Getting ortek mce remote to work better (1 Viewer)

enchant

Portal Pro
April 15, 2008
86
6
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
I've been using the Ortek MCE remote for years now. It's fine, but it's missing a lot. I can do the basics - start a video, pause, skip ahead a few minutes. But there's a lot I can't do. Like FF/Rewind. There are a couple of keys that look like they should do the job ">>", but nothing happens. I see the IR receiver flashing, so it's receiving something from the remote.

I've spent some time looking at keymap.xml, but it's not obvious to me what should be changed (if anything).

I'd also like to add a few things to the remote. For example, the 'L' key toggles subtitles. This would be a lot easier than using the menu.
 

enchant

Portal Pro
April 15, 2008
86
6
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
Hey, thanks for that! I'll give it a try in the morning.
 

enchant

Portal Pro
April 15, 2008
86
6
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
This may improve usability for you:

Vista MCE Remote Control VRC-1100
I'm sorry, but I'm still stumped by all of this. I downloaded that package and installed it. It looked like a window popped up for a microsecond, but there's no way I had time to read what might have been on it. So if it did successfully install, I have no idea where.

It is strongly recommended that you use the AutoHotKey script provided with the package

I'd definitely try that if I knew where the script was. I tried searching for "Centarea" in my [.../Programdata/Team Mediaportal] and [.../program files (x66)/Team Mediaportal] directories, but found nothing.

(2) All buttons on the remote (apart from POWER) can now be customised using the usual "Mapping" panel on the "Sceneo" tab in "MediaPortal Configuration".

In the configuration, under Remotes and Input Devices / Sceneo tab,
I'm not completely sure what to do. Since the Mapping button is greyed out unless I check "Use Centarea Master Remote II" box, I did that. But now there is an ever-expanding list of things that I could do (probably wrong).

I Expand Centarea HID.

Since Rewind is one of the things I'd like to get going, I expand that. The only thing there is to expand "All Layers". TV Guide and Slideshow don't sound right, so I expand "No Condition".

This reveals Action "Rewind" and "cursor.wav". I click on Action "Rewind". At this point, there are several buttons and options to select, but nothing seems obvious to me as what I'm looking for.

Am I in the right neighborhood? If not, where did I go wrong?
 

CyberSimian

Test Group
  • Team MediaPortal
  • June 10, 2013
    2,849
    1,771
    Southampton
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    I downloaded that package and installed it.
    You need to place the ZIP file in the following folder before extracting the contents:

    C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\InputDeviceMappings\

    This is mentioned in the file "Centarea HID.txt", but what is not mentioned is that this folder does not exist initially; MP creates it when you enable one of the remote controls in "MP Config" and change its mappings. However, you can create the folder manually if it does not already exist. So create that folder, copy the ZIP file to it, and then unzip the ZIP file.

    The file "Centarea HID.txt" in the "InputDeviceMappings" folder contains the instructions for setting up the remote. Follow those and then check that your Ortek remote is working. Once you have got this far, you can consider changing some of the button definitions, but let us get the remote working with the default configuration first.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    enchant

    Portal Pro
    April 15, 2008
    86
    6
    Home Country
    United States of America United States of America
    Oh.
    My.
    Freakin'.
    God.

    I am such a pinhead. Somehow I totally missed Centarea HID.txt, which contains everything I need to know about how to get this all working. On top of that, I had the whole key mapping methodology bass ackwards. I was looking at the list of actions on the left thinking that I had to choose the action that I wanted to happen (like "Rewind"), and then somehow map a key on my remote to do that. Now I understand that that list on the left corresponds to the individual keys on MY remote, and then I choose what each key does.

    Bottom line: Everything works now, and thanks for your patience with me.
     

    enchant

    Portal Pro
    April 15, 2008
    86
    6
    Home Country
    United States of America United States of America
    I don't know why I didn't notice this before, but you're the author of the Amped skin, right? My other project is to tweak that to my needs. I love the layout, especially the lack of a huge opaque status bar at the bottom when you pause or skip ahead.

    Two things that I'd very much like. Would it be possible to put folder icons in the list where appropriate? The other thing (less important), is that when a video has been watched, the text color darkens, but not much at all and it's not obvious if something has been watched. Is this something I can tweak? Thanks for everything.
     

    CyberSimian

    Test Group
  • Team MediaPortal
  • June 10, 2013
    2,849
    1,771
    Southampton
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    you're the author of the Amped skin, right?
    I am not the author of Amped -- others deserve the credit for the considerable amount of work that went into the creation of Amped.

    I am (intermittently) creating my own skin based on the classic "DefaultWide". I occasionally try various other skins to see how they do things, during which I noticed some bugs with Amped. The bugs were easy to diagnose, so I have provided some fixes. But as a result I was unexpectedly made the "owner" of Amped. :eek:

    I am not actively supporting Amped, but if users notice errors I will try to fix them if they are not too obscure. However, I am not at this point planning to offer any enhancements. :(

    Would it be possible to put folder icons in the list where appropriate?
    Most other skins do have small icons in lists of files -- a folder icon for folders, and either a thumbnail image taken from the video file (if thumbnails are enabled), or a standard "media" icon if not. The difficulty is in re-arranging the panel layouts to find space for small icons. Not impossible, but Amped is one of the few skins that offers the user the choice of font sizes, so the panel layouts are (I suspect) already quite complex. You might like to look at a current skin such as "DefaultWideHD" which does have small icons in lists, and then examine the xml to see if you can identify what needs to be added or changed. For the "Videos" panel in MP, the xml file is "MyVideo.xml".

    when a video has been watched, the text color darkens, but not much at all and it's not obvious if something has been watched. Is this something I can tweak?
    This is likely to be easier to achieve, as many Amped colours are defined in the file "Amped.Colors.xml" (although it is possible that some colours are hard-coded in the xml files).

    The MP Wiki has a major section dealing with creating and modifying skins, but it is variable in quality. Nevertheless, it is the only documentation available on coding a skin:

    Skin MediaPortal

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    enchant

    Portal Pro
    April 15, 2008
    86
    6
    Home Country
    United States of America United States of America
    I am not the author of Amped [ ... ] so I have provided some fixes. But as a result I was unexpectedly made the "owner" of Amped. :eek:
    Ah, the old "You fixed it, you own it" quandry.

    Amped is one of the few skins that offers the user the choice of font sizes, so the panel layouts are (I suspect) already quite complex.

    Indeed. Very complex. I'm big in to minimalism, so I've tried to disable all of the large graphics files that I can. I've managed to increase the font size and the list width to 1000. As I mentioned before, I really REALLY like that when you pause, skip ahead, or whatever, the information is posted in a non-obstructionist fashion at the top. We watch a fair amount of foreign tv, especially subtitled Japanese, and it's difficult to pause and read the subtitles when they get covered.

    You might like to look at a current skin such as "DefaultWideHD" which does have small icons in lists, and then examine the xml to see if you can identify what needs to be added or changed.

    That was my second favorite choice, primarily due to the existence of those icons. I'll probably still jump back and forth a bit to see what serves my needs best.

    This is likely to be easier to achieve, as many Amped colours are defined in the file "Amped.Colors.xml" (although it is possible that some colours are hard-coded in the xml files).

    Thanks for the good tips! I'll take a look at that and do some experimenting.
     

    LionHe

    Portal Member
    April 7, 2013
    23
    4
    57
    Home Country
    Italy Italy
    @CyberSimian Thank you for your script. It works pretty well. I have only a couple of problems that I did not manage to solve
    1) the install.bat script reports success but the link is not copied in the startup directory. I solved by copying it manually. (I am using an italian version of windows 7, I do not know if that matters)
    2) I am unable to use the ! (exclamation mark) key during reproduction in order to see the frame rate overlay. If I disable the centarea hid, it works. This is probably related to the mapping of the keyboard in the mediaportal remote section, I have seen that the exclamation mark is there, but how can I map it to the mediaportal function that display the frame rate?

    Thank you for your help,
    LionHe
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom