TBS 6920 remote

I've got a TBS 6920 PCI-E DVB-S2 card, which explicitly claims Linux compatibility on the box. It works as a satellite receiver, but I get no response from the remote control (trying to read /dev/input/event5). I think this is its entry in /proc/bus/input/devices:

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0006 Version=0000
N: Name="Video Bus"
P: Phys=LNXVIDEO/video/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A03:00/device:12/LNXVIDEO:00/input/input5
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event5
B: PROP=0
B: EV=3
B: KEY=3e000b00000000 0 0 0

And lspci -v:

03:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 02)
Subsystem: Device 6920:8888
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
Memory at fea00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
Capabilities: [40] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [90] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [a0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [200] Virtual Channel
Kernel driver in use: cx23885

Is there an extra module I need to load to make it work, or is any work being done on this if it isn't supported yet? Is there anything I can do to help? I'm an experienced C programmer, but not a kernel hacker.

TBS have there own media tree for their cards, they do not submit the drivers upstream for inclusion in the kernel, if you go to the manufacturer site you'll get support from their forums. But it has been very well known they have issues with remote support.

I don't develop for linux media system, am just letting you know for information.

Thanks. It seems that there was a bug in their driver which prevented some keys from working, but AFIACT it's fixed now. The code is GPL so is it just lack of interest/demand that's stopped it from going into the main kernel?

I think I'll pass on having to maintain a 3rd party driver whenever the Debian kernel upgrades. The remote is missing some quite important keys like Play, so they seem to have only considered it for live viewing, not for PVRs. I'll probably end up buying a separate USB remote or continuing to use a portable keyboard.

They have an NDA with a chip supplier so can't release the full source, I think there is a binary blob somewhere that makes it so you can't include them.

I have an MCE remote, ebay has HP remote and receiver cheap enough, they are also rc6 encoding so you can use one-for-all remote etc easy enough, and drivers are in kernel so only a manor change to lirc to get it working.

You don't have to use lirc but I couldn't be bothered trying to map the keys in X.

The 6920 uses a Conexant chipset and everything except the remote works with a standard kernel, but I did have to install the firmware manually. Is the binary part for the remote? I would have thought it was only for other chipsets.

Ah yes, those HP ones look serviceable and affordable, thanks.

It would be better if more applications had a nice frontend to "train" them to use certain keys, either as the remote appearing as a keyboard, or by reading input events (which is very easy).

Apologies then, I thought they were still maintaining a separate tree, maybe am confusing myself with a different manufacturer that wouldn't release the source.

They do seem to be maintaining their own tree, but the tarball (which is within a zip) containing the driver code has a GPL COPYING file. There may be some closed source drivers for other products in their range somewhere in there, and if there is a version/copy of the Conexant drivers in there perhaps it's modified to support their remote or supplied just for completeness.