Howdy,

After a lot of research I've found the best solution for me is to use EventGhost along with it's own webserver plugin. I also bought a usb-uirt from http://usbuirt.com/. USB-UIRT is 50 dollars US. I looked for a week for something cheaper but this is the cheapest way to go that is supported by EventGhost. This plugs into my laptop and points at all of my home theatre equipment. You might be ablle to use LIRC for windows but this would entail you making a serial port ir transciever of which I don't have the electronics skills or a serial port on a laptop. LIRC for Windows doesn't support usb devices. So far I've made a web interface for my dish network hd dvr and am working on one for my denon amp and tv. Essentially I just browse to my laptop from the web browser and I can tap whatever buttons I want to control my sat reciever. There is a good beginners guide on the eventghost home page. You will have to look up the webserver guide by typing webserver eventghost in google. It's in german but the screenshots give you a good idea how to set it up.