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Full Version: IR / RF Remote Controls for Windows: Links to Explanations, Tutorials, and Guides
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Unfortunately most remotes for Windows do not currently work with XBMC Media Center straight out-of-the-box. If you would like to know why, the following is a simple and informative explanation.

How MCE Remotes work in Windows, and why they don't immediately work out of the box.

Beginning with SVN Builds created after 9.11 Camelot, support for MCE Remotes that send keystroke combinations (such as ALT+S) is build in; however, a custom keyboard XML must be created to take advantage of these keystrokes. In the next few weeks and months expect changes to the Wiki on the subject of remotes to handle these issues. With luck most MCE Remotes should work out of the box (or close to it) with the next official release of XBMC.

Below are some tutorials for getting your remote control to work with XBMC for Windows. Additionally, the above link contains a few methods that do no include installing either IR Server Suite, EventGhost, or any other additional software.

Available tutorials and HOW-TOs to setup/configure remote controls for XBMC on Windows:


Also checkout these other ways for controlling XBMC:


Good luck!

PS! Please do not post asking for support in this specific thread, as this thread is only for posting links to other threads with tutorials.
Dam it looks like another was added to the list.

Why are there so many remote apps.. does one app offer something better then the others..

What build\milestone is expected to have the control built into xbmc?
Swwethip1 Wrote:Dam it looks like another was added to the list.

Why are there so many remote apps.
Different IR receivers have different ways of setting keymaps. At least that's one I know of.
I have my HTPC set up including home automation using girder 5 whole home pro, I have also now installed event ghost, it does seem to me this may be duplication as Girder "should" be able to do all that event ghost does, can any one tell me if it does or should I stick with both?
Trying to help the cause. Hopefully this helps.

I have the following setup:

HTPC w/ Windows XP SP3 (The computer!)
XBMC (Greatest program ever invented by a living organism)
USB-UIRT (IR transmitter/reciever)
Harmony 880 (Remote Control)
Standard Comcast remote (optional remote control for the computer inept)
Surround Sound system w/ reciever (makes loud noises)
LCD TV (Puts colors next to eachother to form moving pictures)

I initially tried girder with my USB-UIRT to handle the IR signals, as suggested by their website, but after trying EventGhost I found I liked that much more. I think it's much more user-friendly and powerful.

Don't know if anyone wants to know how to get this working but here it is anyway:

1. Install Windows, XBMC
2. Download and install USB-UIRT drivers from their website
3. Download and install EventGhost
4. Download XBMC plugin for EventGhost (USB-UIRT plugin is built-in)
5. Launch EventGhost (after adding XBMC plugin)
6. Add XBMC plugin
7. Aim ANY remote control at the USB-UIRT and press ANY button to transmit ANY IR signal.
8. Drag and drop an IR signal in the log list of EventGhost into an action in the XBMC tree.
9. Add any other IR signal to do anything else you want (such as change the time to tomorrow, invert the colors on your desktop or even create an ASCII picture of Mikey Jackson in notepad)

By doing this you can map any button on any remote to do any command in XBMC (or any other application for that matter)
I've finally got most everything working on my Snapstream Firefly RF remote via LM Remote Keymap. The one major sticking point is I can't seem to get the context menus to show up. Anybody familiar with LM Remote and have this working?

I've set up a PressKey event for the Menu key, but get no response from XBMC when it is pressed. The menu button on my keyboard brings up the context menu exactly as expected.

EDIT: I found a solution in the keymap.xml file. Apparently the "c" key performs the same function as the "menu" key, so using that instead solved the problem.
I badly need a driver for this that works on windows XP 64bit. I tried the Vista one and all the others, no 64 bit support.

If someone could help out modifying one of the current drivers to work with Win XP 64 bit that would be great.

I have no clue how much work this is but I am hoping someone in here could help me out Smile
eQUIV Wrote:Alright, so I installed vista, installed the driver but now I have no idea how to get it working with my remote. Any ideas what program I could use?

i hope you have installed vista ultimate - it's the only vista that has mce included. you might need it for testing purposes.

again i've done a research for you. in general, logitech harmoy remotes ARE able to control the windows media center. before this works, you have to connect your harmony to your pc using the included usb cable, log into an account at logitech and download the software needed to do this task into your remote. as i don't know the technical side of this, you are on your own here. just make sure to select something like "media center control" or "mce" or something similar that should enable you to control media center.

when done, go take a look here. there are ppl describing how they successfully control xbmc with an harmony 880 and eventghost. my guess is this should work for your 550, too.

good luck..
im in a similar boat mate, seems that eventghost should pick up the ir from the 550 and then you configure THAT with their xbmc plugin. seems easy enough. just make sure you use a beta eventghost. should be a link floating around the first page or so...

i cant seem to get ir working that is built into an encore enltv-fm tuner card. NOTHING seems to see that there is ir there. thinking i might hack the xbox playback's ir to usb and try that? yay or nay?
Yah I honestly gave up on getting the built in IR receiver to work. I did however get my original xbox IR receiver working perfectly with the XBOX connector to USB and the XBCDRC v0.29 for vista32 drivers/program.

It works great and the response time is excellent. I also had it set so my pc would just go into hybernate and awake fine right into XBMC. I could even wake the pc from hybernation with my XBOX IR receiver. Then after a couple days I was having trouble, I would put the computer into hybernation and it would automatically wakeup instantly. I mananged to fix that problem by setting my network adapter to not WAKE ON LAN. However now I cant get it to wake via remote anymore. Only mouse, keyboard or power button will wake it.

I tried changing power settings in device manager, editing the registry with the USBBIOS dwords, and using differnt USB port. And I cannot for the life of me get it to awake via the remote anymore. I guess its not a big deal, but its weird that it would just stop working when it was fine before.
built in ir would not work. all i could get it to do was pretend to launch eltv when i pushed power. that was it...
so im ordering an mce remote from newegg to see if the ir receiver from that will help...trying not to spend a fortune on the receiver, already have a harmony 550 Big Grin
Riderzzz Wrote:hej xbmc users,

i bought a sony vaio computer where the infrared-receiver is build in. Now i also got an remote control with the device. This remote control from sony (special for wmc) is called rm-mce20e.

Now i cant find any working tutorial for this one. Is it possible to get this one to work with xbmc?

Mike

I have this remote also and was wondering if you managed to get it to work?

It lets me navigate my way around XBMC but there is no button on the remote to go back a step - I have to all the way to the main menu Sad

Also - is there a button on the remote when on the list of movies to bring up the options menu for a particular film (ie movie info, edit title etc)?
any chance we can use the Xbox 360 wireless controller (for windows with the PC game receiver) for this? Thanks
to answer both AceJosh and qrsy2k yes...install the newest beta of eventghost add the xbmc plugin and if it sees the ir commands all you have to do is drag drop to corresponding xbmc functions. just set it up using eHome IR and my harmony and was super easy. so get eventghost, play with that and you should be able to squeeze some functionality out of it.
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