[mythtv-users] Live TV on second Backend while recording?

[Ray Olszewski]

At 10:39 PM 6/26/2003 -0700, mark at zzo.com wrote:
>[...]
>Also does the SnapStream IR Blaster work okay w/LIRC?

The answer to this question is unclear, but probably NO.

The "SnapStream IR Blaster" is an ActiSys 220L (at least that is what 
SnapStream actually shipped as of a few weeks ago). From the sketchy 
documentation I can find for this device, it seems to be a true serial 
device, not one similar in design to the homebrew designs described on the 
LIRC site. That is, it re-encodes for IR transmission signals sent on the 
TX line, and it decodes IR signals received and sends them down the RX 
line. In contrast, LIRC devices are manipulated by driver-level control of 
the DTR and DCD control lines (and powered by the RTS line).

I expect that the 220L can be made to work somehow ... perhaps with the 
regular serial driver rather than LIRC, though. SnapStream apparenty makes 
it work as an IR Blaster under Windows, and there is a Linux kernel driver 
for it as a networking device. But I *suspect* the reports that turn up 
saying it works fine (always without details, though) are based on mixing 
the 220L device up with the older, and very different, ActiSys 200 IR Blaster.

ActiSys itself does not release the manual for the 220L device (it is 
listed on their "free downloads" page, but selecting the link brings up a 
standard userid/password query box), and it sells a development package for 
use with Windows.

I offer all of this as a guess, though, not as a firm report. If anyone 
actually has a 220L working with LIRC (or with Myth any other way), I'm 
sure a detailed "how to do it" report would be welcome by many (since these 
devices from SnapStream are so inexpensive) ... certainly by me. (I'd love 
to be wrong about all of this.)