Considering upgrading and iMON (3 Viewers)

[CyberSimian]

HP sounds good, but I couldn't find anything relevant in the Swiss HP Store.

HP stopped manufacturing their IR receiver when Microsoft decided not to include WMC in Windows 10. So the HP IR receiver is not available new from Amazon. But it is available from Ebay, such as this one. It claims "opened but never used". IR receivers do not wear out, so I would have no qualms about buying a pre-used IR receiver (in contrast, I would never buy a used remote control, as the buttons do wear out). If you search Ebay for "mce rc6 ir receiver" you will find other units, although most of the HP IR receivers are sold with the matching HP remote control.

There are other MCE RC6 IR receivers available on Ebay, such as this one. It is smaller than the HP unit, which you may consider an advantage (but I have no experience of that particular unit).

I have just got my HP IR receiver out of a drawer and plugged it into my recently-acquired Windows 10 laptop running Windows 10 version 21H1. Windows recognised the IR receiver immediately, and loaded the driver from its driver database. It appears as the "Microsoft eHome Infrared Transceiver" in the "Human Interface Devices" section of Windows "Device Manager".

I then plugged the IR receiver into my HTPC running Windows 7, and it similarly recognised the IR receiver and loaded the driver. I then used "MP Config" to switch the remote device from "Sceneo" (my usual IR device) to "HID" with the "Classic" profile. Finally, I setup my Xsight Colour with device code 1272, and then started MP. All of the usual functions worked as expected. (Some buttons did nothing on certain panels, but that is because the HID "Classic" profile assigns no functions to those buttons on those panels -- but of course you can change that in "MP Config").

As you already have the FLIRC, it may be worthwhile trying to get it to work. According to this page there is a built-in profile for Microsoft WMC, and another for Flirc WMC. It is not clear what the difference is, but one might be the MCE RC6 code set, and the other might be the keyboard-shortcuts code set. It would be worth trying both, with your Xsight set to code-set 1272.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[rsbrux]

Thanks again. I am already using the "Microsoft WMC" profile for my FLIRC USB (see post #6 above) with mixed results. Not only are some buttons missing, but some important ones (play, pause and stop) aren't working, even though the FLIRC GUI confirmed recording them successfully. I noticed the reference to a "FLIRC WMC" profile, but find no way to choose it and no documentation on what it contains. The documentation of the "Microsoft WMC" profile is clearly out of date. I have therefore posted a question on the FLIRC forum, but am not optimistic: the forum contains a lot of unanswered questions.

 

[nicsergio]

I am using Windows 10 and my old iMon, but I am not satisfied, it often crashes (the display remains frozen) and I have to launch iMon again. I made a batch file that starts at startup and every minute checks if iMon is running, otherwise it re-launches it, poor solution.

 

[CyberSimian]

I am already using the "Microsoft WMC" profile for my FLIRC USB (see post #6 above) with mixed results. Not only are some buttons missing, but some important ones (play, pause and stop) aren't working, even though the FLIRC GUI confirmed recording them successfully.

I was looking on the Flirc web site and I noticed this statement:

flirc acts as a keyboard​

That is a significant fact that may point to the source of your problems.

A standard Microsoft MCE RC6 remote control transmits signals which are usually received by an MCE RC6 IR receiver that is controlled by the "Microsoft eHome Infrared Transceiver" driver. Your Xsight remote with code set 1272 will be transmitting those signals.

The Flirc built-in profile for MCE RC6 should be able to recognise those signals, but because the Flirc appears as a keyboard, it won't be handled by the "Microsoft eHome Infrared Transceiver" driver. Instead it will be handled by the standard Windows keyboard driver. The significance of this is that the Flirc will be generating WMC keyboard shortcuts; it won't be generating MP keyboard shortcuts. Sadly, although some MP shortcuts are the same as WMC shortcuts, others differ, and so those won't be recognised by MP and the buttons will appear to do nothing.

I have just looked at an older post of mine, and according to that post the following buttons use keyboard shortcuts that are common to MP and WMC (so these buttons should work without change):

up; down; left; right; ok; channel up; channel down; ​

volume up; volume down; numeric digits.​

The other buttons use MP keyboard shortcuts that are different from WMC keyboard shortcuts, so those buttons won't work. I would suggest trying the following, which may work:

• Set your Xsight remote to use code set 1272 (you have probably already done this).
• Use the built-in Flirc profile for Microsoft WMC. Don't learn any of these buttons, as learns are often inferior to pre-defined codes.
• For the buttons on the remote that are absent from the Flirc profile you will have to use learns.
• For the learned buttons, you must define the keyboard shortcut that you want Flirc to send to MP.
• For the built-in buttons, you must redefine those that differ between MP and WMC so that Flirc sends the MP shortcut instead of sending the WMC shortcut.
• Finally I think that you should disable HID in "MP Config". This will cause MP to revert to using the old keyboard interface, which I think has a better chance of working.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

I am using Windows 10 and my old iMon, but I am not satisfied, it often crashes (the display remains frozen)

I have never used an iMon, but did you install the iMon driver in compatibility mode? This page describes the procedure for installing drivers in compatibility mode.

One caveat: as far as I can see, compatibility mode works only if the installer is an EXE file -- you right-click the EXE file and select "Trouble-shooting" from the context menu.

Last week I tried to install an older USB network adapter in compatibility mode on Windows 10. The problem is that the driver exists only as a SYS file and an INF file, not as an EXE file. Consequently there is no way to access the "Trouble-shooting" selection in the context menu. If the installer for your iMon driver is not an EXE file, compatibility mode won't be accessible.

-- from Cybersimian in the UK

 

[Rob Hexenmeister]

This thread is getting a bit hijacked on to other matters from my original request about getting my built-in Origen AE VFD (Soundgraph iMON) working with Windows 10. I don't suppose anyone has any advice?

 

[Rob Hexenmeister]

The significance of this is that the Flirc will be generating WMC keyboard shortcuts; it won't be generating MP keyboard shortcuts.

Not a problem if like me, you are only using your PC for MediaPortal. However, I have used AutoHotkey scripts to get around that problem on other installations in the past. It is relatively easy to program AHK to check which application has the active window.

 

[CyberSimian]

my original request about getting my built-in Origen AE VFD (Soundgraph iMON) working with Windows 10.

If your HTPC has Windows 10 installed, did you try installing the iMon driver in compatibility mode (same questiion I asked @nicsergio in this post).

If you have not yet installed Windows 10 on your HTPC, we will have to wait for @nicsergio to try compatibility mode on his system (it may not work). Let us hope that @nicsergio tells us what the outcome is!

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[nicsergio]

I had installed the Soundgraph package (which belongs to a setup.exe) normally, as the installation was successful without problems.
The idea of trying with the compatibility mode is good, as soon as I can I try and update you.

 

[Rob Hexenmeister]

not yet installed Windows 10

The idea of trying with the compatibility mode is good, as soon as I can I try and update you.

Thanks both. No I haven't yet upgraded because I am reliant on the VFD display, and I really need to know before I do the upgrade, that it is going to work.