[vdr] Sky Digibox control via RF2 from PC

["Iwan Davies" <iwan.davies@translutions.co.uk>]

Hi

The following message was posted to the uk.tech.tv.sky newsgroup on USENET
yesterday evening.

The idea is to use the RF2 connection on the back of the Sky Digibox like
the SkyLink remote control extender does to control a Sky Digibox from a PC.
I was wondering whether this could be used by a plugin (such as Klaus' Sky
plugin) to drive the Digibox from VDR. The author of the message has given
his permission for me to reproduce it here, but asks that any initial
contact with him is made through me - he's not a VDR user and this is part
of a bigger personal PVR project.

Cheers

Iwan

==MESSAGE STARTS

Several people were asking about how to drive a digibox from a PC
via the RF2 socket. I've now done this (to a Pace 2200), here's
how:

You need to turn an RF carrier on and off. I'm using a carrier of
4.9152MHz, simply because I have an oscillator of that frequency
on my circuit board. Others say that 6MHz is the official frequency.

The oscillator is ANDed with a suitable output from one's PC
(e.g. one could use a parallel port bit) via a TTL gate (such as a
7408), and fed via a 1000pF capacitor in series (it is important to
block the DC power on RF2!) and connected to the RF2 socket.

The RF is modulated using the same bit patterns as the usual IR.
It looks like this [view with fixed font!]

_ = carrier off
- = carrier on

___------__-_-_-__-__--_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_--_-_-__-_-_-_-____

   <-----digibox-prefix------->
                               <--------16-data-bits---------->

Each character in the above string is 450us long.

Each data bit is _- to send a '0' and -_ to send a '1',
so the above pattern sends 0070 hex (blue button).

You just need to send the string once to register a keypress.
Leave 300ms between button presses, to ensure all are accepted
(particularly important if you want to press the same button twice).

Here are the codes for the buttons (in hex):

0=0000 1=0001 ... 9=0009 Off=000C
ChUp=0020 ChDown=0021 Text=003C Up=0058 Down=0059 Left=005A Right=005B
Select=005C Red=006D Green=006E Yellow=006F Blue=0070 BoxOff=007D
Service=007E Sky=0080 Help=0081 Backup=0083 Info=00CB Guide=00CC
Interactive=00F5

(I guess the codes for Sky+ are similar, can anyone give them?)

--
Translutions Ltd.
French & German > English
http://www.translutions.co.uk/



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