IRMan or UIRT - who's using what?

[RichardH]

Next step of the HCPC is some remote control, and I'm wondering which receiver to go for. The IRMan has the benefit of a nice "professional" looking kit, but should I try the UIRT? Not sure whether I'm that bothered about transmitting too, but might be a nice option - in this case it's UIRT2, or are there other solutions people are using?
Is one easier to integrate than the other?

 

[buns]

I did use IRMan and girder, but now i am using zapstream, a very nice little beastie!

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[RichardH]

Can't find much on Zapstream - have you got a link at all?

 

[buns]

I got it along with my capture card so i dont know of a link, i'll try and find one later today.

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[RichardH]

Ha ha! It's streamzap not zapstream! That's that mystery cleared up....

 

[buns]

Yeah..... i dont know, it was free with my card so i didnt pay any ttention beyond the fact that it worked!

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[Rob.Screene]

I tried the UIRT2 (pre-assembled from Luc, see girder.nl forums).

I have gone back to the IRmain.

a) The UIRT2 (HTPC internal model) wouldn't get totally reliable remote codes with a 7m cable for the IR receiver and senders.

I added the recommended inductor and capacitor filters at the end of the cable and this helped a lot. It was still not as reliable as an IRmain, running over a 7m serial cable.

b) The Girder UIRT plug-in cannot currently control Denon equipment.

The UIRT2 girder 3.2 plug-in needs to learn the raw signal in order to re-send the IR code. This plug-in learn doesn't work with Denon remote controls at present. I think the Denon remotes send a double code which prevents the learn from completing.

There is a fix proposed by the plug-in author, but not yet available. I have learnt and re-sent signals to control my IR lighting and Pioneer CLD-925 Laserdisc.

c) The IRman is what Bob Sorel's HTPC remote/Pronto collection is using. Using the IRman means you are "industry standard" and going to hit the least new problems when adopting other's pronto set-ups in future.

A nice feature of the UIRT2 is that is comes with a wake-on-lan cable, which allows the UIRT2 to be programmed to wake-up the PC when a particular IR button is pressed using wake-on-lan. My Abit BX6-2 motherboard will only resume from standby, not power-up using this. This can be re-wired a little to provide a Power switch pulse, but it's not something I'd like to do.

As I already have an IRman, once the Girder plug-in is fixed, I will use the UIRT2 in addition to the IRman, just for re-sending IR signals to my IR lighting and Denon AVC-A10SE amp. I'll also use to to power=on the HTPC once it uses a modern Pentium4 motherboard and bios.

I have an external UIRT2 pre-assembled and programmed by Luc spare. Make me an offer if you'd like to have it. I didn't realise it requires a 5v supply, even though it runs at the end of a serial COM cable, apparently because the PIC processor on-board needs a little more current than the serial port can usually supply.

regards,
Rob.

 

[RichardH]

Thanks for the offer - in fact buns had a spare IRMan that I've gone for, so I'm all Girdered up!