IR Recievers...

sHape oF gReY · Feb 15, 2009

I'm looking to pick up a Harmony remote (probably a 550) to control my 42" Westinghouse, my Aquaos, the z-5500s, x360 and the PC. Problem is, as far as I can tell, none of the H remotes come with a USB IR receiver to interact with the PC. I don't have a tuner, just use the PC to play movies/shows via Media Portal, thought a remote would be the way to go, so I don't have to get out of bed to pause,ff and all the jazz using a mouse.

So the my questions is, those of you that use a Harmony, or any other remote on your PC, where did you guys get the IRreciever?

~cheers

LandShark · Feb 15, 2009

for MediaPortal, a MCE remote (or just it's receiver) is the best. (btw, if anyone knows where i can get a MCE ir receiver, please let me know too!!) you can just program the Harmony to use MCE remote's code and you are all set.

at the moment, I'm just using my old remote's receiver for the PC and tell harmony to program it accordingly. in the living room, I've been using Streamzap remote. in the bedroom, I'm using Firefly mini.

tgxiii · Feb 15, 2009

I can't find the thread at the moment, but someone started a thread over at AVS asking if people were interested in a group buy for a bulk of those Microsoft receivers. I don't know if that ever got rolling though.

sHape oF gReY · Feb 15, 2009

Awesome, thanks for the info guys. Think I'm going to hit up e_bay for a MCE remote/receiver. BTW, would I need the MCE remote to train Harmony, or can I do it via software and just buy the receiver only?

Also, didn't want to start a new thread so...just a quick question about audio, more of a two part.
1. I have a Creative X-Music and I have an on-board sound card, from what I understand as long as I'm connecting to my speakers (z-5500 yeah crappy I know, but I'm poor lol ) via a toslink, the quality of the sound card doesn't matter since it's not actually processing anything just passes it through to the z-5500 receiver thingy that does the decoding. Is that correct?
2. What would be a better choice of connectivity, X-music via analog or crappy on-board via toslink..and why?

~cheers

LandShark · Feb 15, 2009

sHape oF gReY said:
Awesome, thanks for the info guys. Think I'm going to hit up e_bay for a MCE remote/receiver. BTW, would I need the MCE remote to train Harmony, or can I do it via software and just buy the receiver only?

just the receiver is fine. in Harmony, you just tell it to use MCE code in the setup wizard.

Also, didn't want to start a new thread so...just a quick question about audio, more of a two part.
1. I have a Creative X-Music and I have an on-board sound card, from what I understand as long as I'm connecting to my speakers (z-5500 yeah crappy I know, but I'm poor lol ) via a toslink, the quality of the sound card doesn't matter since it's not actually processing anything just passes it through to the z-5500 receiver thingy that does the decoding. Is that correct?

correct.

2. What would be a better choice of connectivity, X-music via analog or crappy on-board via toslink..and why?

~cheers

I would prefer using the toslink since it's just passing-thur the signal w/out touching it. when using analog (X-music or else), the PC will have to decode the digital signal first (e.g. DD, DTS, etc.) into analog before sending it out to your speaker. and regardless how good is the sound card, I'd prefer to have a dedicated out board decoder to do the D-to-A conversion rather than a noisy PC environment.

jason4207 · Feb 17, 2009

I got the IR receiver on eBay for $20 shipped. The Dell ones are the same as MCE.

If you have a 360 the power button on the remote (when programmed w/ the MCE code) to put your HTPC to sleep will also control the power for the 360. I don't have a 360, but ran across that little tidbit of info during my research.

TOSLINK for sure. In addition to LS's comments I always feel its best to stay in the digital domain as long as possible and switch to analog as close to the speakers as possible. Less noise this way.

sHape oF gReY · Feb 17, 2009

How would Toslink work when it comes to playing games, would I have to use the X-music via analog for games but use the on-board via toslink when it comes to watching movies....?

BTW, I Just picked up a new dell MCE remote and receiver from eBay, $27 shipped, there were a couple that were just receivers for under $20 if anyone is still looking.

LandShark · Feb 19, 2009

just bought 2 of the mce ir receiver from ebay for $20 shipped each.

LandShark · Feb 22, 2009

ok, got the MCE receiver hook up to the bedroom htpc, control media portal prefectly. however, I can't set up the harmony to put the htpc to sleep & back on when I press the power button on the harmony tho......

currently I'm putting the htpc into sleep via media portal's menu, then press the power button to turn off everything. I can wake it up when pressing enter on the wireless keyboard.

I want to be able to do one button on/off, and that's why I bought the mce receiver.....

sHape oF gReY · Feb 22, 2009

I'll play around with mine once I get my receiver in, hopefully tomorrow.

I have harmony 550, not sure what you have...or even if it makes a difference.

LandShark · Feb 22, 2009

I'm using 550 in my bedroom too. but either way, set up should be the same.

jason4207 · Feb 25, 2009

I just changed the power settings in the OS so that when power is pressed PC goes to sleep (you can choose power off, sleep, or hibernate).

By default it's setup to power down when the power button is pressed...problem w/ that is it can't power back on w/ the remote.

Works fine for me w/ my 880 and MCE IR Rx.

sHape oF gReY · Feb 25, 2009

Is there a way to program a button on a harmony to launch MediaPortal? Kinda like the Media Center button on the MCE remote?

tgxiii · Feb 26, 2009

Try http://www.lmgestion.net/@en-us/4/22/60/article.asp

LandShark · Feb 26, 2009

jason4207 said:
I just changed the power settings in the OS so that when power is pressed PC goes to sleep (you can choose power off, sleep, or hibernate).

By default it's setup to power down when the power button is pressed...problem w/ that is it can't power back on w/ the remote.

Works fine for me w/ my 880 and MCE IR Rx.

I think the real problem is, I've told Harmony that I'm using a WMC media center system, and thought it will automatically pick up MCE remote code (which it seems it did). however, when I try to setup the power toggle, tell it to also turn off the media center when turn off everything w/ the power off button on the remote, it asked me for the original remote so it could learn the code....?? I thought it should know how a MCE remote/receiver's code??

sHape oF gReY · Feb 26, 2009

LandShark said:
I think the real problem is, I've told Harmony that I'm using a WMC media center system, and thought it will automatically pick up MCE remote code (which it seems it did). however, when I try to setup the power toggle, tell it to also turn off the media center when turn off everything w/ the power off button on the remote, it asked me for the original remote so it could learn the code....?? I thought it should know how a MCE remote/receiver's code??

Just got the hibernate to work with my 550, did like Jason said, in the control panel change the power button press to hibernate. Worked like a charm, hit the power button and it turns off the TV and puts the box in hibernate mode until you hit the activities button or the power button again.

However I now have another issue, more than likely I missed something in the config. but thought I'd ask here. For some reason MediaPortal/Moving Pictures doesn't recognize pause/play/rewind/FF/stop commands from either my 550 or the MCE remote, however arrow keys work for +/- 15,30,60 sec.

Looked under remotes in MP Remote tab, MCE selected, took a look at Mapping everything looks to be mapped correctly. Any ideas?

LandShark · Feb 27, 2009

sHape oF gReY said:
Just got the hibernate to work with my 550, did like Jason said, in the control panel change the power button press to hibernate. Worked like a charm, hit the power button and it turns off the TV and puts the box in hibernate mode until you hit the activities button or the power button again.

However I now have another issue, more than likely I missed something in the config. but thought I'd ask here. For some reason MediaPortal/Moving Pictures doesn't recognize pause/play/rewind/FF/stop commands from either my 550 or the MCE remote, however arrow keys work for +/- 15,30,60 sec.

Looked under remotes in MP Remote tab, MCE selected, took a look at Mapping everything looks to be mapped correctly. Any ideas?

yeah, I've set the HTPC's power setting. however, do you have to set anything on the Harmony remote??

as for the MP, besides checked the MCE remote, probably make sure to uncheck the rest too (e.g. generic HID).

sHape oF gReY · Feb 28, 2009

LandShark said:
yeah, I've set the HTPC's power setting. however, do you have to set anything on the Harmony remote??

I din't touch anything on the remote pas the initial setup.

as for the MP, besides checked the MCE remote, probably make sure to uncheck the rest too (e.g. generic HID).

Did some looking around and just as I thought, it's a Win7 issue with MCE receiver and MediaPortal. Ugh hate lack of driver support.

LandShark · Mar 1, 2009

got the sleep working now! just need to redo the Harmony setup/wizard. Tks a lot guys!

IR Recievers...

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