Blackgold remote

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mm1352000

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#67502 2-Sep-2010 22:18

Hi all

I recently bought myself a couple of second hand Pinnacle PCTV 7010ix 6 in 1 tuner cards from Ebay Germany. The hardware is very similar to the Blackgold BGT3540 - so similar that Blackgold drivers can be used with no apparent problems. In fact for reasons that I won't get into here (because it would take too long) I think it is more desirable to use the Blackgold drivers than the original Pinnacle drivers so I'm definitely going to be using them [the Blackgold drivers].

Neither of the cards arrived with remotes or remote receivers. I think this is probably only because they came out of OEM systems or their former owners lost them somewhere along the way. They have the requisite mini jack port for an IR receiver, and it just so happens that I have an IR receiver and remote left over from the tuner that I have replaced so I thought I'd try my luck and see if I can get the old remote to work with one of the new cards.

I took what seems to be an obvious first step and plugged the IR receiver into the first card. No sparks or arcing sounds - so far so good I thought. When I used the remote with the old card it appeared as 5 or so HID devices in device manager. No HID devices appear with either the Blackgold or the Pinnacle driver so I figured I was missing drivers or software to "listen" to the remote. A quick look at the support section of Blackgold's website reveals that Blackgold has an application called Black Gold Remote for using remotes with their cards. "Easy fix" I thought. After downloading and installing the application there were still no HID devices and the remote doesn't work so I think something is either wrongly configured, incompatible or broken. It also seems like the software has to be registered but I can't find anywhere to buy a license.

Those of you that own Blackgold BGT3540's:
- did it come with a remote?
- what does the remote look like (a link would suffice, my remote looks like the picture in the first post from http://forums.dvbowners.com/lofiversion/index.php/t7510.html)?
- does it work?
- what do you have to do to get it to work?
- if the Blackgold Remote software is required, do you know where I can buy (or "acquire" if necessary) a license?

Thanks in advance...

Niel

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#376069 3-Sep-2010 05:57

Can't help with those questions, but you need to know that remote controls operate at different frequencies and different protocols. Great for trying and I hope it works, but it is unlikely. It will probably be cheaper and easier to buy a dedicated remote control for the PC.

You can never have enough Volvos!

mm1352000

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#376113 3-Sep-2010 09:10

Thanks for the heads up Niel :)
You're right that the remote drivers may be listening for different frequencies and codes. There are two additional reasons for hoping that it still might work that I didn't mention in the original post that I should probably mention at this point.
First, the old card is very similar to the new cards - they are based off the same NXP reference design. Same PCIe bridge chipset (NXP SAA7162), same hybrid tuners and DVB-T demodulators... The only difference that I know of is that the satellite tuner and demodulator chips are different. I once tried the Blackgold drivers with the old card and they made the 2 hybrid tuners work but not the satellite tuners. Using drivers for the old card with the new cards gave me a BSOD so something is obviously incompatible.
The other thing I didn't say was that I have a VCR that I occasionally use for digitising video, and some of the buttons on its remote used to work with the old card as well! The VCR is a Philips (consumer retail brand for NXP) VR 610 so maybe it is not so surprising.

I wish the old card still worked!

Asmodeus

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#376155 3-Sep-2010 10:20

I bought a BGT3540 a couple years back and no it didn't come with a remote. First I've heard of a Blackgold remote, do the new cards come with one?

I just use a Logitech harmony

mm1352000

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#376161 3-Sep-2010 10:30

Not sure. The remote software that I downloaded is available from their current support site, but I can't find any mention other than the download. All the information that I found from google was on the old version of their website. The software is dated 2003. Pretty old...

[Edit: Did the card come with a driver CD? Maybe there is a PDF manual or installation instructions that mention the remote?]