dScope Series III Scripting and automation

IR Control

Overview
The dScope III has the ability to simplify the process of running the tests by using infra-red remote control. This is done with VB Scripts and can be used to control devices under test, or to access the test tracks of a test DVD etc.. This scripting note describes the set-up and operation of this IR automation.

Requirements
This scripting note describes using the IRTrans IR emitter. This connects via USB to the host computer so it is important that you have a PC with USB support and two USB ports if you wish to use it in conjunction with a dScope. More information on the IRTrans IR transmitter is available from www.irtrans.com. It can also be ordered directly from them online. PC software required is MS Windows 98 or later PC with USB support (not NT). In order to control the IRTrans, the IRTransTray USB Server must be loaded and running.

IRTrans Installation
The IRTrans system consists of several components. IRTrans hardware is a small blue box that is connected to the PC by the USB cable. Although it has a DC socket, it is not usually necessary to power it as it takes it’s power from the USB connection. If connected to a USB port without power, a DC supply will be needed. A USB driver is required and, at the time of writing, does not seem to be installed by the default installation, but can be downloaded and installed separately.

In terms of software, the IRTrans system works using a TCP/IP Server/Client architecture. This means that the hardware can be controlled over a network connection, or even over the internet. It does, however, mean that installation is a little more complex than would otherwise be the case.

In addition, this script makes use of the Active-X control supplied with the IRTrans device, and not the normal IRTrans GUI client.

IRTrans installation is best carried out as a default full installation as available from www.irtrans.com . There may be several additional steps:
· Install a USB driver. The driver is available separately on the "downloads" section of the IRTrans web site. Instructions are given on the site.
· Register the IRTrans ActiveX control: to do this, from the “start” menu, select “run”, then type in regsvr32 and the full path of the file IRTrans.OCX in quotes and press enter. The OCX file is included in the default installation. The resulting command will look something like:

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\IRTrans\plugins\Active-X\IRTrans.ocx"

Overview of running IRTrans
As explained in the previous section, IRTrans software is based on server/client architecture. For this reason, any time the IRTrans system is needed, the server must be running. This is done by running the program “IRTranstray USB” which is accessible from the start menu. When this is running, a small “IR” icon appears in the system tray (at the right of the toolbar). Once this is running, you can access the hardware either using the IRTrans GUI Client or via the ActiveX control. In the text that follows, it is assumed that the IRTrans server is already running.

Configuring the IR remote control
For the purposes of illustrating the principles involved, we will consider the script "IRTrans Remote.vbs". This is a basic remote control set up for a Toshiba SD-120e DVD player that uses the IRTrans device. Although it is a VB Script and not a dScope DSS script, it still makes use of the dScope ScriptDlg DLL for the interface so it will only normally work when the dScope software is installed.

It is very unlikely that the IR control will work “out of the box” for anything much other than this DVD player and possibly other Toshiba players of a similar design. Almost every manufacturer of IR controllable devices has a different way of controlling their equipment with IR and it is impossible to cater for all these options from the outset. Instead, the script has been written in such a way that re-configuration is as easy as possible, but it does assume some knowledge of scripting in VB script. The-configuration falls into several steps:

Finding or Generating the IR control library
For each player there needs to be a library of IR commands that the software uses to access tracks etc. Using the IRTrans GUI client, it is possible to select an already learnt IR library, or “learn” your own. If a suitable file is not found, learning the codes is straightforward. There are several steps to this:
· Change the GUI mode to “learn command”,
· Tell the software the name of the remote you are learning (it will save the library of learnt commands with this name).
Do this by:
· Typing the name of the remote in the drop list box
· Press “Open / Create Remote”
· Learn a remote timing (this tells IRTrans what frequency to use etc.) Normally, you will only need to learn one timing per remote. Once you have opened or created a remote, do this by:
· Press the “Learn Timing” button
· Press a button on the remote while pointing it at the IRTrans
· Learn the remote codes for each button
Do this by:
· Typing the name of the remote button you want to learn in the edit box
· Press “Learn Command”
· Point the remote control at the IRTrans and press the remote button.
· The code for that button will appear on the screen
· Continue with all the other buttons you want to learn.
Once you have learned all the buttons you need, just press “finish learning” – the commands are stored by the IRTrans software.

Learning infra-red commands is notoriously difficult to do with complete consistency and reliability. A simple way to get an idea if the remote codes have been learnt correctly is to open the remote file in a text editor. The remote file is found in the program files/IRTrans/remotes folder with the name you entered. Below is the first part of a remote file for a Toshiba SD-120E DVD player remote. Note that the commands are all the same length and have a similar format.

[REMOTE]
  [NAME]Toshiba SD-120E
[TIMING]
  [0][N]5[1]8976 4456[2]600 528[3]576 1656[4]8976
	 2208[5]576 39720[RC]1[RP]0[FREQ]39[SB]
[COMMANDS]
  [play][T]0[D]S10100010010111011010100001010111320
  [stop][T]0[D]S10100010010111010010100011010111320
  [pause][T]0[D]S10100010010111010000000011111111320
  [skip+][T]0[D]S10100010010111010010010011011011320
  [skip-][T]0[D]S10100010010111011100010000111011320

If you see any commands that are longer or shorter than all the rest, or have a different format, they are quite likely to have been learnt incorrectly and may not work. You can test them by using the “Send”, “Send Command” option from the IRTrans GUI client and check that you get the expected result. If not, the command will need to be re-learnt.

Linking to the IR control library
Once the IR library is set up, you will need to link to it from within the IRTrans Remote Script. The script is written in such a way that the player to use is selected near the beginning of the script by setting the value of the variable "devname" to the name of the library that is to be used. This must be set to be exactly the same as the device name that was entered in the IRTrans GUI client when learning the remote commands.

The configuration section of the script has a section where the command name of the IR library can be set for each button. This sets which IR command will be triggered when that button is pressed. There are also four "spare" or "user" buttons that can be re-named or can be taken off the interface if not required.

How the Script works and how to modify it
The key part of the script is starting up the IRTrans object and then accessing its methods and properties using ActiveX controls. In practice, we need to start the IRTranstray USB server before we can access the control. We do this manually using the "start" menu link to the IRTrans installation. Once we have done that, we can use the following code to connect to it and operate it in the script.

'Set up IRTrans
Set IRTrans = wscript.CreateObject("IRTransOCX.IRTrans", "IRTrans_")

If IsEmpty(IRTrans) Then
 MsgBox "Failed to create IRTransOCX Control"
End If
IRTrans.ServerIP = "localhost"

IRTrans.Connect()

In the above code, "IRTrans" is a variable. It could be called anything we like. We have simply set up an IRTrans object called "IRTrans". From this point on, we can access the IRTrans methods and properties using commands like:

IRTrans.SendIR Cstr(devname), Cstr(play)

The above command sends an IR command. The command to be sent is the "play" command from the "devname" library. both "play" and "devname" are variables that will be set previously in the script to make them access the correct library and command within that library. It is easy to hard-code these too, so that if you are writing a script to control a particular bit of hardware and you know the IR commands in the library, you can write the automation directly into the script. At the end of the IR control session, you should set the IRTrans object to "nothing" using the command below.

set IRTrans = nothing

In practice, when the system is working correctly, you will see the LED on the top of the IRTrans hardware light up each time a command is sent.

Fine Tuning
Some hints for getting the hardware to work optimally: The weakest link in this system is likely to be the actual IR link itself between the IR emitter and the IR receiver in the DVD player. If you have trouble controlling the device with the remote control, the script is likely to have similar trouble. You have the advantage over the script that you can tell what the DVD player has done with each command you send on a remote control and you can press the button again if needed. The script has no feedback from the device and cannot tell if the command has been acted on.

The IRTrans has particularly powerful IR emitters but even they may not be able to compete with strong sunlight. If reception of the IR signal is a problem, try to shade the IRTrans and receiver from strong light.

Known Issues
The IRTrans ActiveX control provides feedback to the script by means of firing events. These events cannot be handled in the scripts so we have no feedback from the IRTrans server in the event of trouble running the IR automation. If the IRTrans server is not running when the script is started, we will typically get a Winsock error when attempting to access it. Likewise if the server is running, but there is no IRTrans hardware connected, we get a "connection was forcefully rejected" message.