[mythtv-users] Need help getting serial port control of DCT25xx settop box

[Marc Randolph]

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 9:14 PM, Craig Huff <huffcslists at gmail.com> wrote:
> All references below are to files installed with MythBuntu 10.04.  YMMV.
>
> I tried the channel changer script supplied in
> /usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/channel_changers/dct2000serial,
> but while it generated reactions, it couldn't get the STB to tune to
> the desired station.  No doubt because the STB firmware is too old
> (3.38 vs documented minimum 7.54!
>
> I was led (by this mailing list, thank you!) to try the one in
> /usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/channel_changers/dct-channel.
>
> I have no experience building from sources, but this channel changer
> is only supplied as source, apparently, and a Makefile is supplied.
> There is no README that describes how to install it, though.  I tried
> "make" and "make install" but I get the same error message in both
> cases because there is "no rule supplied to make channel.c required by
> channel.1".
>
> How do I get this fixed so I can even try it out?

Howdy Craig,

At least on the source that I have, it appears to have the .c files
compressed (hence the .c.gz extensions).  Try "gzip -d *.gz" before
doing make.  You may have to adjust directory and/or file permissions
to build this, or else use sudo before every command.

Having said all that, the code that is distributed by myth is beyond
old.  If you're going to build from source, you might as well get the
latest version from here:
http://centerclick.org/programs/dct-channel/

(you extract files from .tgz with "tar xvfz filename.tgz").  I never
tried to do any benchmarks or other tests between this newer one and
the original that you are trying to build, but it has been working
fine for me since 2008.

If all this fails, I guess you're left with trying to swap out cable
boxes (use any excuse... "TiVo won't work with it", or "it acts
funny", or whatever).

Good luck!

  Marc