IR Server Suite for Media Center

[brohmes]

Hi Aaron,

Saw your post on thegreenbutton forum. Glad to hear you're interested in looking at integration to Media Center. I like Media Portal just fine, but the wife is another story!

I searched for other remote control plugins, but have come up dry. Hopefully that doesn't mean that it's ridiculously difficult to develop for - but with MS, i guess you never know.

However, I did find a couple of pages on msdn outlining how media center handles input.

I hope these prove helpful:

Understanding Mouse, Keyboard, and Remote Control Input

Retrieving Infrared Commands

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Thank you,

Ryan

[and-81]

Hi Ryan,

I've found an open source MCE plugin that simulates button presses so I'm going to take a look and see how it does that, which should then let me port my MediaPortal Control Plugin to MS MCE.

I will post back here with any developments.

Thanks for the links, they will be handy too.

Just so everyone understands that I haven't turned against MediaPortal by supporting MCE, here is my reasoning:

1. Making a plugin for MCE will get a lot of exposure for IR Server Suite.
2. The only place to get IR Server Suite & Support for it is here at MediaPortal's web site.
3. Any attention IR Server Suite gets will bring more attention to MediaPortal.

Cheers,

[Paranoid Delusion]

1. Making a plugin for MCE will get a lot of exposure for IR Server Suite.
2. The only place to get IR Server Suite & Support for it is here at MediaPortal's web site.
3. Any attention IR Server Suite gets will bring more attention to MediaPortal.

I really like your thinking on this one

[HKMe]

Hi Aaron,

Great to hear you're looking at MCE compatibility for the server suite. I like MediaPortal a lot, but have had stability issues that have kept me tied to MCE for some time so I'm curious as to what type of functionality you're considering implementing. I tried running the IR Server Suite with MCE and while IR reception and reblast was fine (using MCE remote volume up/down to blast volume up/down on my amp with other buttons handled normally by MCE), MCE could no longer access the blaster to change channels on my STB:

"Media Center is unable to change the channel on the set-top box because the Remote Sensor is not connected..."

I presume this is because the IR Server Suite has control of the blaster or driver or what not. I guess the options are to either not take exclusive access or handle MCE's blasting for it. Both of these sounds extremely difficult from the layman's perspective, but I guess that's why I'm not developing IR plugins ;-)

Many thanks for your fine work on this.

regards,
Brad

[and-81]

HKMe:

The reason Media Center can't change channels is because using the MCE device requires exclusive access. IR Server Suite has taken that access and won't share it

The only way to support Media Center properly will be to handle the channel changing for it. Without looking into that side of things yet I can't say if that will be easy or not. But I doubt it would be difficult.

I'll be investigating this plugin a little more during the week, so hopefully by the weekend I will know more.

Thanks for your interest,

Cheers,

[TVmecken]

Hi Aaron,
Just wondering how this part of your project is progressing?
Have been a MP user for at least two years using TVE2 on XP, now moved to Vista (first x64 but now back to x32). Also tried to move to tvE3, but having stability issues, so I am exploring the Vista Ultimate MC application. While it refuses to mix tuner cards (either analog OR digital, not both...), thus limiting me to use only two tuners, it is of course more stable than the beta TVE3, so I will continue with this for some time.

At the moment I am using Translator to switch on my Plasma and amplifier (by the green button) and by not disabling the "automatic system buttons", most (if not all) of the MC navigation buttons works OK.

If you need a tester for a Vista compliant version, I would be happy to participate.

Thanks

[and-81]

I've actually got something ready to test. What I mean is, it compiles. So I'm going to need to do a small amount of my own testing and then I'll post it here for you to try out.

Try the latest version of TV Server though, the new SVN works REALLY NICE for me.

Cheers,

[and-81]

OK,

I've got something that I need some testing done on.

Basically, before I can finish this program I need to know how to determine if a channel change event needs to be acted on by the blaster code.

I'd do this myself but I don't have a tv card that will allow me to use an external source with MCE.

I need to see if I can tell the difference between a normal channel and an STB channel. Its either that or just let the user list all the channels they want the program to act on.

If you'd like to help me out what I need is for you to install IR Server Suite, then install the files from the attached ZIP into Program Files\IR Server Suite\Media Center Blaster

You'll also need to create a folder: All Users\Application Data\IR Server Suite\Media Center Blaster
This is under the Documents and Settings folder on XP and the Users folder on Vista.

Oh, and until I finish it off properly you'll need to install the MCE SDK and merge the registry file for registering the MSASState.dll into your registry ... I've attached the reg file (you may need to change the file path in it if you are on Vista). Rename the .txt to .reg to use it.

It's a bit of mucking around which I hope to automate in future version.

Then what I need is for you to run the program (Media Center Blaster) and run MCE and try to watch a channel on a Set Top Box. This will create some log entries in the Media Center Blaster.log in the IR Server Suite Logs folder that will hopefully help me finish off the application.

Thanks!

[brohmes]

thats great aaron.

i'm in for being a guinea pig.

i'll let you know how i make out.

thanks!

Ryan

[defrisselle]

So, How's it progressing? I'll be setting up a second display tomorrow as a TV and didn't realize there would be an issue til I googled "opening Media Center on second display". eep.