Configure Technisat's TS35-IRUSB commander for Mythtv.

If you managed to get one of the latest DVB cards from Technisat, the Skystar 2 revision 2.8 it most probably came with a USB remote control. I got one for a box that I am developing. One thing I couldn't figure out was how to customise the thing for Mythtv so I could use all the buttons. It seemed to work out of the box but there were some functions that did not work. No problem I thought I would just go and create my own LIRC configuration file and use that.

Hopping over to good old Google and doing a bit of searching I found quite a few configuration files for the TS35 but none of them seemed to work. I tried using irremote to generate my own configuration but irremote kept on coming up with an error no matter what I did. All the googling that I did seemed to indicate that it should work yet I also found quite a few people who were having the same problem as I was having. Well, I finally found out what the problem was so I am sharing it with you so that you can keep from pulling out your hair like I did.

The first thing you need to do is uninstall LIRC. That's right, rip it out of your system and throw it away. I am assuming that you have no other remote controls in use. If so then you can keep it in, it doesn't make a difference. That's because it is not used by this remote, at all. When you plug the remote receiver into your USB port your computer acts as though you are plugging in a keyboard. When you are pressing buttons on the remote control you are actually sending key codes to an event(#) device which is created by udev when it recognises the USB receiver.

You can easily test this out by opening up a console and press a few numbers on the control. You should, provided your udev system is working properly, see those numbers popping up on your screen. Some buttons provide unprintable characters so you won't see anything happening there. The arrow buttons correspond with the keyboard arrow keys and the OK button is your enter key. Once you have verified that it is working then you can configure it with Mythtv.

First you need to make sure you have "mythcontrols" installed. This will allow you to configure all the shortcut keys for Mythtv. Then all you need to do is go into the "Edit Keys" menu item from the Setup menu and customise your shortcut keys. That is all there is to it. Once I found out how simple it was I faceplanted the desk several times and bemoaned the several hours I spent fruitlessly googling, following and discarding false leads.

So I hope that this is helpfull for you and you find this before too much time has passed. Enjoy.