Topic: Best Remote (Read 8896 times)

IlPadrino · « **on:** August 30, 2008, 03:45:33 pm »

Any suggestions for the "best" remote to use with Media Center and other audio/video components? I'm tired of the crappy FiOS remote and thought of something like the Harmony One (no RF) or 890 (no touch screen). But I'm not sure how I'd use the Harmony to control the computer (MC!).

What are you all using? Why?

Peter_T · « **Reply #1 on:** September 02, 2008, 07:54:48 am »

I'm also planning on getting a Harmony. I currently use a MCE Remote which controls Theater View fine, but I still need another remote for the rest of my HTPC setup, including my Yamaha amp which comes with an awful remote for my setup.

With the harmony I plan to use Intelliremote - I use it already with my MCE Remote and it's added some great functionality. For instance, the Green Button on my MCE remote now starts up MC, not windows MC. And I use the 1-5 keys for rating songs on the fly by telling Intelliremote to run a command-line rating string.

What is holding me back is I'd like to be able to use the arrow keys on the Harmony to control the pointer (instead of using a mouse) but then to be able to switch back to use them as arrow keys when in theater view... I'd have to figure that out before getting the harmony, I think.

Melloware · « **Reply #2 on:** September 07, 2008, 09:59:48 pm »

Peter, thanks for the props!

You could also forget about an expensive IR remote if you don't want line of sight and just use your Iphone or iPod Touch to control JRiver Media Center.

http://melloware.com/products/intelliphone/

Peter_T · « **Reply #3 on:** October 01, 2008, 07:25:13 pm »

But if you don't own such a device already, they are not so cheap.

Matt · « **Reply #4 on:** October 01, 2008, 09:09:43 pm »

I'm interested in this too.

The Harmony remotes look neat, but they don't control a computer nicely.

The Gyration MCE remote looks kind of neat, but I use a keyboard often.

That tiny clam-shell Logitech keyboard looks slick, but I'm scared it'd take me an hour to type an email with it.

Years ago, I had a wireless Belkin keyboard with integrated mouse that could control IR components like the TV and stereo. It was a great idea because it pulled everything I needed together. It had kludgy control of IR components, and I always wished they'd come out with another generation. They didn't.

The Microsoft Remote (keyboard + mouse + IR) has bad reviews for the mouse and the IR is limited.

Are there other options that provide IR, mouse, and keyboard?

ThoBar · « **Reply #5 on:** October 05, 2008, 02:33:14 am »

Quote

That tiny clam-shell Logitech keyboard looks slick, but I'm scared it'd take me an hour to type an email with it.

I have one of these, and it's not too bad. It's a nice blend of remote and KB/Mouse. The mouse can be a little kludgy, and I'd much rather it be a trackball, but aside from that its works well. Admittedly, if you like typing expansive emails from your HTPC, then you may prefer another device.

vbrook · « **Reply #6 on:** October 09, 2008, 09:09:11 pm »

I was browsing Amazon.com and found a remote called the EZ Commander.

I've just finished converting my collection to FLAC and bought a laptop for my home stereo. Now, I need a remote control. I was going to ask here about EZ Commander. I did a search in the forums and found nothing.

Besides all the usual remote control buttons, the EZ Commander has a trackball in the centre for controlling the mouse cursor. Moreover, it apparently comes with drivers specially written for J River Music Center.

The reviews at Amazon are good. I'm surprised there's been no mention of it here.

Peter_T · « **Reply #7 on:** October 16, 2008, 01:08:55 pm »

Update: I got the harmony 550 for a great price ($45!) and it works like a charm... now that I got it all set up. Setup was actually kind of buggy somewhere between the Harmony set as a MCE remote, my IR Receiver and the software. Like I mentioned before, I used intelliremote to sort it all out, and eventually got it working perfectly.

IlPadrino · « **Reply #8 on:** November 29, 2008, 08:09:47 am »

Quote from: Peter_T on October 16, 2008, 01:08:55 pm

Update: I got the harmony 550 for a great price ($45!) and it works like a charm... now that I got it all set up. Setup was actually kind of buggy somewhere between the Harmony set as a MCE remote, my IR Receiver and the software. Like I mentioned before, I used intelliremote to sort it all out, and eventually got it working perfectly.

Me, too... I picked it up at CostCo for $50. I'm having a little trouble controlling the computer, though, with my USB-UIRT receiver. I thought it'd be as easy as picking the USB-UIRT device but that didn't get me any keys. I picked a random device and then had to manually choose all the actions. It works sometimes, but still flakes out too often.

Who's using the Harmony with MC? What are the details of your setup?

Peter_T · « **Reply #9 on:** December 01, 2008, 08:18:45 am »

I use the harmony with a Microsoft MCE usb / IR receiver. It does 80-90% of what I need out of the box - just tell the Harmony to behave like a MCE remote. For the remaining 10-20% - mostly weird customized stuff and windows control - I use intelliremote. It can receive a command and run a command, works well with MC commands...

IlPadrino · « **Reply #10 on:** December 06, 2008, 08:27:20 am »

Anyone using the USB-UIRT receiver?

WinoOutWest · « **Reply #11 on:** December 06, 2008, 12:50:39 pm »

Quote from: IlPadrino on December 06, 2008, 08:27:20 am

Anyone using the USB-UIRT receiver?

I do - but I use it in conjunction with Girder.

imugli · « **Reply #12 on:** January 05, 2009, 05:54:05 am »

Quote from: IlPadrino on December 06, 2008, 08:27:20 am

Anyone using the USB-UIRT receiver?

Yep. Find it works a treat. I only use MC at the moment, with the remote I got with my TV Card. I Haven't set it up to control my TV or anything, but may get around to it.

mabes · « **Reply #13 on:** January 07, 2009, 03:30:02 pm »

Quote from: Peter_T on October 16, 2008, 01:08:55 pm

Update: I got the harmony 550 for a great price ($45!) and it works like a charm... now that I got it all set up. Setup was actually kind of buggy somewhere between the Harmony set as a MCE remote, my IR Receiver and the software. Like I mentioned before, I used intelliremote to sort it all out, and eventually got it working perfectly.

This looks to be exactly what I need. I got the MCE remote yesterday and set up my Harmony and the basic buttons work, not page up and down though but it doesn't seem like that would be a problem to set up. Do you know if it would be possible to use the number buttons to advance to the corresponding letter, for example pressing 5 jumps down to the J artists? If not I'll settle for being able to rate songs with one press, right now doing so with the remote takes about 10 presses.

mabes · « **Reply #14 on:** January 08, 2009, 11:18:29 am »

I've got it pretty well set up, just one problem. Page Up and Down does advance the page I'm on, but it also advances the playing track forward or back. Any ideas?

A very happy accident - I wanted to set the green button to open MC, but what it does instead is give me a start menu. THis allows me to open a browser while in Theater View. Frickin great. Is this an expected behavior? With Intelliremote, I can switch between Firefox and MC Theater View (and other open apps) with one press.

mabes · « **Reply #15 on:** January 10, 2009, 05:06:54 pm »

Quote from: mabes on January 08, 2009, 11:18:29 am

I've got it pretty well set up, just one problem. Page Up and Down does advance the page I'm on, but it also advances the playing track forward or back. Any ideas?

A very happy accident - I wanted to set the green button to open MC, but what it does instead is give me a start menu. THis allows me to open a browser while in Theater View. Frickin great. Is this an expected behavior? With Intelliremote, I can switch between Firefox and MC Theater View (and other open apps) with one press.

Any help please? Everyting else is working well, but I really need page up and down. I know you can go to the 2nd level and find those buttons, but it's a little inconvenient.

An alternative would be an alphabet as in standard view ,maybe that will be an option one day. I do have a view scheme with an alpha list.

mabes · « **Reply #16 on:** January 12, 2009, 12:39:39 pm »

Solved if anyone has the same problem. I am using Intelliremote BTW, recommended. The problem was that the new command to MCE was not overriding the existing one, and it was sending both commands.

STEP 1
Load "regedit.exe" and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\HidIr\Remotes\745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da

Then delete the keys from "CodeSetNum0" to "CodeSetNum3".

To make sure you can recover these keys easily should you want to you should save them by using the export function in the file menu.

Once the registry has been changed you will need to reboot for the change to take effect.

This same process can be applied to disable automatic keyboard handling. Just look at the other registry sections under the "Remotes" sections.

Now if you ever want to re-enable the automatic handling of the MCE Remote and MCE Keyboard you just need to put those registry keys back.

STEP 2
Go to Control Panel->Aministration->Services

DISABLE the HID Input Service on XP or the Human Interface Device Access service on Vista

IlPadrino · « **Reply #17 on:** January 14, 2009, 04:26:27 am »

Anyone have an opinion on http://www.semsons.com/witorecow.html they'd like to share? I'm thinking it would be good for my secondary display that's showing Theater View, but then I wonder how the control can be limited to just one display (i.e. would a mouse control exclusively control Theater View or would it take control of the mouse cursor on my primary display?

glynor · « **Reply #18 on:** January 15, 2009, 10:57:48 am »

I gotta try your Intelliremote sometime soon. Just after all the work I did getting my Firefly to work with Girder (and it works perfectly now) I don't feel like messing with it.

The problem is that Girder is terribly unstable. It crashes on me about 4-5 times per week, which is really annoying when you're right in the middle of watching a show.

PS. I too have a USB-UIRT and it works great. I run it via Girder and BeyondTV though.

raym · « **Reply #19 on:** January 16, 2009, 10:45:32 am »

Quote from: glynor on January 15, 2009, 10:57:48 am

I gotta try your Intelliremote sometime soon. Just after all the work I did getting my Firefly to work with Girder (and it works perfectly now) I don't feel like messing with it.

The problem is that Girder is terribly unstable.

I can totally recommend Intelliremote. I use it in conjunction with the standard MS MCE receivers to fill in all the missing pieces. It offers quite a punch for such a simple app and I've never had a problem with it crashing.

mabes · « **Reply #20 on:** January 16, 2009, 11:55:54 am »

Quote from: raym on January 16, 2009, 10:45:32 am

I can totally recommend Intelliremote. I use it in conjunction with the standard MS MCE receivers to fill in all the missing pieces. It offers quite a punch for such a simple app and I've never had a problem with it crashing.

Working great for me to. I love the ability to switch from Theater View to Standard and back with just a key press and then to Firefox (reading gmail without touching the keyboard or mouse) and back to MC. And zooming in and out on webpages, great. Only one negative I've found so far, a tiny one. You can't press and hold the arrow buttons and have it continue to go up, down. Only one key press can be executed at a time. But of course we have PG up and down.

glynor · « **Reply #21 on:** January 16, 2009, 01:26:59 pm »

Hmmm... I do need that (key repeat) capability.

Girder does work for me (and allows all that same functionality). If only it wasn't: (A) always impossible to upgrade without completely rebuilding your GML file and (B) prone to crashing (at least with my older v4 build).

mabes · « **Reply #22 on:** January 16, 2009, 02:15:58 pm »

Quote from: glynor on January 16, 2009, 01:26:59 pm

Hmmm... I do need that (key repeat) capability.

Girder does work for me (and allows all that same functionality). If only it wasn't: (A) always impossible to upgrade without completely rebuilding your GML file and (B) prone to crashing (at least with my older v4 build).

You lose repeat if you disable Windows HIP, I had to because when I pressed CH UP and DOWN it would also raise and lower volume. This is on an MCE remote, others may be different. The Intelliremote guy comes here, he can answer

raym · « **Reply #23 on:** January 16, 2009, 06:33:54 pm »

Quote from: mabes on January 16, 2009, 02:15:58 pm

You lose repeat if you disable Windows HIP, I had to because when I pressed CH UP and DOWN it would also raise and lower volume. This is on an MCE remote, others may be different. The Intelliremote guy comes here, he can answer

That's exactly right. I have in fact asked him this very question and it's a limitation with the MS receiver driver. That's why I leave the registry and Windows HIP in tact (to do arrows/enter and handle repeats natively) and just let Intelliremote do the rest. This combo works great.

One thing I do miss however is mouse pointer control via rc. Intelliremote hase a mouse "move" feature but it's limited and again, doesn't handle repeats with the MCE receiver. No work-around for that one that I can tell.

mabes · « **Reply #24 on:** January 16, 2009, 08:56:16 pm »

How did you get CH up and down not to raise and lower volume. Because the more I use IR, the more I want to be able to hold the arrows and let them run.

raym · « **Reply #25 on:** January 17, 2009, 01:28:14 am »

Quote from: mabes on January 16, 2009, 08:56:16 pm

How did you get CH up and down not to raise and lower volume. Because the more I use IR, the more I want to be able to hold the arrows and let them run.

I'm using a Logitech Harmony universal remote with a MS IR keyboard (came with the orig remote and receiver as a package). I was able to "teach" the Harmony the actual page up/down codes via the keyboard. Also, the discrete vol up/down buttons on the Harmony control the volume on my external AV receiver rather than the PC volume.

[EDIT] just re-read your previous posts and it seems you have a Harmony remote also?? If you don't own an MS IR kb, you can achieve what I described above just by teaching your Harmony new codes for chan and vol up/down using an old remote control (maybe one you're no longer using or one from a tv remote located in another room in the house? As long as the codes are unique, you should be ok). Then just get Intelliremote to route those new codes in MC as you need. Make sense?

imugli · « **Reply #26 on:** January 17, 2009, 04:09:03 pm »

Quote from: glynor on January 16, 2009, 01:26:59 pm

Hmmm... I do need that (key repeat) capability.

You probably already know this but here goes...

In Girder, if you create a new USBUIRT action (any action), then in the action config window select USBUIRT Configuration, you can select an option that says something like "Pass stop codes as repeat presses" Tick that and key repeat should work.

I just have to press and hold Volume and directional buttons in MC to increase/decrease volume and scroll.

glynor · « **Reply #27 on:** January 17, 2009, 05:15:07 pm »

Yeah. Girder works quite well for me now. I'm NOT using an IR remote, though. I use a Snapstream Firefly, which I love. My setup and GML file works fine as is, with repeats and everything. Like I said, my only two issues are... A and B above.

mabes · « **Reply #28 on:** January 19, 2009, 11:08:25 am »

Intelliremote not working now. It quit last night but it turned out to be a loose USB, ** cats. But before I saw that I went into options/remote. Now I get an error message about the COM port.I wasn't using any of the plug ins that came with MC,at least I think I wasn't. I set them all to inactive. What to do?

mabes · « **Reply #29 on:** January 22, 2009, 10:33:30 am »

Bumping. Intelliremote is working fine once I click OK on the error message about the COM port, but I get it every time I open MC.

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Author Topic: Best Remote (Read 8896 times)