[lx_cool_j]

i finally got the hama mce remote control to work properly under ubuntu 9.04 with xbmc after about a week doing a lot of research and testing.

i use this remote control and got almost every key to work in xbmc.

in this tutorial, [xbmc-user] is a placeholder for your xbmc user.

please note that some keys have the same mapping (for example: "OK", "Start" and "Enter" or "i" and the right mouse button). some keys send three commands to the ir receiver, but in the lircd.conf, i only entered one, otherwise it didn't work, because xbmc only catches the first key sent.

log in as your standard xbmc user and install the latest lirc:

Code:

sudo apt-get install lirc

In the lirc configuration tool, that opens up after installation, select "None" in every screen.

after the installation has been completed, edit the following files:

/etc/lirc/lircd.conf

Code:

begin remote
        name hama_52451
        bits 32
        begin codes
                HOMEPAGE                        0x100ac
                POWER                           0x1008e
                YELLOW                          0x10014
                BLUE                            0x10032
                GREEN                           0x10017
                RED                             0x10012
                TV                              0x10018
                PICTURES                        0x10022
                REWIND                          0x10030
                FASTFORWARD                     0x10021
                PREV                            0x100a5
                NEXT                            0x100a3
                PLAYPAUSE                       0x100a4
                STOP                            0x100a6
                REC                             0x10013
                BACK                            0x1000e
                INFO                            0x10111
                UP                              0x10067
                LEFT                            0x10069
                RIGHT                           0x1006a
                DOWN                            0x1006c
                ENTER                           0x1001c
                BTN_LEFT                        0x10110
                VOLUMEUP                        0x10073
                VOLUMEDOWN                      0x10072
                MUTE                            0x10071
                CHANNELUP                       0x10068
                CHANNELDOWN                     0x1006d
                1                               0x1004f
                2                               0x10050
                3                               0x10051
                4                               0x1004b
                5                               0x1004c
                6                               0x1004d
                7                               0x10047
                8                               0x10048
                9                               0x10049
                0                               0x10052
                STERN                           0x10037
                CLOSE                           0x1003e
                CLEAR                           0x10001
        end codes
end remote

/etc/lirc/hardware.conf

Code:

# /etc/lirc/hardware.conf
#
#Chosen Remote Control
REMOTE="None"
REMOTE_MODULES="lirc_atiusb lirc_dev"
REMOTE_DRIVER=""
REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"
REMOTE_SOCKET=""
REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF=""
REMOTE_LIRCD_ARGS="-r"

#Chosen IR Transmitter
TRANSMITTER="None"
TRANSMITTER_MODULES=""
TRANSMITTER_DRIVER=""
TRANSMITTER_DEVICE=""
TRANSMITTER_SOCKET=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_CONF=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_ARGS=""

#Enable lircd
START_LIRCD="true"

#Don't start lircmd even if there seems to be a good config file
#START_LIRCMD="false"

#Try to load appropriate kernel modules
LOAD_MODULES="true"

# Default configuration files for your hardware if any
LIRCMD_CONF="lircd.conf"

#Forcing noninteractive reconfiguration
#If lirc is to be reconfigured by an external application
#that doesn't have a debconf frontend available, the noninteractive
#frontend can be invoked and set to parse REMOTE and TRANSMITTER
#It will then populate all other variables without any user input
#If you would like to configure lirc via standard methods, be sure
#to leave this set to "false"
FORCE_NONINTERACTIVE_RECONFIGURATION="true"
START_LIRCMD=""

add the following code to

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Code:

blacklist ati_remote

add the following code (IMPORTANT: the entry has to be written before "exit 0") to
/etc/rc.local

Code:

./home/[xbmc-user]/lircstart.sh

read out the event numbers for your hid:

Code:

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

you get something like this (i only copied the important entries containing Name="HID...):

Code:

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=05a4 Product=9881 Version=0110
N: Name="HID 05a4:9881"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:04.0-3/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:04.0/usb2/2-3/2-3:1.0/input/input3
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd [b]event3[/b]
B: EV=120013
B: KEY=e080ffdf 1cfffff ffffffff fffffffe
B: MSC=10
B: LED=7

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=05a4 Product=9881 Version=0110
N: Name="HID 05a4:9881"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:04.0-3/input1
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:04.0/usb2/2-3/2-3:1.1/input/input4
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd mouse1 [b]event4[/b]
B: EV=17
B: KEY=1f0000 0 2020000 3878 d801d001 1e0000 0 0 0
B: REL=103
B: MSC=10

event3 and event4 are the two important entries from the cat we made before that we need in the next step. they could be different on your system.

create a file
/home/[xbmc-user]/lircstart.sh

please note that the code change from dec 17, 2009. the old code contained a copy/paste error...

Code:

#!/bin/sh

/etc/init.d/lirc stop
lircd --driver=devinput --device=/dev/input/event3 --pidfile=/var/run/lirc1.pid --listen=9988;
lircd --driver=devinput --device=/dev/input/event4 --pidfile=/var/run/lirc2.pid --connect=localhost:9988;

be careful to change event3 and event4 to the event numbers you got for your system.

chmod the lircstart.sh to 0755

Code:

chmod 0755 lircstart.sh

to be continued in the next post...