[mythtv-users] Dish Network and MythTV

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Wed Nov 30 14:05:56 EST 2005


Dan Wilga wrote:

> Another wrinkle in the IR blaster story is that, because Dish uses a 
> faster-than-normal 56 KHz IR carrier frequency, I and others have had 
> problems getting LIRC to reliably change channels on their equipment. 
> For me, it works about 95% of the time. I'm about to test the newest 
> beta version of LIRC, since it has changes that may help this problem. 
> Another user bought a MyBlaster device to use instead of LIRC-based 
> hardware.

For me, in two years with DISH as my only source, I've missed two 
recordings because of failed channel changes (and my database tells me 
I've had 3105 recordings in that time not including the occasional 
"delete and allow re-record"--wow, I watch too much TV).  However, the 
problem wasn't LIRC or my IR transmitter, it was the DISH receiver.

If the DISH receiver loses its signal (i.e. due to rain or something), 
it won't accept direct channel change requests (even though you may have 
lost signal to one satellite, but not the other)--you can only change 
channels with channel up/down (don't I wish "OpenTV" were as open as it 
claims to be).  As you might have guessed, I wrote my channel change 
script to use the channel numbers directly instead of computing the 
appropriate number of channel up/down signals to send, so my receiver 
ignored my request, my Myth box started recording a few seconds/minutes 
of "No Signal" followed by the channel the receiver was previously set to.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the 
no-signal-at-the-time-of-channel-change problem has actually happened to 
me three times in the two years, but once, the receiver just happened to 
be on the right channel, so I still got my show.  :)

Mike


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