I'm confused yet again....

[grepico]

OK, I've read and reread the wiki and I can't gleen a clear answer to this.

I'm not understanding how the LinuxMCE system will control my A/V equipment.  Here's what I mean specifically.

Most of my A/V equipment is very basic, meaning my TV's only have RCA or Coax input, no RS232 or anything, same with my cable boxes, S-Video and Coax out with only Coax in, again no RS232.  The MD's (I'm looking at the Fiire boxes), only have S-Video or VGA/DVI output and computer soundcard type audio out (which none of my A/V equipment has).  So how does my Cable box and TV hook up and once the A/V part is hooked up, how in the hell is the MD going to communicate with it in terms of power on/off, channel changing, input selection, etc?

I looked at the diagrams showing the connections between devices and there is something called an "Interface Module" that connects to the receiver through IR and to the TV through RS232 but what exactly is it ("Interface Module" is pretty vague) and what happens if I don't have any RS232 connections?

Thanks in advance

[Greg]

If your A/V equipment is controlled only by IR, you use a USB-UIRT to send IR signals from your MD to your A/V Equipment.  The USB_UIRT can also be used to receive IR signals from an IR remote control, so you don't have to use a keyboard and/or mouse to control the MD.

[totallymaxed]

OK, I've read and reread the wiki and I can't gleen a clear answer to this.

I'm not understanding how the LinuxMCE system will control my A/V equipment.  Here's what I mean specifically.

Most of my A/V equipment is very basic, meaning my TV's only have RCA or Coax input, no RS232 or anything, same with my cable boxes, S-Video and Coax out with only Coax in, again no RS232.  The MD's (I'm looking at the Fiire boxes), only have S-Video or VGA/DVI output and computer soundcard type audio out (which none of my A/V equipment has).  So how does my Cable box and TV hook up and once the A/V part is hooked up, how in the hell is the MD going to communicate with it in terms of power on/off, channel changing, input selection, etc?

I looked at the diagrams showing the connections between devices and there is something called an "Interface Module" that connects to the receiver through IR and to the TV through RS232 but what exactly is it ("Interface Module" is pretty vague) and what happens if I don't have any RS232 connections?

Thanks in advance

MD's or your Core/Hybrid can use RS232 or IR blasters to send control instructions to your AV equipment. Obviously for this to be possible your AV equipment must have one of those interfaces to enable LinuxMCE to control it.