WinLIRC XBMC client
#1
Since I had a few people asking me about winlirc support, I thought it might be interesting to make a winlirc xbmc event client. So I put together a simple app. Basically it translates key presses from winlirc and sends them to xbmc. It's super simple and works pretty nicely. With it, xbmc can use all of winlircs supported remotes, from TV cards to home brew receivers. It emulates the key presses by sending them as keyboard ones.

GUI looks like this
Image

Binary here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winlirc/...p/download

Enjoy Smile
WinLIRC, the Windows port of LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control):
http://winlirc.sourceforge.net
Active development of the WinLIRC package:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winlirc/
LIRC config files for supported remote controls:
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/
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#2
Hi I've this Hauppage remote control and the IR sensor (mine is black in color) which comes together with my old PCI TV card that has been dead for quite sometime.

I've recently just installed XBMC on my IBM Thinkpad T43 notebook running on Win7, is it possible to make this remote control works using WinLIRC?

I tried connecting the IR sensor using a 2.5 to 3.5 mm audio jack adapter to the line-in port of my notebook. Under WinLIRC, selected the audiocapture.dll plugin (tried the hauppage plugin too) and used the configuration found here but was not able to use the remote control successfully.

Do you have any idea what's went wrong? Please advise.
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#3
If you are getting a green light with winlirc when pressing remote keys then you probably havent put the file that keymap creates inside xbmc keymap folder which is C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata\keymaps.
If you dont even get green light then your remote isnt configured correct, try some different settings and see if you get a green light.
btw the file needs to be renamed to .cf or .conf or something and loaded into winlirc as config settings.
If you cant access xbmc keymap folder. add a special one through xbmc filemanager which is special://home and move keymap inside the right folder.

oh, and you need to activate remote control keyboard at xbmc system settings input devices
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#4
(2013-12-28, 14:24)ABuNeNe Wrote: Hi I've this Hauppage remote control and the IR sensor (mine is black in color) which comes together with my old PCI TV card that has been dead for quite sometime.

I've recently just installed XBMC on my IBM Thinkpad T43 notebook running on Win7, is it possible to make this remote control works using WinLIRC?

I tried connecting the IR sensor using a 2.5 to 3.5 mm audio jack adapter to the line-in port of my notebook. Under WinLIRC, selected the audiocapture.dll plugin (tried the hauppage plugin too) and used the configuration found here but was not able to use the remote control successfully.

Do you have any idea what's went wrong? Please advise.

That receiver can probably be made to work with the audio capture plugin. But one of the pins probably the middle one will require +5v to work, which the microphone in port doesn't provide. If you feel like butching a few cables, you can could no doubt steal +5v from USB.

I make a few universal receivers and stick them on ebay. They look something like this Smile
http://i.imgur.com/iTzpfFx.jpg
WinLIRC, the Windows port of LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control):
http://winlirc.sourceforge.net
Active development of the WinLIRC package:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winlirc/
LIRC config files for supported remote controls:
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/
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#5
(2013-12-29, 19:33)dukey Wrote:
(2013-12-28, 14:24)ABuNeNe Wrote: Hi I've this Hauppage remote control and the IR sensor (mine is black in color) which comes together with my old PCI TV card that has been dead for quite sometime.

I've recently just installed XBMC on my IBM Thinkpad T43 notebook running on Win7, is it possible to make this remote control works using WinLIRC?

I tried connecting the IR sensor using a 2.5 to 3.5 mm audio jack adapter to the line-in port of my notebook. Under WinLIRC, selected the audiocapture.dll plugin (tried the hauppage plugin too) and used the configuration found here but was not able to use the remote control successfully.

Do you have any idea what's went wrong? Please advise.

That receiver can probably be made to work with the audio capture plugin. But one of the pins probably the middle one will require +5v to work, which the microphone in port doesn't provide. If you feel like butching a few cables, you can could no doubt steal +5v from USB.

I make a few universal receivers and stick them on ebay. They look something like this Smile
http://i.imgur.com/iTzpfFx.jpg

Hi dukey, thank for your reply. I found this usb to 3.5mm cable lying around in my house and I butchered it and it's only have 2 wires, red and white (no black or green). I also butchered the receiver, it's 2 cables too, red and white and a external copper shielding. Any idea how should I wire that up?

I tried wiring the 3 reds together and the 3 whites together and tried the IRGraph but no result. Please advise.
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#6
Quote:Hi dukey, thank for your reply. I found this usb to 3.5mm cable lying around in my house and I butchered it and it's only have 2 wires, red and white (no black or green). I also butchered the receiver, it's 2 cables too, red and white and a external copper shielding. Any idea how should I wire that up?

I tried wiring the 3 reds together and the 3 whites together and tried the IRGraph but no result. Please advise.

Sounds like you have all the stuff you need.
You want to make a circuit like this
http://www.lirc.org/images/ir-audio.png
One thing to note is, the PIN OUT on the actual IR receivers varies. I have a few here, they have the same outputs, but in a different order, so you need to know what the actual outputs are. I suppose you might be able to guess as there are only 3 outputs. Not sure if giving +5 to the wrong pin will kill the receiver Smile Another thing to note is, if you have a diode, even though on the LIRC webpage it says it is optional, I found it actually works a lot better with one.

As for checking output, set volume to like 85% in windows for recording, and make sure the MIC port is not muted in windows, as you will get no output. I generally check I am getting output from audio receivers using Audacity
WinLIRC, the Windows port of LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control):
http://winlirc.sourceforge.net
Active development of the WinLIRC package:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winlirc/
LIRC config files for supported remote controls:
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/
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#7
(2013-12-30, 12:19)dukey Wrote:
Quote:Hi dukey, thank for your reply. I found this usb to 3.5mm cable lying around in my house and I butchered it and it's only have 2 wires, red and white (no black or green). I also butchered the receiver, it's 2 cables too, red and white and a external copper shielding. Any idea how should I wire that up?

I tried wiring the 3 reds together and the 3 whites together and tried the IRGraph but no result. Please advise.

Sounds like you have all the stuff you need.
You want to make a circuit like this
http://www.lirc.org/images/ir-audio.png
One thing to note is, the PIN OUT on the actual IR receivers varies. I have a few here, they have the same outputs, but in a different order, so you need to know what the actual outputs are. I suppose you might be able to guess as there are only 3 outputs. Not sure if giving +5 to the wrong pin will kill the receiver Smile Another thing to note is, if you have a diode, even though on the LIRC webpage it says it is optional, I found it actually works a lot better with one.

As for checking output, set volume to like 85% in windows for recording, and make sure the MIC port is not muted in windows, as you will get no output. I generally check I am getting output from audio receivers using Audacity

My IR receiver has 3 wires, one red, one white and copper wires not insulated. There is no black wire, am I correct to say that the copper wires is the ground?

Also my usb to 3.5mm cable only have 2 wires, one red and one white. As there is no black wire, am I correct to say the white is the ground?

I tried wiring the IR receiver red to the USB red, IR receiver white to the 3.5mm white and IR receiver copper wires to USB white and 3.5mm white. When 3.5mm is connected to the microphone port and USB is connected, I can see alot of noise in audacity but none when I unplugged the USB. Any idea where it went wrong?
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#8
I had to cut an audio jack in half to find out what was connected to what.

On my audio cable:
yellow = ground,
white = left channel
red = right channel

on my other audio cable:
bare wire = ground
white = left channel
red = right channel


But at least USB cable colours are basically standard. Black being ground, red being +5.
That's about all the help I can give you :p
WinLIRC, the Windows port of LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control):
http://winlirc.sourceforge.net
Active development of the WinLIRC package:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winlirc/
LIRC config files for supported remote controls:
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/
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#9
I ponder if I should replace the IRSS part by WinLIRC for Gotham+1. The better step would be to define an interface to hook up every input channel we might have but until this happens ...
And IRSS upstream looks like not very active to me and I couldn't easily find the source.
Thoughts?
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#10
I suppose it depends on how many people use the IRSS part. I thought the whole idea of event clients was so xbmc didn't need specific code for different receiver types Smile From my point of view it seemed a bit confusing the event clients, ie what xml files are we supposed to use. I just figured I I'd send the keys as keyboard events using the default keymap.
WinLIRC, the Windows port of LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control):
http://winlirc.sourceforge.net
Active development of the WinLIRC package:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winlirc/
LIRC config files for supported remote controls:
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/
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#11
(2013-12-30, 15:27)dukey Wrote: I had to cut an audio jack in half to find out what was connected to what.

On my audio cable:
yellow = ground,
white = left channel
red = right channel

on my other audio cable:
bare wire = ground
white = left channel
red = right channel


But at least USB cable colours are basically standard. Black being ground, red being +5.
That's about all the help I can give you :p

Tried a different number of combinations but still can't get it to work. Will give up for now and get the xbox to usb adapter since I've got an original xbox dvd remote lying around.

Maybe will try to get it work again in the future if I've time to spare.

Thanks for your replies.
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#12
eventclients != IRSS. The IRSS was implemented to not support every receiver type, right. Since Linux already uses lirc it should be easy to switch that (if winlirc supports the same api).
But true, it would be nice to know how many would be affected by such a change.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#13
There was already a patch made some time ago
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=36864
And yes winlirc is pretty similar to lirc

Code here:
http://trac.xbmc.org/attachment/ticket/4...nlirc.diff
WinLIRC, the Windows port of LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control):
http://winlirc.sourceforge.net
Active development of the WinLIRC package:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winlirc/
LIRC config files for supported remote controls:
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/
Reply
#14
I can't seem to get the XBMC_Keymap.exe to record and recognize the buttons.

Using a USBIRToy with Xbox One media remote with:

Code:
# Please make this file available to others
# by sending it to <[email protected]>
#
# this config file was automatically generated
# using lirc-0.9.0(default) on Wed Mar 26 17:55:18 2014
#
# contributed by     FishOil
#
# brand:                       XBOX-ONE
# model no. of remote control: XBOX ONE Media Remote
# devices being controlled by this remote: XBMC XBOX ONE
#

begin remote

  name  XBOX-ONE
  bits           16
  flags SPACE_ENC|CONST_LENGTH
  eps            30
  aeps          100

  header       9061  4460
  one           596  1662
  zero          596   527
  ptrail        582
  repeat       9032  2232
  pre_data_bits   16
  pre_data       0x11B
  gap          107260
  toggle_bit_mask 0x0

      begin codes
          XboxFancyButton          0x26D9
          View                     0x7689
          Menu                     0xF609
          Up                       0x7887
          Down                     0xF807
          Left                     0x04FB
          Right                    0x847B
          Select                   0x44BB
          Back                     0xC43B
          Guide                    0x649B
          VolumeUp                 0x08F7
          VolumeDown               0x8877
          Mute                     0x708F
          ChannelUp                0x48B7
          ChannelDown              0xC837
          Rewind                   0xA857
          FastForward              0x28D7
          Play                     0x0EF1
          Previous                 0xD827
          Next                     0x58A7
          Stop                     0x9867
      end codes

end remote

All buttons are recognized by WinLIRC (goes green in tray) but when I high-light a row in XBMC Keymap GUI nothing gets recorded.

Thanks for this dukey and hopefully XBMC Helix will have native WinLIRC support (did you ever make any builds with the pull request for testing?)
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#15
Quote:All buttons are recognized by WinLIRC (goes green in tray) but when I high-light a row in XBMC Keymap GUI nothing gets recorded.
It seems to work fine here. The keymap program assumes winlirc runs on the default port 8765. If you have a firewall or other crazy things they could block that port. The text connected to winlirc should change colour when you start winlirc.

Quote:did you ever make any builds with the pull request for testing?
No I didn't. Simply not time for everything
WinLIRC, the Windows port of LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control):
http://winlirc.sourceforge.net
Active development of the WinLIRC package:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winlirc/
LIRC config files for supported remote controls:
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/
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