Foxtel IQ DOWNGRADE what a piece of junk

[Brucep]

Hi Rohan,

Glad you have things sorted out.

The converter that I make is basically a stripped down version of the Philips remote control pictured, but it also contains a seperate microprocessor to recieve IR data from the TiVo......it then uses the Sony data to resend the command in the correct format for the pay TV box.

What basically happens, is you set the TiVo (Series 1) to output SONY format remote control commands (this is done in guided setup), plug the converter into the IR port on the back of the TiVo, then stick the IR Blaster (IR Emitter) on the front of the Pay TV STB. The TiVo will send commands as if it was controlling a Sony device, and the converter decodes these, and resends the command in a format that will work with the Pay TV STB (the converter only sends 0-9 digits).

The reason that this has been necessary, was due the the newer Australian pay TV boxes using a IR protocol that the TiVo is unable to learn and reproduce correctly. The commands sent from the remote contains a toggle bit, which changes with every key stroke. The protocol itself is also protected under an NDA by Philips.

So what I was saying in the first post was that if you are able to try a Austar remote on the IQ box, and if at least the 0-9 digits change channels correctly.....then the converter will work OK with the IQ box.

Hope that makes sense.

Regards,

Bruce

[rhamer]

Ok, I understand now.

I was thinking along the same lines, as I have written sony IR decoding software before for another project.

Your solution is quite clever in that you just transpose the chip from the remote.

Given the IQ remote looks similar, I pulled apart one of mine only to find the IC is one of those blobs on a board jobs and impossible to remove.

I could trace out the keyboard matrix and then chop off the part of the board that contains the IC and wire it in that way, but right now I have too much on my plate.

So I guess it will all depend on how much that IQ crappy interface bugs me (which right now is a lot) to see if it gets pushed up the list a bit.

Thanks for your advice.

Cheers

Rohan

[rhamer]

Well it turns out the useless IQ interface is so bad I had to do something about it.

I contacted Bruce and obtained one of his converter boards. I couldn't use it directly, as the IQ remote has a chip that can't be removed, so I adapted it to drive the remote directly via an interface board.

It has been running for a few hours now and so far it's great, and finally I have my old TiVo interface back.

I'm happy, the wife is happy and I even worked out I can get the second IQ tuner into play (with some caveats) when needed.

Cheers

Rohan