[mythtv-users] Question regarding LIRC and SENDING Remote commands.

[Lee Maisel]

Ronald Frazier wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 12:10 AM, Lee Maisel <maisel at lobo.net> wrote:
>   
>> As you know, my wife is blind and some very helpful people here have enabled
>> her to use the MythTV system with the addition of text to speech. It has
>> been wonderful!
>>
>> I would like to go the extra step, and create a submenu that calls shell
>> scripts to play recordings of IR commands, outputting them from the WMC
>> remote I have. This should enable her to control some of the other
>> components by menu, such as the CD changer, stereo inputs, etc.
>>
>> Does anyone know if this is possible, and if so, where do I start?
>>     
>
> Well, you wouldn't be sending them from the remote itself. What you
> need is a lirc device that can emit IR. Many of the IR receivers also
> have a connector (which looks like a headphone jack) in which you can
> plug in an IR emitter. You take the emitter (which has a long wire),
> plug in one end, and place the other end over the IR recevied of the
> device you want to control.
>
> You then program lirc to recognize all of the buttons on that device's
> remote (in the same way that you probably configured your primary
> remote, unless you used a pre-made configuration). Once you do that,
> you can then play them back using the irsend command.
>
> For example, here's the shell script I used several years ago to
> control an external DTA to change channels. Note how my script does
> locking. This ensures that you can't have 2 scripts trying to send IR
> data at the same time, which could be problematic. However, note that
> my locking is a bit primitive. There are more robust ways to
> accomplish locking (do a google search for flock shell script)
>
> #!/bin/sh
>
> LOCKFILE=/tmp/lirclock
> TRANSMITTER_NUMBER=1
> REMOTE_NAME=wow_dta_remote
> SETUPDELAY=.1
> DELAY=.2
>
> cmd="$1"
>
> while [ -f $LOCKFILE ]
> do
> #echo "Waiting for lock..."
>   sleep .1
> done
>
> touch $LOCKFILE
>
> irsend SET_TRANSMITTERS $TRANSMITTER_NUMBER
>
> sleep $SETUPDELAY
>
> case $cmd in
>     [0-9]*)
>     for digit in $(echo $1 | sed -e 's/./& /g'); do
>         irsend SEND_ONCE $REMOTE_NAME $digit
>         sleep $DELAY
>     done
>     irsend SEND_ONCE $REMOTE_NAME ENTER
>     ;;
>
>     *)
>         irsend SEND_ONCE $REMOTE_NAME $cmd
>         ;;
> esac
>
> rm $LOCKFILE
>
>
>
>
>   
--------------
Thanks Ron!! Yes, my USB receiver has 2 ports and emitters, that's what 
I meant. not the remote itself, haha.

Anyhow, thanks for the script, it will help me start. That's what I was 
wondering, if I could use LIRC to record the output of the other 
remotes, so I could save them to be called and sent out the IR ports on 
the USB receiver.

Now the other question is, since I am using the pre-made configuration, 
does it matter if I check the box under it for the relaying of commands? 
because they only include a very small basic number of devices.

Thanks!

Lee


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