[mythtv-users] Anyone using lirc audio_alsa driver successfully?

[Darren Hart]

I have resurrected my myth-box and replaced my SD cards with an
HDhomerun which sites in another (so I can't use it's IR
functionality).  Since I have an RF tranceiver in my entertainment
center, I thought I'd try connecting the the ir transmitter directly
to my audio card mic input (cut off the ir chip and soldered on a
phones jack).  After much fussing with the alsa mixer, it actually
works (to my rather great surprise!).  Using audo_also and the stock
pvr.conf from lirc, I am able to use my hauppauge rc5 remote codes
(through my URC 300 Customizer), but the signal seems to be fairly
noisy and it misses a lot of key presses.  Have others had good
success with the audio_alsa driver?  I'm trying to move from my PS3 to
a MythTV client as the primary frontend, but so far the MythTV
interface is way too sluggish compared to the PS3, but I think a lot
of this is due to the poor remote control setup.

Regarding the noise, I test the input when I am not pressing buttons like this:

arecord -D "plughw:0,0" -c1 -r8000 -fU8 | hexdump -v

Ideally every value should 0x80, but as you can see I get more noise
than I'd like.  I'm concerned this noise corrupts the hexcodes lirc
receives enough that they aren't recognized.

Recording WAVE 'stdin' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono
0000000 4952 4646 0024 8000 4157 4556 6d66 2074
0000010 0010 0000 0001 0001 1f40 0000 1f40 0000
0000020 0001 0008 6164 6174 0000 8000 8080 8080
0000030 8080 8080 8080 8080 7f80 7f80 7f80 7f80
0000040 8080 807f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7e 7f7f
0000050 7f7f 7f7e 7f7e 7f7f 7f7f 7e7f 7f7f 7f7f
0000060 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f
0000070 7f7f 7f7f 7f7e 7f7f 7f7e 7f7f 7f7e 7f7e
0000080 7f7f 7f7e 7e7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f
0000090 7f7f 7f7f 7e7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7e7f
00000a0 7e7f 7e7f 7f7e 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f 7f7f

Thanks!

-- 
Darren Hart