Control extern TVTuner (cablebox/stat/HDTV) from a button

[jbretsch]

This forum has been a great help so far, but I am getting into a situation I havnt been able to find a solution for.

I am setting up a screen with a button for each TV station. When I click/press the button, I want my External TV tuner to go that the apropriate channel via girder/ir.

This is what is working so far:
1) New database (TVStations) with 'coverart' for the buttons, channel info etc.

2) A form with a databaseview for the category. When I click the TVStation i want to watch, I run a Girder 'send an event string' with this info: LST4200.Station.%TVstations>qam% where 'qam' is the field in the database holding the channel information. ex when selecting 'ABC' XL isends LST4200.Station.92-4.

3) In girder I detect the event from Xlobby under a multigroup, which is sending the appropriate codes to the TVtuner. in the above example it will send the four Ir commands '9' '2' '-' '4'

This is the problem: The reason I created a new category in the database instead of 'dumb' buttons was I didnt want to have to go and change the screen every time the channel line up is changing. While my setup supports this on the Xlobby side, I have to add a multigroup for each station in girder.
Am I going at this the right way?
The girder is version 3.x

Thanks in advance.

[art]

If I understand your setup correctly, what I would do is, instead of creating multigroup for each channel in girder I would create 11 commands for each digit 0-9 and "-" with your IR commands, next in XL instead of having one field with number (qam = 92-4) I would split this field into 3: qam1 = 9, qam2 = 2, qam3 = 4 ("-" is always the same) and create event that would send 4 commands to girder with:
LST4200.Station.%TVstations>qam1%
LST4200.Station.%TVstations>qam2%
LST4200.Station."-"
LST4200.Station.%TVstations>qam3%
This way you would only need to deal with database in XL if your lineup changes... I haven't done anything with girder in quite some time, but I think this should work.

[jbretsch]

Thanks - This makes sense. I just need to make sure there is no delay or issue with girder missing events when fired just after each other so 92-4, becomes 9-4 or similar. I will give this a try!

I still need the QAM field for other purposes, as that is how I am converting from the EPG which is using channel 2,3,4 etc to my QAM channels, but i can just keep my field for that and create new fields for girder control.
Thanks again.