Remote control

One of the most important items for VDR is the remote control. No one really wants to control his TV set with a cable bound computer keyboard.

One can distinguish between radio and infrared remote controls.

Radio remote controls

• ATI USB Remote Wonder (works under LIRC)

Infrared remote controls

• MD6461|Tevion / Medion MD6461 and MD46XX

RC of Nova-T

RC of old Nexus

One-for-All 7040

nearly every codes of IR remote controls can be leared with irrecord for LIRC. Configuration file for many of them can be downloaded from the LIRC homepage. One exception is the IR input for Hauppauge DVB-s cards with IR input. Communication for these is accomplished directly using the linux DVB driver and vdr, after initialization with the av7110_loadkeys utility application.

To use ac7110_loadkeys you need an rc5 initialization file (supplied with the application) and then you run
av7110_loadkeys hauppauge_grey.rc5 > /proc/av7110_ir
to initialize the IR driver.

Disassembly and maintenance

If the buttons become unresponsive, the reason could be dirt and moisture that accumulates inside the remote control unit. Disassembling and cleaning it up may help.

Sometimes remote control units are held together by screws, sometime by plastic clips. This Hauppauge A415-HPG remote control unit (which works using hauppauge.toml of the ir-keytable package as noted in LIRC) was taken apart using an expired debit card.

Disassembled Hauppauge A415-HPG (Nova-T PCI 90002)

Disassembled Hauppauge A415-HPG (back side)

Links

[1]	http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~tmccoy	Construction manual for a infrared receiver
[3]	http://www.lirc.org	LIRC homepage