Infrared control gadgets?

I use Irtrans

I like the ethernet version because it's very easy to setup and maintain. There are cheaper setups but this is very reliable.

I recently added a USB-UIRT to my Win-XP PC so that BeyondTV can control cable settop boxes. It works great so far, although I did have a few problems, getting it to send all the numbers properly to change channels, during the initial setup. I haven't tried it at any distance.

Yesterday, I found a HP media center box (5188-1667), $3 at a thrift shop, that should be able to do the same job. I was pleased to see it installed without problem into XP, and the MCE remote I had laying around works with it fine to control BeyondTV.

I haven't used Girder, but understand that it gives you way more capability to control more things. Expensive though.

My last PC came with a remote and IR receiver for Windows Media Player. In WMP you can elect to "share" the media with any computer in the house securely (grant delete access to only you etc).

The remote also controls Windows Media Center which I use as my main DVR with a HD tuner card and to share tuner feed across home.

I prefer the media library in WMP over the overly GUI-exagerrated one in WMC though both programs have their strong and weak points.

I mention this because all this is free and works great in my home for sharing, recording, searching and controlling media of all kinds.

I even networked my USB hub so the portable players and cameras, etc. can be accessed over the network and managed in the same software.

I would recommend running the data store as RAID1 though, then you never have to worry about backups even though a 2TB drive becomes a

1TB drive.

I've just completed ripping my entire CD collection in lossless audio (about 2500 CD's to the drive), accessing my home network from work is easy and I can listen to any CD in my collection without having to load it onto my employers computer (I work with headphones on a lot).

Media centers are fun and can be totally free of cost these days.

Does Media Center give you automated marking and simple skipping of commercials? Thet's one of the things I like most about BeyondTV.

Thanx for the info.

Does this WMP function as a "slingbox" in that it broadcasts the media via Ethernet to other recievers?

I would assume the receiving units would need WMP to recieve and decode it for presentation then.

I stopping updating my Media Player at Version 9 as the licence lockdowns started then and many of the functions disappeared from the player.

My last PC came with a remote and IR receiver for Windows Media Player. In WMP you can elect to "share" the media with any computer in the house securely (grant delete access to only you etc).

The remote also controls Windows Media Center which I use as my main DVR with a HD tuner card and to share tuner feed across home.

I prefer the media library in WMP over the overly GUI-exagerrated one in WMC though both programs have their strong and weak points.

I mention this because all this is free and works great in my home for sharing, recording, searching and controlling media of all kinds.

I even networked my USB hub so the portable players and cameras, etc. can be accessed over the network and managed in the same software.

I would recommend running the data store as RAID1 though, then you never have to worry about backups even though a 2TB drive becomes a

1TB drive.

I've just completed ripping my entire CD collection in lossless audio (about 2500 CD's to the drive), accessing my home network from work is easy and I can listen to any CD in my collection without having to load it onto my employers computer (I work with headphones on a lot).

Media centers are fun and can be totally free of cost these days.

I have never seen Media Center play a commercial. How would commercials get into a recording? Thanx for the name though.

Commercials are in the TV programming people often record.

So this software can even pick out commercials from TV records, after the fact?

I assume you are running a TV card of some kind? I would like to hear more about that too.

Thanx

Josepi wrote:

I have 4 tuner cards, for a total of 6 channels I can record. BeyondTV runs a "smartskip" program after it records, where it marks the location of commercial breaks. Then, when you see a commercial start, you can push a button on the remote to skip to the end of the commercial. It is pretty accurate on analog tuners (which includes analog output from the cable boxes). It is less accurate for digital channels (for me, QAM cable channels). The remote also has skip forward or backward buttons for if the commercial marking is not so good, which is much faster than fast forwarding of VCRs or DVDs.

I have one tuner for analog TV (cable), 2 QAM tuners, which could be used for over the air HDTV, and 3 analog tuners getting signals from the cable boxes (non-HDTV). Cards - 1-PVR250, 1-PVR350 (both Hauppauge), an Avermedia M780, and an ATI equivalent to that I don't remember the number for. Most of the cards can also receive FM, although there is no easy way to setup for recording that.

The TV tuners all work off a TV guide type display. See something you want, click a couple time, and it records it. Or program it to record all episodes, all new episodes, etc. of any given program.

Very nice!

That is one feature that the sat PVR had on it was "jump forward x seconds" and "jump back x/2 seconds". Since switching to the cable PVR I really miss it. I may switch back just for that feature alone. The FF and REW really stinks for commercial bashing. Apparently Bev patented it.

I have one tuner for analog TV (cable), 2 QAM tuners, which could be used for over the air HDTV, and 3 analog tuners getting signals from the cable boxes (non-HDTV). Cards - 1-PVR250, 1-PVR350 (both Hauppauge), an Avermedia M780, and an ATI equivalent to that I don't remember the number for. Most of the cards can also receive FM, although there is no easy way to setup for recording that.

The TV tuners all work off a TV guide type display. See something you want, click a couple time, and it records it. Or program it to record all episodes, all new episodes, etc. of any given program.

Josepi wrote:

What make cable box? Many of them are configurable for forward and backward ship intervals.

I beleive it is a Scientific Atlanta PVR model. I am told it's the same for all cable boxes in Canada as Bev sat patented the remote function and the cable companies can't implement it.

I assume you meant "skip" intervals?

Do you have a PVR cable box that can do this? It would be nice to have.

What make cable box? Many of them are configurable for forward and backward ship intervals.

Here is some discussion of this technology. It may be agreements between the cable companies and the advertisers to eliminate the "jump forward" function.

To note: this function does not FF the video. It jumps without any viewing of material.

I assume you meant "skip" intervals?

Do you have a PVR cable box that can do this? It would be nice to have.

What make cable box? Many of them are configurable for forward and backward ship intervals.

Yeah, I fumble-fingered that one.

I have a Sony HDD250 with a cable card and a Motorola QIP6416, both of which have configurable forward/back skip intervals.

Nice boxes.

Is there a way to crossload or off-load video images off these boxes?

It makes me wonder if the "skip" function is only removed from the remote and my cable box will actually do it with a remote code.

Not that I know of.

I dunno. Look up the spec sheet for the box and see what its capabilities are.