How to use saa7134 (and possibly other TV cards') remotes, a mini howto: Note that in lircd, you should use the input device driver ("devinput"). The saa7134 driver will create a random input event device for the events; I use this udev rule to create a /dev/remote symlink pointing at the right device: KERNEL="event*", SYSFS{name}="saa7134 IR*", NAME="input/%k", SYMLINK="remote" Furthermore, especially if you have problems with lircd, having the full-blown daemon for the event interface may not be worth it. There is a standalone inputlircd package containing a much simpler daemon which is compatible with lirc client applications but takes the events just from the input devices. You can run it e.g. like: /usr/sbin/inputlircd /dev/remote -g -m 0 You can find an example mplayer lirc configuration at: http://pasky.or.cz/~pasky/dev/v4l/lircrc