Below is my understanding of the HomeVision IRL file format as posted on the
homevision-users group on March 4 2001. Remarks by Craig Chadwick, president
of Custom Solutions, Inc. (a.k.a., HomeVision) have been added and are
displayed in yellow.
A .irl file seems to consist of three blocks: Header, Signal information
and Pulse information (optional).
Header (6 bytes):
2 bytes: Number of IR signals in the file (little endian)
4 bytes: Size of pulse information (little endian)
Signal information (78 bytes for each IR signal):
30 bytes: Signal name, padded with spaces
1 byte: Signal type:
0 = Standard
1 = Pulse lengths
255 = None
1 byte:
Standard signals: Device code
Pulse lengths: Timer value for "on" duration
None: unused (0)
1 byte:
Standard signals: Key code
Pulse lengths: Timer value for "off" duration
None: unused (0)
1 byte:
Standard signals: unused (0)
Pulse lengths: Number of pulse cycles
None: unused (0)
4 bytes:
Standard signals: unused (0)
Pulse lengths: Pointer to pulse information (little endian)
None: unused (0)
40 bytes: Signal description, padded with spaces
Note 1: The timer values are the values used to preload the
microprocessor's 8-bit timer. The actual duration is the time it takes for
the value to be incremented until an overflow occurs. The microprocessor
clock has a frequency of 11,059,200 Hz (?). The timer is incremented every 4
clock ticks, so at a frequency of 2,764,800 Hz.
Example: The timer on value is 227 and the timer off value is 213.
The "on" duration will be (256 - 227) / 2,764,800 = 10.489 uS
The "off" duration will be (256 - 213) / 2,764,800 = 15.553 uS
The carrier frequency is 1 / (10.489e-6 + 15.553e-6) = 38.4 kHz
The duty cycle is 10.489 / (10.489 + 15.553) = 40.28 %
Note 2: The pointer to the pulse information is relative to the
start of the pulse information block, which is at 6 + (78 * <number of
signals>) from the start of the file.
Pulse Information (4 bytes for every cycle):
2 bytes: Number of pulses (big endian)
To clarify, this is the number of repetitions (or pulses)
of the carrier. So a 25uS carrier width (40Kz carrier) repeated, say, 20
times gives a total period of 500uS during which the carrier will be active
(i.e., IR will be transmitting)
2 bytes: Idle timer preload value (big endian)
Note: Again the timer value is basically the preload value for a
timer incrementing at a frequency of 2,764,800 Hz, except for bits 0-2.
These three bits of the indicated value are really a counter of how many
timer overflows should be skipped. Bit 0-2 of the preload value are always 0.
Example: The idle timer value is 62585 (0xf479). The preload value will
then be 62584 (0xf478) and 1 timer overflow will be skipped. This results in
a total delay of ((65536 - 62584) + 1 * 65536) / 2,764,800 = 24.771 mS.
This indicates how long IR will be off before turning on
the carrier for the next pulse. To be precise, we subtract 28uS from the
desired time (to account for the software delay in starting the timer, which
is 28uS), then add the carrier pulse off-time to the total desired off time
(to account for how the prior pulse was transmitted). For example:
- Assume we want a 500uS gap before the next transmission.
- Assume carrier is 25uS (40Kz carrier) with a 40% duty cycle.
We first subtract 28uS from the desired 500uS gap, then add 15uS, giving us
487uS that the timer must be off for. This means we use an "Idle timer
preload value", as Schelte called it, of 64192 (0xFAC0):
- Intermediate value = 65536 - (0.000487 * 2,764,800) = 64190 (rounded off)
- 64190 is 0xFABE. We zero out bits 0-2 by rounding up to 0xFAC0 (64192)
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