LIRC Serial Blaster and Hauppauge Receiver

The Situation

I have a Hauppauge PVR350 card, which includes an IR receiver (connected via a 2.5mm socket on the card), but I also need to control an external cable box via an IR blaster (bought from irblaster.info), and have COM1 free.

Actually, since I have a Belkin MediaPilot keyboard (mostly) working, I won't need to use the Hauppauge remote control, but I've included the set-up just in case.

The Solution

Into /etc/modprobe.conf :

# This is for the PVR350 IR receiver
alias char-major-61-0 lirc_i2c
install lirc_i2c /sbin/modprobe ivtv; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install lirc_i2c

# This is for the InfraRed on the Serial Port COM1
alias char-major-61-1 lirc_serial
install lirc_serial /bin/setserial /dev/ttyS0 uart none ; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install lirc_serial
options lirc_serial irq=4 io=0x3f8

# Version for COM2
#install lirc_serial /bin/setserial /dev/ttyS1 uart none ; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install lirc_serial
#options lirc_serial irq=3 io=0x2f8

To get the devices loaded in the right order, we need to do the lircd setup manually. So, into /etc/rc.local append :

/sbin/modprobe lirc_i2c
/sbin/modprobe lirc_serial

# This will be the lirc_i2c    (hauppauge receiver)
/usr/sbin/lircd --device=/dev/lirc0 --output=/dev/lircd

# This will be the COM1 device (blaster)
/usr/sbin/lircd --driver=default --device=/dev/lirc1 --output=/dev/lircd1 --pidfile=/var/run/lircd1.pid

To get the IR commands correctly received and sent, you need to add the IR code definition files (one after another) into /etc/lircd.conf. Each of these files looks like :

begin remote
 name  Hauppauge
 bits           13
 flags SHIFT_ENC
 eps            30
 aeps          100

 one           950   830
 zero          950   830
 plead         960
 gap          89584
 repeat_bit      2

     begin codes
         TV                       0x000000000000100F
         RADIO                    0x000000000000100C
         FULL_SCREEN              0x000000000000102E
         CH+                      0x0000000000001020
         CH-                      0x0000000000001021

...

         1                        0x0000000000001001
         2                        0x0000000000001002
         3                        0x0000000000001003
         4                        0x0000000000001004
         5                        0x0000000000001005
         6                        0x0000000000001006
         7                        0x0000000000001007
         8                        0x0000000000001008
         9                        0x0000000000001009
         0                        0x0000000000001000
         RESERVED                 0x000000000000101E
         MINIMIZE                 0x0000000000001026
     end codes
end remote

Get the full details from http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/.

To allow the received codes to trigger events within MythTV, you need a file that looks like this in ~/.myth/lircrc :

begin
prog = mythtv
button = TV
repeat = 3
config = F5
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = Videos
repeat = 3
config = F2
end

...

And finally, to change the channel on the cable box, you need to add a reference to a script like the following 'change-channel-lirc.pl' to the appropriate input channel via myth-setup :

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Time::HiRes qw(sleep); # Since perl's builtin sleep on does integer seconds

# make sure to set this string to the corresponding remote in /etc/lircd.conf
my $remote_name = "mycablebox";

# Intra-digit time interval in seconds
my $spacing=.2;

# This is the lirc device to send the commands to
my $device="--device=/dev/lircd1";

sub change_channel {
my($channel_digit) = @_;
# print "Sending : $channel_digit\n";
system ("irsend $device SEND_ONCE $remote_name $channel_digit");
sleep $spacing;
}

my $channel=$ARGV[0];
foreach my $digit (split('', $channel)) {
change_channel($digit);
}
#system ("irsend $device SEND_ONCE $remote_name ENTER");