LinuxMCE Forums

General => Installation issues => Topic started by: the anxious on March 24, 2009, 04:44:05 am

Title: Fiire Chief - Volume Control, cable box and.. and..
Post by: the anxious on March 24, 2009, 04:44:05 am
Hello,

After almost one year trying to make my sytem work 100%, I almost done.. but I have some problems and now I come to the forum to see if anybody can help me..sorry about my poor english but I think you can understand me.

1) I have a Fiire Chief and I can't control my channels because I use a cable box, or sattelite box, I don't know how can I call this, and it use the "composite" inputs to connect to my PVR 500. My question is.. I need to make a IR blaster? (sorry, I really don't have idea how to get this working, and IR Blaster is the only thing that I found referring to control channels...) Or anything to get the control of my channels on the cable box? And how can I make this?

2) I have a 32" Samsung LCD TV (LN32A330J1), and I can't control the volume... I just have control of the TV when I press the button "TV".. .but I would like to use the gyro function to control volume without need to press the TV button... and finally get the 3 buttons to control all in the LCME...

3) When I use the option "Power Off", I can't power off just the TV.. or I power off everything or when I press to turn off TV and nothing happens.

Well..that's it.

thanks in advance.
djonny
Title: Re: Fiire Chief - Volume Control, cable box and.. and..
Post by: tschak909 on March 24, 2009, 02:34:04 pm
It's very simple.

(1) get a USB UIRT. http://www.usbuirt.com/

(2) get a Xantech 286 double emitter http://www.smarthome.com/

(3) make a device template for your A/V devices, such as your TV and your cable box, etc.

(4)use the setup wizard to tell the system how they are hooked up in your setup, and that the USB UIRT will control them.


for (3) there is plenty of information on either using existing pronto codes, or using the UIRT to learn your existing remotes to make new pronto codes so that the blaster will control them.

You do not need to do anything further.

-Thom
Title: Re: Fiire Chief - Volume Control, cable box and.. and..
Post by: the anxious on March 26, 2009, 07:11:23 pm
Thanks for your answer Thom,
Doing this, when I will use other media director in another room the commands will be sent normally, e.g. waching TV in other room where I don´t have my cable box connected?

and..

The Xantech 286 is this model?
http://www.smarthome.com/8172/Xantech-Mini-Stick-On-Infrared-IR-Emitter-286-00/p.aspx

and this I found in Amazon.. is the same?
http://www.amazon.com/DUAL-STICK-IR-EMITTERS-SMARTHOME/dp/B0007N72X8/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added

thank you

Title: Re: Fiire Chief - Volume Control, cable box and.. and..
Post by: the anxious on April 09, 2009, 10:06:00 pm
another question..
To control the volume and others functions of my Samsung home theater, my tv and my cable box I need do buy a triple IR emitter?
Title: Re: Fiire Chief - Volume Control, cable box and.. and..
Post by: tschak909 on April 09, 2009, 10:14:32 pm
What you do if you want more than two, and the equipment isn't in the line of sight of the transciever, is you get a Xantech connector block, which has up to 4 connectors on it. You can attach that to the UIRT, and attach multiple 286 double emitters to the connector block to have up to 8 devices controlled beyond the line of sight.

Don't forget to get a power supply too.

You can get these things at smarthome.com :)

-Thom
Title: Re: Fiire Chief - Volume Control, cable box and.. and..
Post by: the anxious on June 03, 2009, 05:44:53 pm
I already buy the usb uirt and the xantech ir emitters, but I keep having dificults to make the things works..  :(

I create the device templates for my TV and my cable box, the TV recognized the IR codes and comunicate with the USBUIRT, the ir emiter turn on a red light when I send some command, and the command works. But when I use in the system, my fiire chief don´t control my tv.. and when I press one button (volume for example) it turns my TV OFF (just when I press the first button on fiire), and to turn on again I need use the original control of my tv. After this fiire keeps no controlling my tv..
I was making everything wrong, now I create a new device and I put all of the inputs of TV.. now LMCE control everything on my tv and cable box. 


My cable box don´t have Pronto Codes, it is a RCA cable box, designed for my TV provider. When I try to learn codes using USBUIRT inside "AV Properties" of my cable box, I just don´t receive any flash lights when I press the button on the cable box controller... I don´t know how to make my usb uirt learn codes from my cable box.. anyone help me?
I was trying learn codes close of ir emitter, and not on USBUIRT! :D Now I solved this.

Below in the link are images of some screenshots of my web admin panel to show my conection wizard, av devices, I think the problem is there, but can be PEBKAC too :D 
I made this screenshots today.
http://img132.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=snapshot1ssj.png

My cable box is connected to my PVR 500 on the composite port, and my TV is connected by RGB cable. The sound is connected by one P2 cable jack (like headphones).



The unique problem right now are auto change channels on mythtv.

cheers! almost done!!!
djonny