I've had a couple of these sitting on my bench for months (maybe years). I had noticed one of the connectors had Pb, Pr, and Y, which refers to component video, and thought that someday I'd see if I could make it work as an external DVD player. Someday came, finally. I chose this particular one because it only needed 5v. The other needed 5v and 12v, but that one also had the ability to be turned off, so that's probably better. My decision was based on the idea of powering it from the USB port on the TV, and if that didn't work, I had a cell phone charger rated for 2A@5v. The USB port idea worked, but on this TV it stays powered even on standby. It's actually the service port and I think on a TV with USB as a media option, it would be turned on and off with the TV. I had no clue what this came out of when I started. Now, thanks to the splash screen, I at least know it was a Coby. I noticed it had a pin labeled IR, so I wired up some random IR sensor I had in my junk drawer. As far as the wiring, I just wired it up to some A/V cables I had laying around. I tried all the universal remote codes available for Coby DVD players, and TV/DVD combos for a couple different universal remotes. I was able to get a few functions to work, including FF, RW, and zoom, but not with the correct keys on the remote. I also noticed a few connector locations which have no connectors. Not sure what they are for, but I am thinking they may be for function keys. I guess my options for getting the remote to work are as follows:
A) Try to figure out what TV this came from and buy the original remote for it.
B) Figure out how many bits the remote codes are and brute force every possible combination.
C) Hack the firmware and remap the functions to some remote I already have.
A is probably the easiest, but that's only if the TV's main board doesn't receive one code, and transmit a different one to the DVD unit. I don't know how this was configured in the TV.
B would require writing some simple script to try a code, and then increment, but I would need some way of detecting if something happened. Considering that a 12 bit code space would have 4096 possible combinations, I certainly wouldn't be able to sit there and watch for responses. But, if the script could somehow log all the codes which did get some response, I could then go through them and identify the respective functions.
C would be my preferred way, just because it seems like more fun, but my recent experience with trying to hack TV firmware tells me that it may not be an option at all.
So, for the moment, no viable remote option. The good thing is that it has play, stop, and eject buttons on the control board. I really only did this for fun, but since it works I'll probably use it for testing inputs on TV's I'm repairing.
A) Try to figure out what TV this came from and buy the original remote for it.
B) Figure out how many bits the remote codes are and brute force every possible combination.
C) Hack the firmware and remap the functions to some remote I already have.
A is probably the easiest, but that's only if the TV's main board doesn't receive one code, and transmit a different one to the DVD unit. I don't know how this was configured in the TV.
B would require writing some simple script to try a code, and then increment, but I would need some way of detecting if something happened. Considering that a 12 bit code space would have 4096 possible combinations, I certainly wouldn't be able to sit there and watch for responses. But, if the script could somehow log all the codes which did get some response, I could then go through them and identify the respective functions.
C would be my preferred way, just because it seems like more fun, but my recent experience with trying to hack TV firmware tells me that it may not be an option at all.
So, for the moment, no viable remote option. The good thing is that it has play, stop, and eject buttons on the control board. I really only did this for fun, but since it works I'll probably use it for testing inputs on TV's I'm repairing.
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