Hmmmm.... if /dev/ir was renamed by a custom application to something else and the application created a fifo in it's place, could the custom app read all codes, use the ones it wanted to, and pass the others through the fifo to the player?

Yes.

At least I can think of no reason why not.

There's an ioctl to make beeps too which I think may come in useful if my guess for why you want this is correct :-)

--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)