Dual USB USBUIRT and music CD on multiple sound cards?

[sdumas]

Hi everyone,

I have two tough questions for all of you:

1) Is it possible to control two USBUIRT from the same PC?

Reason is the following. I got one nice spiffy case from Atech Fabrication which allows you to put the USBUIRT in front the of case totally hidden - way cool. Problem is; I need to also send IR codes to devices that are in the same AV rack, ie on top and under the actual HTPC. When you can direct the USBUIRT, it's easy - just point to the device and voila!. But when you can't do that, how do you proceed?

I thought about using a second USBUIRT to send signals to my external devices and the one in the front to receive the signals from a remote control.

Any one has done that? If so, what do I need to look for?

2) I have multiple sound cards in that case. I want to be able to play a real CD from the CD/DVD player onto any of these cards. As I understand, the "little cable" needs to be connected from the CD player to the sound card in order to play. Since I have multiple sound cards, can I split this cable and connect it to all of the sound cards? Will this be detrimental to the music quality? If not, any other solutions?

Thanks!

[rhinoman]

The usb uirt I have, has a connector for putting a remote eye off of it so that it can be placed infront of the device you wish to control.

[rhinoman]

RE cd playback, you shouldn't need to connect the internal cable with xp as an OS, (not sure about older versions).

The only thing is that you will need to change the default playback device in the control panel, I haven't fopund a way to address multiple cards yet.

[oneman]

My USB-UIRT actually reflects off the wall and back to my components quite well... I don't have it behind glass and it has a clear shot directly to the wall though...

[Roscoe62]

I have the output of my USBUIRT connected to an IR distribution box, and run IR stick-on emitters to each device individually. It works great and is much more reliable. Sometimes in direct sunlight I found that IR signals from my Pronto wouldn't work - too much direct sunlight - IR noise. Running stick-on IR emitters means you don't suffer from someone (or something) blocking the IR path. It also means you can have everything hidden.

Lots of different solutions!

[sdumas]

Thanks for everyone answers.

I never noticed the little jack in the back of the USBUIRT. I guess I'll have to try that.

I too am using the IR extender with the "pellets" for each device, but in this case I could not put the IR receiver/extender in front of the HTPC.

How do you connect the little jack to a Xantech extender?

I'll try again for the CD playing within XP.

[jowaldo]

I have the output of my USBUIRT connected to an IR distribution box, and run IR stick-on emitters to each device individually.

Roscoe:

Where do you get those at, or find more info about those?

[Roscoe62]

Well, once I knew what I wanted to do I just hung around on the USBUIRT forum checking back through lots of older posts until I'd found someone else who had done it. It ended up they'd used a Russound 857 IR connecting block which works superbly with the USBUIRT output jack. I don't know for sure, but I got the impression that some IR connecting blocks change the IR signals slightly when they amplify them. So I wanted to be sure that I got one that would work without any hitches and the Russound certainly does that. It will work with any IR emitters, but I ended up purchasing Russound emitters as well.

Here's the url...

http://www.russound.com/ir_products.htm

I've programmed in ALL of the IR commands for all of my equipment and tested all of it and it all works flawlessly. Now all I need is XLobby Alpha 40 (non exp) so I can start tying my commands to buttons on my PPC.

Now the Xantech products may work OK, but I'd either check with the USBUIRT forum to see whether anyone else has already successfully used the product you have in mind, or post asking the question. Because Jon is just a one-man operation, he may not have had any experience with the particular model you have in mind, but someone who posts there may do. I stuck with Russound, because I knew it would work with the USBUIRT, it was relatively inexpensive and I could source it easily.

Good luck!