IRtrans delay?

[DJF3]

Team,

I'm getting complaints about the remote of my cable decoder not responding fast enough. Setup:

Remote ---- IR_receiver ---- IR-Trans ---- IR_sender ---- Cable-decoder

When bypassing the IR-Trans module the cable-decoder is responding really fast!

Remote ---- Cable-decoder

Update: At this point Homeseer is not involved at all.. IR into IR-Trans and straight out to the device.

Question: is there anything I can do to lower the delay added by the IR-Trans setup?

[Snelvuur]

When using my remote in combination with homeseer, it is really slow. When removing homeseer out of the picture its really quick.

I think you can also change the duration amount (not sure) in miliseconds or something like that. But i think its already fast enough now.

[Digit]

DJF3 doesn't mention Homeseer?
Although somehow Homeseer was the first thing that popped up in my mind when I read the first post..

[DrDoo]

Im experiencing the same thing (Homeseer).

I have for example an event "Watch Movie" with 3 actions.
Turn on TV
Turn on Reciever
Turn HTPC

These actions performs fine...and fast.

I made some navigation arrows for use withing my HTPC program. (Up, Down, Left, Right Arrow)
The navigation is really slow. Almost like its queuing the commands and executing them really really slow. Or often not at all.

When i press a specific key, for example Guide, or Info or whatever, this responds really fast.
Is the problem maybe in the fact i press the UpArrow a few times in a row to navigate. In essence sending
the same IR command in a relativly short time.
I have the same problem for the volume keys.

Maybe some overflow prevention or something?

[Snelvuur]

The only way for me to get this solved was to skip homeseer.. it might be buffered in between or something else i dont know. But if you have a pronto tsu you can use the javascript code to go directly, the codes are in irtrans database anyway if it was learned with homeseer.

[DrDoo]

Hi Snelvuur,

I haven't really looked at other ways for controlling IRTrans then through Homeseer.
This was really easy and fast to setup, even with learning all the codes from the remotes directly.

Could you perhaps point me in the direction how i would go about using the IRtrans directly without using Homeseer?
I have no pronto. And would like to be able to control them from HSTouch.

I see the hs2_signals in the IRDB from IRtrans.
How would i send an IR command directly from HSTouch?
And would i need some extra configuration on the IRTrans side?

On a side note;
Im using XBMC, so in the end i want to setup the commands using the JSON protocol. Although at the moment i have no clue how
i would sent a JSON command from HStouch. Time to read the WIKI of XBMC JSON. Or if anyone has a clue on where to start (Example)
would be great.

I still would however like the option to use it by IR.

[Snelvuur]

i dont know how to do it directly with hstouch though, i only know it via a pronto.

I think the xbmc part is easier to implent dont forget that you can also install a nice html page which is touch friendly which you can include in hstouch for instance. (instead of doing json/rpc whatever)

[DrDoo]

I haven't looked at using webpages yet.
Althought i doubt arrow navigation is very handy using a html page.
But i'll try to figure it out.

Now just to find out how i can control IRtrans from HStouch without using Homeseer.

Thanks for your answers!

[DrDoo]

Ok, figured it out for a part.

When you look in the IRServer application. All the homeseer learned IR is saved under hs2_signals.
You have to select this entry. Right mouse and select.

Then you save it to a file under filenam: hs2_signals (i used the same in the above list as the remote name).
Then click Flash. You now flash the saved file to your IRTrans module.

Now the commands learned in Homeseer are known by the IRTrans Module so you can access the codes diretly on the IRtrans Module.

Im now learning how i can use this.
I know this command send the IR command for the first IR code learned in Homeseer (or better yet, the signal location).
http://192.168.0.xx/send.htm?remote=hs2 ... &command=0

You can also trigger all the other learned positions.
You can give more commands to the http. For example;
http://192.168.0.xx/send.htm?remote=hs2 ... d=external
I think this is used if you have extra blasters.

So now you can control your IRtrans just by using a http command.
Trying to find out how i can put this command under a HSTouch button.

Pretty new to this all, still...just don't have the time i would like for it.

[Snelvuur]

Thats pretty weird though, i used the irtrans plugin, and all ir signal that i put in homeseer are also in irtrans now... without the need of any flashing.. (just need to know the correct id to call it directly)

[DrDoo]

I read it on the IRTrans boards that i had to flash it.

There are 3 ways of controlling the IRTrans.
Through Homeseer.
Through IRtrans Server (The service thats running on the server).
And directly to the device.

As i understood from the boards, you only need to "flash" the extra IR codes (learned from Homeseer) when
you want to control the IRTrans module directly.

Maybe you control it through the IRTrans Service thats installed on the server?

[Snelvuur]

look at the irtrans website btw, i just see this:

"NEW: The irserver contains an integrated plugin to control XBMC!" so it might be good to look at that, and tell me the outcome too!

[DrDoo]

I did not see it when i installed it 2 weeks ago. I should have another look haha.

I still wanna be able to control it from app though. Being hstouch.

[DJF3]

Controlling IR-Trans directly: great tip!

Correct me if I'm wrong: When I take a random remote of a device that is connected to IR-Trans and press a button the following IR flow applies:

REMOTE-----(IR)------IRT_Receive-eye------(IR)------IRT_Transmit-eye

Q: In this situation the IR-Trans server software and Homeseer will see the signal but have no influence on wether it's being passed on to all IRT_transmitter eyes. So ANY signal received by the IR-Trans device will ALWAYS be send out to the IR_transmit-eyes, regardless of what the IRT SW or Homeseer want to do next.

Agree or not?

If the IRT device passes on every IR signal without 'asking' the SW that should have a super-low delay, right? But it looks like it adds a delay. I was hoping that this could be minimized by fine-tuning the IRT device..

Cheers
DJ

[DJF3]

UPDATE: I was able to increase the responsiveness!

Quote from the IRTrans administrator (http://www.irtrans.de/forum)

in general there is no delay involved when relaying IR codes.

BUT: The IR Code itself has got a certain length. As the IRTrans is not receiving and sending at the the same time it needs to receive the IR Code before it can be sent again. That means there will always be a delay that has got the length of the IR code itself (100-500ms).

You can lower the delay by changing the IR Timeout in the device settings. That is the time the IRTrans waits to see if the IR Code is "over".
Depending on your remote control you can try different values here. The default is 90ms. The value can be set using the IRTrans GUI Client or the Web interface for LAN / WLAN Devices.

After changing the following settings the response times seems to be better.
- IR Receive Timeout: 30 ms
- IR Receive Tolerance: 64 us

Cheers
DJ