[mythtv-users] Frontend USB to TV RS232 serial?

[Paul Bender]

mythtv at derdev.com wrote:
> On a frontend without any available serial ports (RS232) and plenty of
> available USB ports, is there an easy/obvious solution to connect the
> frontend to an HDTV's RS232 serial port for power on/off control?
> 
> I see lots of USB to Serial converters but they don't seem to terminate in
> the male serial connection needed to link up to the TV...  Barking up the
> wrong tree here?

I connect to my Sharp Aquos HDTV using a USB-to-RS232 cable along with 
an RS232 null modem (aka gender-bender) connector/cable. I looked for a 
solution that did not require an RS232 null modem connector/cable, but I 
could not find one. Thankfully, the RS232 connector has screw terminals 
to solidly attach the RS232 connector. Otherwise, I would have worried 
more about the torque caused by the RS232 connector followed by the 
RS232 null modem connector.

By the way, if you have a Sharp Aquose, then consider Ron Fraizer's 
Aquos perl scripts 
<http://mythtvblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/controlling-sharp-aquos-tv-via-serial.html>. 
I have integrated them into MiniMyth's suspend/resume functions (for 
power off/on) and MiniMyth's volume control functions. They were easy to 
integrate and the work well.

> Also, any drivers needed to support such an animal?

My USB-to-RS232 cable uses the vanilla kernel's pl2303 driver (which 
depends on the vanilla kernel's usbserial driver). Depending on your 
USB-to-RS232 cable, you may need a different driver. However, the 
vanilla kernel has numerouse USB-to-RS232 converters, so it is unlikely 
that you would need a driver that it not part of the vanilla kernel.