Change Channels on Your STB via Firewire (1 Viewer)

[antonehenry]

Couldn't find a guide, so I am making one. I won't be able to answer many questions. Credit to PABeaver for linking this all together for me.

Here's what you need:

IRSS
MCE Firewire recording and channel change
ExDeus' STB Firewire Driver Package
MEDIAPORTAL - free media center - TV3 External Channel Changer 1.0.2.0

Install guides are available on all the pages I linked.

What you will want to do is open Timmmoore's MCE 2005 STB CMD first. (should be in your start menu now)

Firewire Channel Change Testing

If you have 1 STB MyTray will configure itself automatically. With 2 STBs MyTray will configure itself but may get the STBs the wrong way round. The following is a way to test the STB channel changing directly.

Run Start Menu->All Programs->Timmmoore Firewire STB->Cmd

Run “channel –v”

(Only enter the stuff between the quotes, not including the quotes)

You should see something like


Firewire STB channel changer V1.0.9, by timmmoore

Device 1 Channel 1 Timeout 0 Dec 0

1 "FireBus MPEG2TS Tuner Subunit Device"

'Motorola AV/C Tuner Device'

"@devicenp:\\?\avc#motorola&dct-6200&typ_5&id_0#376ed3feff5c0e00#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\global" 0

2 "FireBus MPEG2TS Tuner Subunit Device"

'Motorola AV/C Tuner Device'

"@devicenp:\\?\avc#motorola&dct-6200&typ_5&id_0#84fea2feff9f0f00#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\global" 0

3 "Motorola AV/C Panel Device"

'Motorola AVC Panel Device'

UniqueID '376ed3feff5c0e00'

VendorID 'e5c'

ModelID '620a'

VendorText 'MOTOROLA'

ModelText 'DCT-6200'

"@devicenp:\\?\avc#motorola&dct-6200&typ_9&id_0#376ed3feff5c0e00#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\global" 1

4 "Motorola AV/C Panel Device"

'Motorola AVC Panel Device'


UniqueID '84fea2feff9f0f00'

VendorID 'f9f'

ModelID '620a'

VendorText 'MOTOROLA'

ModelText 'DCT-6200'

"@devicenp:\\?\avc#motorola&dct-6200&typ_9&id_0#84fea2feff9f0f00#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\global" 1

5 'NVTV'

"@devicenp:\\?\pci#ven_123f&dev_8120&subsys_024810de&rev_b1#5&1ea1f09a&0&2048f0#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\capture" 0

6 'NVTV'

"@devicenp:\\?\pci#ven_123f&dev_8120&subsys_024810de&rev_b1#5&1ea1f09a&0&2848f0#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\capture" 0

7 'VBox Vb35xx Capture'

"@devicenp:\\?\usb#vid_14f3&pid_a560#600010003d#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\{07ddc96b-774d-4438-aa05-23ea13e922eb}" 0

Device Id ""

Device Version "2.1.0"

Look for Motorola AV/C Panel Device; you will see it occurs twice for device 3 and 4, one for each of my STBs

Try

Channel –v 3 59

This will send a change channel command to channel 59 to device 3. Look at your STBs to see if they obey the command and if you have more than one STB which STB is which. If you want to use it with MCE note the UniqueID for each STBs and how it maps to which STB and also note which STB is tuner 1 and tuner 2 in MCE.

You can see in the list, device 1 and 2 are the AVC tuner firewire devices, 3 and 4 are the AVC panel devices. 5 and 6 are for my dual NVIDIA tuner card and 7 is for my USB VBox HTDV box


If you just want to use the command line application you are done, if you want a command line without a cmd box then channelw.exe takes the same arguments without outputting any text and output opening a cmd window. If you are controlling channel.exe or channelw.exe from another program you may want to use the –n parameter and replace the Device number by the UniqueID. Adding or removing devices will not affect the UniqueID but will affect the device number. To find out the parameters for channel.exe and channelw.exe, type channel -h, you should see:


D:\fire>channel /?

channel: Change channel via firewire, timmmoore Copyright 2005

Firewire STB channel changer V1.0.9, by timmmoore


channel -v -tN -aM -d -n Device Channel

-v: verbose

-aN: alternate commands, N = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4

0: send channel as a single command (doesn't work while streaming)

1: send channel as a 3 press key commands

2: send channel as a 3 press/release key commands (default)

3: send channel as a 3 release key commands

4: send channel as a single command (works with SA3250, SA8X00)

-tN: timeout in milliseconds between digits for -a1, 2, 3 (default: 50)

-f: force commands to be sent on non-supported devices

-d: decimal, send channel as a decimal single key

-n: device number is firewire unique name


Note: Channel by default checks the firewire device and picks the correct command. Parameters should only be needed during testing of a new device.

1. Configure IRSS
2. Select STB Setup
3. Select the tab that corresponds to the tuner you are using for firewire
4. Click on "Select" in the large white box titled Commands
5. Hit the "Set" button next to Run Program
6. In Program put C:\Program Files\Timmmoore\MCE 2005 STB Controller\channel.exe
7. In Parameters put -f [if any additional commands were needed from test above] (Number of Tuner you got from above) %2 and press OK
(%2 is it's way of waiting for the channel change command)
8. CHECK THE BOX THAT SAYS "Send Select Command"

Mine ended up being -f -a0 2 %2 for a command that worked

 

[acidfire52]

This is great, just what I am looking for. Can you expand on it a bit, a little to vague.
Step 2, where is STB Setup? ect...

Thanks,
Ash

 

[PABeaver]

Couldn't find a guide, so I am making one. I won't be able to answer many questions. Credit to PABeaver for linking this all together for me.

Thanks for the credit I like your guide as it explains everything you need from start to finish.

This is great, just what I am looking for. Can you expand on it a bit, a little to vague.
Step 2, where is STB Setup? ect...

You must install the TV3 Blaster Plug-in from IRSS

Step 1 should probably read (or maybe it should be 1a): Configure TV3 Blaster for IR Server in TV Server Configuration

STB Setup is a button toward the bottom of that configuration page.

Hope that helps.

 

[timdastis]

I can't seem to get IRSS to work with my current blaster, so I think I'm going to give this a try.

Currently running SA Explorer 3250, HD-PVR, MP 1.1, Vista SP1

I saw the MCE 2005 STB program has a .msi file for vista RC1, will this work on my vista?

 

[timdastis]

i got this installed and am able to change channels via IRSS setup and the command line but I am unable to successfully get the tv3 external channel changer plugin to work - therefore i cannot change channels within MP - when i click on the plugin it gives me an error and displays nothing when in the TV server config program

Please help, I'm almost there


EDIT - nevermind - i got rid of that plugin and everythign works now - thanks

 

[PABeaver]

A couple of things I would add to this guide now:

The Tv3 External Channel Changer is outdated and does not work with the latest versions of MediaPortal. Just install IRSS (no configuration needed) and the TV3 blaster plugin. Enable and configure the plugin from within the TV Server Configuration which from that point this guide describes well.

Once you configure the plugin. I have to reboot the computer entirely in order for it to actually work with MediaPortal. You will probably skip this step like I always seem to do and not understand why the test channel change works and yet it will not change the channel in MP.

I changed the "ms delay" to 50 and it sends the number very quickly. I am not sure if there is a lower bound to this, so if someone tests this out let us know.