm waiting to hear from
him).

Hope this is useful to someone.

-jim

search keywords: DCT2000 DCT-2000 DCT2244 DCT-2244 digital cable box
change channel serial rs232 protocol
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: dct-channel.tar.gz
Type: application/x-tar-gz
Size: 6597 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20031007/06661dd7/dct-channel.tar.bin