[mythtvnz] Infrared Receivers

[Robin Gilks]

> Hey,
>
> I need some help getting a remote working with MythTV.  I've got a
> Logitech
> Harmony 515 programmable remote.  I've got it working with my TV and home
> theatre system.  It's great.  I can just press the button to watch TV and
> it
> will turn on the TV and the home theatre systems and set them both to the
> right inputs.  Now all I need to do is set it up to work my MythTV box.
>
> I got a remote ages ago that came with a usb infrared receiver, but I
> can't
> seem to get it to see any commands from the remote.  It has a little red
> LED
> that flashes when it sees an infrared signal, but it doesn't trigger
> anything on MythTV.  This is what lsusb says about the infrared receiver.
>
>   Bus 003 Device 003: ID 046d:c016 Logitech, Inc. M-UV69a/HP M-UV96
> Optical
> Wheel Mouse
>   Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0419:0001 Samsung Info. Systems America, Inc.
> IrDA
> Remote Controller
> In MythTV I have configured it to use 'Samsung USB IR Receiver'.
>
> Does anyone know how I can get this infrared receiver to work with this
> remote?  If not, can someone please recommend an infrared receiver that
> will
> work for me?

IrDA is not the same as IR as used by a remote - different animal
altogether. IrDA uses a higher level protocol to exchange data whereas
remote controls use a relatively simple mark/space encoding to transfer
raw data.

There are 7 levels of interface to consider which I guess is why people
have so much trouble with IR stuff. Taken one at a time its easier to
debug!!


1. What type of signals the remote sends (38KHz, 42kHz etc). The Harmony
can be programmed to generate a set the receiver is happy with
2. The coding within the signals (RC5, RC6 etc).
3. What the receiver is capable of seeing from (1) above
4. Drivers for the receiver so that lircd can recognise it (USB, serial etc)
5. The codes that lircd recognises which relates to (2) above and is
defined in /etc/lircd.conf
6. The codes that lircd forwards to the applications as the result of
keypresses on the remote (defined by /etc/lircrc usually)
7. The codes that MythTV expects and how they are mapped to functions
(Setup->Key Editor)

See - I told you it was simple :-)

-- 
Robin Gilks