Re: Ability to drive multiple IR transmitters independantly from PC

[Alexis <snoopy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dave Houston wrote:
> What's the distance from PC to displays?

Ranging from about 5 metres to about 20 metres - I had planned to either
use USB repeaters or IR LEDs on a long bit of wire, either of which
should be adequate workarounds for the distance, I hope.

> I would ask the designer of USB-UIRT if you can use multiples. If so there
> is an API for these devices and they are reasonably priced.

My concern with this solution is that it will probably work for a small
number of devices, but I have concerns as to whether it will work with
the full complement of 20 devices.  I am unsure as to how the USB UIRT
device interfaces with the PC.  If it acts as a virtual serial port, I
suspect this may be an issue, as Windows will, as far as I know, only
support a maximum of 16 COM ports active at any time.  (For the record,
using Linux is sadly not an option in this case).

If anyone can clarify whether this would or would not be a problem, I
would be interested - at the moment this is only my guesswork, but it's
an expensive experiment to find out if I'm right!

> Is it possible to change the code that each display responds to? If so, you
> only need one IR unit.

Sadly not - they are identical and there is no support for coding of the
IR transmitters and receivers.

Thanks!

Alexis.