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[mattkhan]

I picked up the HP MCE ir receiver recently with a view to getting my RTi remote to talk to it. As far as I can see the receiver is working normally (light on front flashes when a button is pressed) but not much is happening in jriver. Therefore I wanted to take jriver out of the equation and see if I can see the input stream directly. What tools are available on windows to do this? I have done this using lirc on Linux before but never windows. A Google suggests there is a winlirc so maybe that is an option. Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks
Matt

[gappie]

this is not answering your question, but have you enabled remote control in mc, its under options>general>features.

if so, you get an item in options called remote control.. you could check what it says under devices and options.. and you could add a command under commands and click 'start learning', push a button on your remote and see if mc recieves anything..

 
gab

[mattkhan]

this is not answering your question, but have you enabled remote control in mc, its under options>general>features.

if so, you get an item in options called remote control.. you could check what it says under devices and options.. and you could add a command under commands and click 'start learning', push a button on your remote and see if mc recieves anything..

 
gab

I do have a section called "remote control" & I did try start learning but it didn't seem to do anything. However my remote has been playing up recently (recently repaired under warranty and the programming is still flaky) so I can't be sure it's not the remote itself (hence the desire to debug).

[Arindelle]

why don't you try to set the back the defaults from the options ... maybe the "learning" that you started confused the remote

[mattkhan]

OK so I did the following

- plugged the IR receiver into another computer (not running jriver)
- ran up winlirc
- fired the remote at it
- saw input data

== IR receiver is ok

- plugged the IR receiver into the HTPC running jriver
- killed jriver
- ran up winlirc
- fired the remote at it
- saw data

== IR receiver is ok on that machine

- started jriver
- tried to control theater view
- nothing happens

== could be bad programming on the remote

- tried to learn a custom command (clicked learn, press button on remote)
- nothing happens

== no idea but it's not working

This says to me that the problem is in jriver.

Any ideas?

[JimH]

The wiki has a topic called "Media Center Remote".  It has instructions.  Maybe you'll find a clue there.

[RoderickGI]

- started jriver
- tried to control theater view
- nothing happens

== could be bad programming on the remote

- tried to learn a custom command (clicked learn, press button on remote)
- nothing happens

== no idea but it's not working

This says to me that the problem is in jriver.

Any ideas?

I assume that in Options > Remote Control > Devices & Options you have at least Microsoft MCE selected? I have just that item selected of the four there.

With that setting, as far as I can tell, MC only receives MCE commands and ignores all other IR commands. I have tried to program additional commands provided by the Logitech "MC HTPC SE" IR Command set definition, which is an extended version of MCE commands, and MC never receives any of the extended commands. I tested this using the MC learning mode, just as you tried.

So are you sure that your RTi remote is sending MCE commands? When testing do you use only the core MCE commands, such as Play, Stop, OK, Pause? By using only those commands you know that you should be sending standard MCE commands.

I don't have or know much about RTi remotes, but a quick look at the web site shows me that they can use a command definition file to change the type of commands being sent. What did you use the RTi remote for previously? If it was proprietary piece of electronic equipment, such as a Receiver, perhaps it is still set up to send commands for that device?

[Arindelle]

yes +1 Roderick

Although in the device window try selecting ALL remote possibilities in the settings  just in case.

As in the screenshot it will indicate what is active

If it is, I assume you have reset to the "default list" as I suggested (screen2)? Maybe a clear all first and then a reset is needed?

[mattkhan]

The wiki has a topic called "Media Center Remote".  It has instructions.  Maybe you'll find a clue there.

I have reviewed those pages

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Remotes#Media_Center_Remote
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Remote
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Remote_Instructions

the troubleshooting bit says

Point the remote at the receiver and press a button. If it blinks once, the hardware is working. If you see a solid red light, it is not working.
it definitely blinks when I press a button on the remote & the winlirc utils clearly show there is activity seen by the computer

I assume that in Options > Remote Control > Devices & Options you have at least Microsoft MCE selected? I have just that item selected of the four there.

I tried with just MCE selected and with everything

With that setting, as far as I can tell, MC only receives MCE commands and ignores all other IR commands. I have tried to program additional commands provided by the Logitech "MC HTPC SE" IR Command set definition, which is an extended version of MCE commands, and MC never receives any of the extended commands. I tested this using the MC learning mode, just as you tried.

that sounds like my case but it seems quite odd, it has to be able to see other commands otherwise how can it learn to emulate them?

So are you sure that your RTi remote is sending MCE commands? When testing do you use only the core MCE commands, such as Play, Stop, OK, Pause? By using only those commands you know that you should be sending standard MCE commands.

no I am not certain, I have the installer coming out today to check the setup as it has been flaky since being repaired. It *should* have the standard set of MCE commands loaded but I haven't found a list of what those commands are so it's difficult to verify that.

I don't have or know much about RTi remotes, but a quick look at the web site shows me that they can use a command definition file to change the type of commands being sent. What did you use the RTi remote for previously? If it was proprietary piece of electronic equipment, such as a Receiver, perhaps it is still set up to send commands for that device?

it has custom programming to drive my whole system (pj, tv, processor etc).

If it is, I assume you have reset to the "default list" as I suggested (screen2)? Maybe a clear all first and then a reset is needed?

yes I have tried that (another post coming up with pics from my setup)

[mattkhan]

I went through the wiki instructions from the beginning & deleted the device/rebooted etc, the computer definitely sees the device happily but jriver does not.

If I click "next" in the first remote screen then jriver says "device not seen" but windows clearly says the device is happy & is the right sort of device so I have no idea how to debug this further. Any ideas?

EDIT: I looked in the event log and I can see messages that refer to the IR device and are described as

ReportDescription=Windows installed driver software that supports the basic features of your HID-compliant vendor-defined device. Its manufacturer may provide software that enables additional features.

I'm guessing this is normal behaviour given that everything says no specific drivers are required on win8.

[gappie]

i use a hp reciever too.. but the one from mc... it works, but not all when i only select mce.. adding 'remote, ... or other hid' to the devices makes it possible to give all buttons a function.

when i see the message you got, you could use this to see if you get a response in mc.

 
gab

[mattkhan]

i use a hp reciever too.. but the one from mc... it works, but not all when i only select mce.. adding 'remote, ... or other hid' to the devices makes it possible to give all buttons a function.

do you mean deselect the MCE option? like the attached pic? if so, that doesn't work either

[mattkhan]

I then tried eventghost with the MCE plugin to see whether that recognised it as an MCE remote and it clearly does and sees some commands that it recognises as MCE commands (see attached pic)

I don't know what else I can do tbh, can anyone from jriver comment on what jriver is looking for exactly? why does it think no remote is connected (when every other app happily sees it)?

[gappie]

do you mean deselect the MCE option? like the attached pic? if so, that doesn't work either

for me it looks like the attachments.

just a last thing that i dont if it matters but under options>general>advanced>media key mode is that set to automatic?

[gappie]

and on a small sidenote... i get this also (see attachment) although everything works and my remote is exactly the one seen in the image.

 
gab

[mattkhan]

OK thanks, that's quite curious

What does your device show up as in device manager?

[gappie]

OK thanks, that's quite curious

What does your device show up as in device manager?

well been pulling and pushing a bit ..
i see it under human interface devices adding 5

microsoft eHome Infrared tranciever
HID complaint control device
hid complaint system controler
hid complaint vendor defined device (2X)

maybe there could be more, but this is what i found.
that is under w8.1
but ive been using it for years with mc, so it was under xp and 7 too..

 
gab

[JimH]

There is an option to disable WMC in MC.  Try it to see if the behavior changes.

[mattkhan]

OK so I tried to learn a command again ignoring the fact that pressing next gives that error. Process was

click command
select a command
press learn
press button on remote

== IR receiver lights up but nothing changes in the view of the commands

press stop learning

== command still has a ? against it

Is this user error or should something be happening here?

[gappie]

OK so I tried to learn a command again ignoring the fact that pressing next gives that error. Process was

click command
select a command
press learn
press button on remote

== IR receiver lights up but nothing changes in the view of the commands

press stop learning

== command still has a ? against it

Is this user error or should something be happening here?

when it would work the ? would change in something else.

[mattkhan]

There is an option to disable WMC in MC.  Try it to see if the behavior changes.

do you mean in the theater view options? if so, no that doesn't help.

[mattkhan]

I have made some progress after my installer came round to fix the remote. I now have a full set of MCE commands coming through from the remote and EventGhost is reporting what those commands are. JRiver is also responding to some of these commands in theaterview, I can

- navigate using up/down/left/right/enter
- play/pause a video using the play button
- pressing up brings up a menu (that I didn't know existed) in the lower border for selecting subtitles etc

However stop/ff/rew doesn't work (well ff/rew does using the left/right buttons but not the MCE ff/rew buttons) and the learning function still doesn't work.

As far as I can see, if I can't get learning to work then I can't map MCE remote codes to particular MC functions as desired. Is this right or is there some other way to configure the "standard" MCE commands?

I can list all the commands my remote is sending if it helps. Is there a list of the MCE codes that jriver responds to anywhere?

[RoderickGI]

I have made some progress after my installer came round to fix the remote.

My understanding is that the MC "ten foot interface" (Theatre View) is basically a five button interface;

Left, Right, Up, Down, and OK.

Just about all functions are available through those buttons. When you press Up (Down works as well) to see the Subtitles options, keeping pressing Up to scroll through all the options: Volume, Progress Bar, Aspect ratio, Zoom, etc. What displays is dependent on media is being played.

OK, plays and pauses video. Left and Right skip forward and backward in a video, or move around menus.

Lots of other buttons on my Logitech using MCE commands, and on my standard MCE remote also work. Stop, Play, Pause, Record, Back, all the Number Key (which also act as Character Keys in certain areas), Guide Exit, Menu, Info, Clear (acts as Escape), E (Enter). *, #, Channel Up/Down, Volume Up/Down, Mute. Fast Forward and Rewind move back and forward in a video, but it is just skipping through the file, not playing smoothly.

None of those commands have to be learned. They are already defined when you select the Microsoft MCE Remote in MC. If some aren't working for you, have you already learned some value against the command that may be causing a problem? May you should set the Command list to default and see if the other buttons start working.

The learning function is still a bit of a mystery to me. It only seems to learn commands that it already knows about, allowing you to move commands from button to button, but not add new ones. Except when adding an IR Blast command to a function, when it learns any code. I think. I don't use IR Blast functions.

I haven't found a list of MCE codes that MC uses, but the list of commands it uses is shown in the Options > Remote Control > Commands section. Again, you may need to click the "Restore Default List" button to see them all.

[mattkhan]

My understanding is that the MC "ten foot interface" (Theatre View) is basically a five button interface;

Left, Right, Up, Down, and OK.

Just about all functions are available through those buttons. When you press Up (Down works as well) to see the Subtitles options, keeping pressing Up to scroll through all the options: Volume, Progress Bar, Aspect ratio, Zoom, etc. What displays is dependent on media is being played.

OK, plays and pauses video. Left and Right skip forward and backward in a video, or move around menus.

all of these commands work fine for me except there seems to be no way to stop a video (exit back to theater view). How are you meant do that?

Lots of other buttons on my Logitech using MCE commands, and on my standard MCE remote also work. Stop, Play, Pause, Record, Back, all the Number Key (which also act as Character Keys in certain areas), Guide Exit, Menu, Info, Clear (acts as Escape), E (Enter). *, #, Channel Up/Down, Volume Up/Down, Mute. Fast Forward and Rewind move back and forward in a video, but it is just skipping through the file, not playing smoothly.

these do not work for me but eventghost does report them as MCE events.

None of those commands have to be learned. They are already defined when you select the Microsoft MCE Remote in MC. If some aren't working for you, have you already learned some value against the command that may be causing a problem? May you should set the Command list to default and see if the other buttons start working.

I don't have anything learned.

The learning function is still a bit of a mystery to me. It only seems to learn commands that it already knows about, allowing you to move commands from button to button, but not add new ones. Except when adding an IR Blast command to a function, when it learns any code. I think. I don't use IR Blast functions.

I don't understand it either, the implication of the screen is that it will learn any IR code and allow you to direct that code to any MCC command & this is exactly what it says here too - http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Remote_Instructions#Or_Edit_a_Single_Command

I haven't found a list of MCE codes that MC uses, but the list of commands it uses is shown in the Options > Remote Control > Commands section. Again, you may need to click the "Restore Default List" button to see them all.

this needs to be documented somewhere, surely there is a lookup table in the jrmc codebase that simply maps MCE codes to MCC commands? Can someone from jriver provide this?

It's really frustrating that I have, what I thought was, the difficult bit working (getting an RTi remote hooked up the PC) but jriver doesn't want to play ball. It will be quite poor if I have to write a python script that calls MCC itself using eventghost when the functionality is sitting there in jriver

[RoderickGI]

all of these commands work fine for me except there seems to be no way to stop a video (exit back to theater view). How are you meant do that?

Quite right, there is no Stop function in the basic five keys. Unless there is a secret someone else can share with us.

As for the rest, I can't really help. I can only assume that something else is capturing the IR signals. Have you looked in the Windows Event Viewer to see if anything in there provides a clue?

I basically tried to get additional buttons and functions working for a while, then put it on the To Do List for later. Much later. But I'm starting to think about it again, which is why I read your thread.

It certainly would be nice if there was some more information about MC IR capabilities, and tools to diagnose the issues.

Sorry I can't be more help.

[mattkhan]

As for the rest, I can't really help. I can only assume that something else is capturing the IR signals. Have you looked in the Windows Event Viewer to see if anything in there provides a clue?
...
Sorry I can't be more help.

you've been lots of help

the idea about capturing the IR signals was right on the money. It turns out that eventghost, by default, does indeed capture the inputs (as described in http://www.eventghost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1023) so turning that off & then uninstalling gives me a working MCE remote and the ability to learn commands.

It would still be handy to get a complete list of the key codes JRiver responds to mind you (as I don't have an actual MCE remote just a remote that is sending certain MCE codes).

[RoderickGI]

Excellent.

I bought a standard MCE remote with the IR receiver I use, so that I have a reference if there are any problems with the Logitech. They are dirt cheap so it may be worthwhile getting one yourself. It just makes diagnosis so much easier.

Theoretically MC responds to all MCE commands, so if you can find a list of those, you have it. Or using a standard remote and EventGhost ( or an alternative such as WINlirc ) you could create such a list. But it would be nice if it was in the MC Wiki somewhere.

[RoderickGI]

You might like to know that based on Arindelle's suggestion above I finally got around to testing turning on the other three IR devices listed in MC and seeing if the additional commands in the Logitech "MC HTPC SE" Device type would work. I thought I had tried that before, but obviously not. I found that the "Remote, Keyboard, Gamepad or other HID" device would activate, but the last two didn't, just as in Arindelle's image above. I turned the last two off again, since they weren't going to do anything.

With the second device active I was able to learn additional key codes for a custom button on my Logitech remote. MC complained that I was creating a duplicate function or similar, but let me learn the function anyway. In the Logitech Remote setup the key was coded as sending "ALT-1", and in MC the custom button was set up to run an external command, to open or close my optical drive.

It worked. Based on that I should be able to learn other keyboard based commands. I'm not sure that fixes all of my concerns with remote functionality in MC, but at least it gives me a way forward. Great.

Maybe you, or other readers, can use that information.

[Arindelle]

You might like to know that based on Arindelle's suggestion above I finally got around to testing turning on the other three IR devices listed in MC and seeing if the additional commands in the Logitech "MC HTPC SE" Device type would work. I thought I had tried that before, but obviously not. I found that the "Remote, Keyboard, Gamepad or other HID" device would activate, but the last two didn't, just as in Arindelle's image above. I turned the last to off again, since they weren't going to do anything.

With the second device active I was able to learn additional key codes for a custom button on my Logitech remote. MC complained that I was creating a duplicate function or similar, but let me learn the function anyway. In the Logitech Remote setup the key was coded as sending "ALT-1", and in MC the custom button was set up to run an external command, to open or close my optical drive.

It worked. Based on that I should be able to learn other keyboard based commands. I'm not sure that fixes all of my concerns with remote functionality in MC, but at least it gives me a way forward. Great.

Maybe you, or other readers, can use that information.

yes I'm sure others could use this ..

thanks very much for posting Roderick !