[mythtv-users] Satellite TV and MythTV, getting started

[Brad DerManouelian]

On Jan 23, 2009, at 6:43 AM, jedi wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 08:00:38AM -0500, David Asher wrote:
>>> I will look around for the USB to
>>> serial adapter does not sound very hopeful so will also look into  
>>> the IR
>>> Blaster as a way to control it.
>>
>> I found these when I was looking.  Note that I have not TRIED them
>> yet, but the website seems to know about the issue and claims these
>> work with linux:
>
> ...I thought the problem was the DirecTV box, not Linux.

Yes, that's true. I contacted SerialIO directly and talked with a  
sales guy who didn't know much but he asked the engineering team and  
called me back to say the pl2302 chips are "long gone" and he doesn't  
know of any way to get an adaptor with one any more. They all moved  
over to 2303X.

> I followed a link posted by someone else and had no trouble
> with setup. At the time, they seemed more expensive than
> they should have been but they've been trouble free.
>
> Although IR blasters are still quite doable. They aren't as
> bad as a lot of people say. Plenty of people (Tivo users)
> got by with them before wired control methods were more
> commonplace.
>
> The main problem with IR blasters is dealing with LIRC.

That's true as well. Luckily, there is some useful information on  
running two separate lirc instances to make life a little easier here:
http://losdos.dyndns.org:8080/public/mythtv-info/MythTV_DISH_IR_LED_TX_via_Modified_LIRC.html

Some of the info is outdated, but if you take that into consideration  
you should be able to muddle through like I did when I first started  
with DirecTV.

-Brad