Need Help on IR Blaster Support (see 2nd page) (2 Viewers)

[Lawrence]

MP is a nice program BUT as my topic title states it's useless to the legions of us out here with IR Blaster hardware. I've searched the forums, the net, google and everywhere else to no avail.

MP will not output IR to my set top box. BTW... the "My Blaster" program that everyone keeps referring to does not exist on your downloads page, on the forums or anywhere else. Where did it go? Did it work? If it did why has it suddenly vanished?

I like MP a lot but someone nees to fix this very basic feature. There are many, many users out there with IR Blasters, many of which can be found here on your forum begging for a solution. As beautiful as the interface is it seems to be a little of the "cart before the horse". I understand that it's still beta but this would seem to be a "must have" pre-release feature.

I've tried demos of just about every TV app out there and every single one works with my IR Blaster hardware with no problems.

Currently MP is just WAY to difficult to set up. I spent the better part of 4 hours today trying to get it going and got 90% there... except for the remote issue... which makes it useless to me and the many others on your forums asking for a fix to this (for us) major issue. I think it's a huge oversight. With that fixed this would be the app to beat.

Let me know when you get that corrected and I'll give you another look. As it stands MCE was also free (came installed with my PC) and it works.

Lawrence

Area: Media Portal Program
MediaPortal Version: 0.2.0.0 RC2 (2006-02-15)
MediaPortal Skin: mce
Windows Version: Windows XP (SP2)
.NET CLR Version: 2.0.50727
DirectX Version: 4.09.00.0904 (9.0c)
Audio Codec: MPEG/AC3/DTS/LPCM Audio Decoder
Video Codec: Mpeg2Dec Filter
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Memory: 1 GB
Motherboard: KTBC51G (First International Computer, Inc.)
TV Card Model: PVR-150 MCE
TV Card Type: -
TV Card Driver: -
Video Card Model: Radeon X300/x550 Series (256 MB)
Video Card Driver: -
Video Card Resolution: 1280x1024
Video Render Type: -
Audio Card Model: Realtek High Definition Audio
Audio Card Driver: -
Synopsis::

 

[Callifo]

As far as I cant tell, MP only native supports 2 blasters, that of hauppauge remotes and the MCE2005 remote. Anything else will need to use either Girder or HIP.

 

[Khris]

Re: Useless Without IR Blaster Support

I understand that it's still beta but this would seem to be a "must have" pre-release feature.

Obviously you don't understand the "beta" concept otherwise you'd know why this feature isn't natively supported (yet). Just because it's a "must have" feature for you, doesn't mean it is for everyone else. I personally have no need for IR Blaster support, as do a lot of other people.

Media Portal doesn't have a native web interface in it either. Someone with the knowledge necessary took it upon themselves to write a Web Interface plugin. This is generally how things get developed in MP. People with the necessary programming skills, and a desire for a specific feature, step up and code it themselves.

I've tried demos of just about every TV app out there and every single one works with my IR Blaster hardware with no problems.

Perhaps one of those other programs will be better suited to your needs then.

Currently MP is just WAY to difficult to set up. I spent the better part of 4 hours today trying to get it going and got 90% there... except for the remote issue... which makes it useless to me and the many others on your forums asking for a fix to this (for us) major issue. I think it's a huge oversight. With that fixed this would be the app to beat.

I just completely setup my HTPC again over the weekend and it certainly didn't take 4 hours to setup. (If you include time to install, setup, and update Windows XP, then MAYBE it took 4 hours).

MP is already the app to beat, for many reasons. Why else would you be here?

Let me know when you get that corrected and I'll give you another look. As it stands MCE was also free (came installed with my PC) and it works.

Yes MCE works......but MP works BETTER, and is continually being improved upon daily. MP hasn't even hit a v1.0 release and look what it already has in it. Can you imagine the functionality in MP on the day it does go Gold? All it takes is a little bit of vision to see the potential for MP as compared to other HTPC software programs. It may not have every feature you want in it at the moment.....but over the last 6-8 months, I've seen *NUMEROUS* features added which I have been waiting for. It's only a matter of time.

As for "letting you know" when this gets corrected, how about just checking back every now and then to see what improvements have been made.

 

[mPod]

I have no idea what's so hard to find this thread: http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12844

When searching for "MyBlaster", this was the 6th hit in the list... So it's all there, you just have to turn on your brain instead of ranting how bad it all is.

For your convenience, that you don't have to waste your precious time reading the post, get the file here: [EDIT]: link removed; download from the plugin repository on the homepage now.

 

[wewe]

IR Blaster works without any problem since I use MP.

It is absolutely no problem to find help in this forum by keying in "IR Blaster" or "Hauppauge" or whatever


MP is, as it is a BETA SOFTWARE, no application that you install out of the box and everything works for all components. I you are looking for that kind of solution you have to take a commercial one.


WeWe

 

[mPod]

Is this about the Hauppauge blaster? Well, that plugin comes with the latest CVS versions. The Microsoft blaster plugin you find above.

 

[Lawrence]

Let me first say that I was not ranting. I was just a little frustrated. If it appeared as a rant then I apologize. I like MP. It's just not ready for primetime yet.

When searching for "MyBlaster", this was the 6th hit in the list... So it's all there, you just have to turn on your brain instead of ranting how bad it all is.

For your convenience, that you don't have to waste your precious time reading the post, get the file here: [EDIT]: link removed; download from the plugin repository on the homepage now.

I spent about 45 minutes reading the forums where numerous people would say over and over "my blaster is in the plugins section" ... it is not. I finally found a link to it after another 30 minutes of searching.

I won't respond to the "turn your brain on" comment.

FWIW I am using a Hauppauge blaster. When I launch MCE it works. When I launch MP it does nothing. I tried the other devices/plugins .... nothing. Just to be clear...

Many people who have trouble with the Hauppauge IR Blaster and MCE don't know that MCE doesn't use the Hauppauge driver. It uses (on my system at least) the MIcrosoft eHome Infrared Receiver driver. All I had to do is plug the thing in and it worked out of the box with no driver install. The Hauppage driver (on my system and I suspect others) will not even detect the blaster hardware.

So wouldn't it make sense to have MP channel change have the ability to talk directly to the MS eHome Infrared driver for IR output? Many people who would want to use MP would be MCE converts.

Yes MCE works......but MP works BETTER, and is continually being improved upon daily.

I'll politely disagree with that. Look, MP has a better looking interface and more options to confiure to the users linking, that's true. To say it's "better" is just misinformation. I'm a VB developer who hasn't jumped into .net yet. Here are the issues I have with MP so far....

1. Simply resizing a window with video playing in it takes my cpu to 100% and stops the video while the window redraws, which takes about 15 seconds on my AMD 35000.

2. There is no video when you go to the main menu. Or do I have that wrong? Watching TV, go to the main menu, video gone.

3. It takes a long time to set up the TV Guide. While in MCE all this is done quite automatically inside of MCE, the MP user may have to do numerous things just to get a workable TV Guide, including maybe entering strings into a command window. How many "typical" PC users are going to want to go through that? Not many. I did and I got it working but a typical PC user is not going to want to deal with all of that.

Look, I bow down to the effort that has created such a fine program as MP. It's future looks bright and I'll probably be a user when all of the issues get worked out. If I had experience in .net I'd jump in and help.

But face it... as good as it is (and it is very, very good) it's not quite on the level of MCE. That's understandable since MCE is what, 3-4 years ahead development wise?

So to all of the developers on this project... I congratulate you all. This is as fine an open source project as I have ever seen.

Keep up the good work.

Lawrence

 

[Khris]

Why don't you "turn your brain on" and put that link in the plugins section?

Oversights happen, deal with it.

FWIW I am using a Hauppauge blaster. When I launch MCE it works. When I launch MP it does nothing. I tried the other devices/plugins .... nothing.

Perhaps you should submit a support template instead of just whining, and maybe someone can help you.

 

[Lawrence]

So I submit a post apologizing for my previous tone, explaining that I have development experience, explaining some issues I have with MP and I get personally attacked as a "whiner"?

So when I can't find "myblaster.exe" I need to "turn my brain on". But when I suggest someone else "turn their brain on" and put a link to it somehwere on the downloads page I get...

"Oversights happen... deal with it."

Nice.

Lawrence

 

[chili]

@ no one in particular :roll:

happy Thursday!

:wink: