[mythtv-users] Digital Cable

[Ray Olszewski]

At 12:38 PM 2/26/2004 -0800, jonasb at alum.rpi.edu wrote:

>I haven't had a chance to check if mine has a serial port, but I'm pretty 
>sure it has a USB.... any chance that this C program you mention would 
>work over USB?
>
>How did you confirm that yours was active?

First, I got the information I mentioned, that a neighbor was using it on 
his cable box with his TiVo.

Second, I cat'd the prespecified string provided via a TiVo forum to the 
serial port, to determine that I could turn the box off and on using a 
serial connection.

Third, I got the Python program in ./contrib to work, sort of.

Fourth, I was then able to write a Perl program that worked.

Fifth, I finally got around to getting the newest version of the C program 
and found it worked.

The details are (mostly) in the other thread I mentioned, if you want them.

The C program expects to deal with /dev/ttyS* and to be able to use 
standard setting library calls, so I doubt it would work with USB in native 
form (I'm not very familiar with USB on Linux, though). Perhaps more to the 
point ... the C program (and the Python program, and my Perl program, and 
the test string I mention in "Second") are all specific to the codes used 
by the DCT2xxx series of cable boxes.

If you have a different sort of box ... since all the DCT2xxx boxes I know 
have serial but NOT USB interfaces, I'm assuming it is different ... you 
will need to learn its code set somehow, including any response codes it 
sends back to the PC.

A good start might be telling this list what sort of cable box you do have. 
After that, Google is your friend.