Voltage or Video Sensor for Directv

does the d* box actually "turn off" when it's "turned off"? if so, use any of the component outputs...

if not (which was the issue i ran into when i tried this with other boxes, "off" isn't really "off), try the coax spdif output (assuming the box has one)... ime, while the box being "off" still put out a video signal, it did not out out an audio signal...

to be honest, i didn't find this to be worth the effort, and no longer do it... since "off" really wasn't "off", it wasn't "doing anything" to code for it...

As Chris stated the box does not really power off. I still have view of my rack so I did want to "power" off my dtv boxes so the blue lights were off when watching another source. I use the video sensor connected to the composite video out and it works like a charm.

Now are you also asking how to program it in CCP?

Dumb question, but why does the state matter at all? DirecTV boxes have discrete on/off, so you can just send those commands regardless of the current state. Easy schmeasy. Otherwise you're just making your code needlessly complex.

As far as video output goes, I'm pretty sure the video is shut off when the box is off. You may be thinking of Dish. They continue sending video all the time, even when the box is off.

Yes the video is not active when the box is off.

I share my 3 boxes to 5 zones so I use the video sensors to check so I do not issue an off command to one of the other boxes when shutting down one of the zones. I like my power off commands to check and turn off any unused sources independent of what zone I am using just in case something was left on because someone manually turned a piece of equipment on. It checks to see if a piece is on then checks the zone variable to see if the zone was indeed active and then if it is not then it shuts down that source. Probably overly complex but I like to see how far I can go with this setup. I have been really happy with all of my URC gear. Both in performance and reliability.

Also in case you don't know you can control your DTV boxes with an RS-232-USB adapter. Then issue serial commands instead of IR. I cannot tell you how much better performance you will get going this route. The boxes can be overloaded with certain IR flashers. The adapters can be found on ebay for just a few bucks. You will also need a null modem adapter. If you are interested in this route I can dig up the part numbers I used.