[mythtv-users] another DCT2000 query

[Ray Olszewski]

Thanks again, Ian. Just responding to clarify a couple of things you 
wondered about. I'd welcome any added advice you have ... but I'm also 
making progress here as things stand.

At 08:16 PM 2/18/2004 -0800, Ian Forde wrote:
[...]
> > >What about the python scripts that AFAIK are still in mythtv/contrib?
> >
> > Yeah, thanks for the reminder. I tried this script and it sort of worked,
>[...]
>Okay - I'm confused by the "sort of worked" bit.  What happened when you
>ran the command?

It sent some packets, which is how I confirmed that the DCT's serial port 
was working. But the internal documentation for the Python program is a bit 
sparse, and I'm not a Python programmer anyway, so I couldn't figure out 
how to get it to send the specific instructions I wanted it to send. Is 
there someplace that describes what command-line arguments this program 
responds to? I didn't find one in the stuff I had with it.
[...]
>Basically, if you got the box to turn on and off, I would be convinced
>that your serial port is enabled.  Keep trying both the script and the C
>code.

I have no doubt it is enabled. I'm using it (under manual or cron-script 
control) now.  The question I can't resolve is whether it does two-way 
communication.

1. The C program cannot get a response in its initialization section.

2. The Python program claims it gets responses, always the same packet (or 
always the same in response to a channel-number packet, anyway). But since 
I don't have any docs on how the DCT is supposed to respond on the serial 
port, I don't know if it is getting real responses of something Python'ish 
that I don't understand.

3. The Perl program I wrote to change channels does not get responses from 
the serial port. Outgoing packets to the DCT go through fine, though ... 
which contradicts the claim in the comments in the Python program that the 
DCT's reply has to be read before the DCT will accept another packet.

4. A neighbor has the same cable service and DCT model, and a TiVo. He 
tells me his TiVo can change channels but cannot do anything that requires 
it to get information from its DCT (like know if the serial cable is 
connected ... my friend's example from bad experience).

You see why I am uncertain.