IR blasting to new Sky Kaon NS1120 decoder

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JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#1644090 2-Oct-2016 11:29

That's interesting thanks.

I have just got my HTPC running, but have yet to hook it up to the Sky box for recording. I suspect that will be next weekend's project.

As for questions, I am pretty interested in your whole setup. Once you have the media PC in full service and have had it running for a wee while, I would be interested in a bit of a narrative on what your setup is and how well you are finding it works in practice. particularly:

what you are using as an IR blaster and how well it is working in practice
what software you are using to control it (ie grabbing the EPG, programming in which channels to record and capturing the recording), and
any "gotchas" you have encountered.

For my part I'm looking at a small form factor Braswell N3150 HTPC, with the capturing and blasting done by a Hauppauge HD-PVR (either a PVR using component, or the PVR2 using HDMI - I have both units). Something to deal with copy protection - either an HD Fury or an appropriate HDMI splitter (I have both) depending on which Hauppauge unit I run with, and NextPVR and Kodi as software.

But I'm always interested in other people's NZ-specific experiences (esp regarding Sky connectivity) and whether there is anything I could be doing better than I am currently planning.

mattyb

254 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1644531 3-Oct-2016 09:42

JimmyH:

That's interesting thanks.

I have just got my HTPC running, but have yet to hook it up to the Sky box for recording. I suspect that will be next weekend's project.

As for questions, I am pretty interested in your whole setup. Once you have the media PC in full service and have had it running for a wee while, I would be interested in a bit of a narrative on what your setup is and how well you are finding it works in practice. particularly:

what you are using as an IR blaster and how well it is working in practice
what software you are using to control it (ie grabbing the EPG, programming in which channels to record and capturing the recording), and
any "gotchas" you have encountered.
For my part I'm looking at a small form factor Braswell N3150 HTPC, with the capturing and blasting done by a Hauppauge HD-PVR (either a PVR using component, or the PVR2 using HDMI - I have both units). Something to deal with copy protection - either an HD Fury or an appropriate HDMI splitter (I have both) depending on which Hauppauge unit I run with, and NextPVR and Kodi as software.

But I'm always interested in other people's NZ-specific experiences (esp regarding Sky connectivity) and whether there is anything I could be doing better than I am currently planning.

IR blaster is a no-brand USB receiver and blaster. I think I bought it off ebay, or maybe somewhere local, can't remember exactly. It had been working reliably on the old Sky Pace box for the last 5 years or so. Seems to do the same job on the new Kaon box.

I use NextPVR for capturing and playing video etc. It's a superb piece of software, quite mature now and full of features. So much better than the MySky!!

IR Server Suite controls the blasting, and I use EPG Collector for getting the EPG using a DVB-S card in the media PC. Also have Windows 10 installed and that seems to work very well with the latest NextPVR release, however I installed the Win10 anniversary update and had to restore as it was causing all sorts of basic problems with screen resolution! Crazy how MS can still get this stuff so wrong.

I use this HDMI splitter:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004F9LVXC/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&th=1

I tried using component out from the Kaon sky box and the quality was terrible - not recommended! I added a Collosus HD card into the media PC and it works great over HDMI, excellent image quality.

'Gotchas'... hmmm... NextPVR will throw up the odd one, but the forum is excellent and you can sort issues pretty quickly. Happy to help out myself if you have anything specific.

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#1644870 3-Oct-2016 18:56

Excellent, I think I have found my project for the next rainy weekend. I have the base HTPC up and running, so it's just the tuner and the Hauppauge I need to connect, and NextPVR & Kodi to install.

(plus, that's the exact same splitter I already have )

I will also re-look at the Kaon box. I didn't even realise it had component out.

Spyware

3761 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1644874 3-Oct-2016 19:02

JimmyH:

I will also re-look at the Kaon box. I didn't even realise it had component out.

That's because it doesn't.

Spark Max Fibre using Mikrotik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+, CRS125-24G-1S, Unifi UAP, U6-Pro, UAP-AC-M-Pro, Apple TV 4K (2022), Apple TV 4K (2017), iPad Air 1st gen, iPad Air 4th gen, iPhone 13, SkyNZ3151 (the white box). If it doesn't move then it's data cabled.

tchart

2379 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1649499 11-Oct-2016 21:58

So after lots of fiddling I've managed to turn the Control4 driver from here into a file that can be imported into the Anymote app to control the "new" MySky decoder (Kaon NS1120)

The amsr file can be imported into Anymote using the Setting>Import Remote From File.

The amsr file can be downloaded from my Dropbox;

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29310440/Kaon%20NS1120.amsr

A couple of caveats;

1) I've only tested on Android (Xiaomi Mi Max) - do iOS devices even have IR blasters?

2) Most buttons work fine (eg all numbers, power toggle, channel up) but some don't seem to work at all (eg channel down, discrete power on, discrete power off). I need to investigate further.

3) The file import is just a dumb load so there is no nice formatting when imported into Anymote.

So YMMV but worth a try if you are desperate for a universal remote for the Kaon.

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