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JazJon
Senior Member
Posts: 110
TLDR;
-How do I teach a Harmony the apple fast forward, rewind vs. skip forward, jump back commands? (short press, vs long press on apple remote)
-Why wouldn't the Mac Mini respond to Plex Player device commands?
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Ok now for the details for those who are ready for a long read and have suggestions
I just setup my friend's 2007 Mac Mini (Lion) wIth XBMC Frodo.
DVI to HDMI, Digital optical toslink audio surround all works great for an old computer.
(FYI, disable sleep in both Lion system pref's, XBMC, and tell Harmony device to remain on at all times or you'll lose HDMI video requiring a power cycle reboot)
Harmony 650 Remote with addtional Apple TV 3, Comcast DVR box, Denon AVR, etc. (using an IR Repeater so everything is out of site in a corner cabinet)
Having more than one Apple device we want to control via IR forces us to pair the apple remote. This of course is so the Mac Mini-XBMC Activity IR commands don't effect the Apple TV, & the Apple TV Activity won't effect the Mac Mini.
I originally thought I had to use two regular apple remotes, pair them, and have the Harmony learn each and every button from both remotes.
After digging in, I finally found that the Harmony remote actually has a "Pair" command for added Apple devices. This allowed me Pair the Mac Mini-XBMC activity to the Mac Mini. (FYI: I found the hard way that the Pair only works if you reboot Lion, and it's done within 30 seconds of Lion logging in loading the desktop up) If you try to Pair or Unpair after this time out, Lion never responds to the Pair or Unpair command. (even from a regular Apple remote!)
I was hoping when I used the Pair command in the Harmony Apple TV activity, it would be unique per Apple device. (it's not!) They walked over each other.
The work around that is currently "ok" but not perfect so far is the following.
I Paired a regular remote to the Apple TV, and then have the Harmony learn Each command to the Harmony Apple TV device buttons.
I left the Paired harmony working with the Mac Mini
This leads me to the summary of my first question above. How do I get the Harmony to learn/send a fast forward/rewind vs skip forward/skip back command?
For example, if you press regular apple remote direction right quickly and let go, this causes XBMC to "fast forward"
If you press AND HOLD the regular apple remote direction right it will cause XBMC to jump 30 seconds.
I tried teaching the short and long presses to the Harmony, but it will only send the regular fast forward command each time.
Are these 4 unique IR commands in one of the Harmony devices out there?
I googled around and saw other suggestions such as using the Plex Player IR commands.
Ok so I tried adding the Plex Player device for my Mac Mini-XBMC activity device, but XBMC won't respond to my remote at all. I picked the Harmony remote in XBMC under settings. I tried Universal. I tried clicking the remote sends keyboard commands. I was patient after applying settings and rebooted the computer to make sure the settings took hold. (never responds) I also unpaired all remotes to make sure that wan't the problem. I can only get XBMC to respond with the Standard apple remote xbmc setting.
My friend doesn't want to spend money on the FLIRC, but I might talk him into it.
If there is a better way to do what I've tried so far I'd love to know.
I could have sworn I had regular fast forward vs skip forward back working on the remote at one point. I was flip flopping between adding the Apple TV and Mac Mini as the Harmony device. I currently have Apple TV device for both activities. (renamed of course)
Did I miss something? Is there a way for the Harmony to "pair" two unique devices with itself?
Is there a reason the Plex Player device profile didn't' work for me?
I saw the Apple TV actually supports "learning" I Added the Microsoft Windows Media Center device on the harmony, and tried to teach the Apple TV those commnads. The Apple TV wouldn't learn one single button press though so gave up.
P.S. for those with IR repeaters, make sure you put tape over the unused transmitters or you'll have weird feedback loops and performance issues. It took me awhile to line up and tape the two transmitters to the exact IR Receiver spots on the Mac Mini and Apple TV so they respond solid. I also set the delay to 0 so it's a bit faster less laggy.
Anyone............ Anyone............ ?
FLIRC sounds like a good option, but my friend doesn't want to spend the money. I also wan't to make what we have work and not feel beat by this!
(you know how it goes after 6 hours of tinkering)
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If you use the Plex Profile then you lose the ability to pair the Harmony to the Mini and chaos happens if you have other Apple products in the room.
philip
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2014-04-21, 09:31
(This post was last modified: 2014-04-21, 09:37 by DBMandrake.)
There is another way that should work to stop the ATV remote from triggering the harmony remote - you need to change the remote ID of the ATV remote so it doesn't clash with one of the eight ID's which the "Plex" profile uses, and then learn that reconfigured ATV remote on the Harmony rather than using the one in the Harmony database.
A quick run down on how the Apple remote works and how the Plex profile exploits this to send extra buttons from a harmony.
Each Apple remote has a "Remote ID" which is a kind of prefix which it sends in addition to the button code you press - there are 255 different prefixes available. So when you press menu one remote might send "ID 23, menu", while a different remote might send "ID 57, menu". From the factory apple remote's come with a random remote ID's configured and there are enough possible codes that chances of a clash between the devices you own is unlikely.
An "unpaired" remote actually just means the Mac / ATV will accept ANY Remote ID. When you "pair" the remote by pressing menu and next together what actually happens is the remote sends a pairing instruction to the Mac which tells the Mac "only accept this remote ID from now on" so it is actually the Mac/ATV which is paired, not the remote.
This means other devices will still respond to the remote as nothing at the remote has actually changed - it still sends the same codes for the same button presses, the "pairing" is at the Mac/ATV end, also this pairing command has to be sent when other devices are not watching otherwise they too will be paired to the same remote...(they would also receive the "pair to me" signal from the remote)
The way that the Plex/Harmony profile ("Multi Remote(Harmony)" in XBMC) works is that the extra buttons are sent by repeating the same basic button codes (menu, back, forwards, play etc) with a different Remote ID. From memory eight such Remote ID's are used to give the total number of available buttons.
So the Mac thinks it is receiving commands from up to 8 different Apple remote's. To receive the codes from all these "different" remote's the Mac must be un-paired - if it was paired it would filter out all but one Remote ID thus most of the buttons wouldn't work.
The XBMC Helper app runs in the background and intercepts the Apple remote commands to prevent the OS from handling them itself, and by looking at the Remote ID it can figure out if a button press is really menu, or in fact one of the many extra functions which happens to map to the "menu" key plus a different Remote ID.
To prevent the OS mis-interpreting these additional remote's you really should have "Allow start of XBMC using the remote" enabled in XBMC Settings - this keeps XBMC Helper running in the background even when you exit XBMC, intercepting the remote codes to prevent the OS getting confused by the Harmony/Plex profile. (Otherwise the buttons would start adjusting system volume, launching Frontrow etc)
The problem with this whole scheme is that (a) the Mac must run unpaired, and (b) the set of eight Remote ID's the Plex profile uses is fixed and cannot be changed - so if your Remote ID of your genuine Apple TV/Mac remote or the Apple Remote profile on the Harmony website has the same Remote ID as one of the eight used, you'll get a clash.
The Apple remote profile from the Harmony website also can't have it's Remote ID changed - the pairing button simply sends the pairing code that says to the mac "pair to me", but the Remote ID is always the same, and was determined by whoever captured that Apple remote code and uploaded it to Logitech...
Here's what you should be able to do though - I haven't tested it because I don't have an ATV, but I believe it should work.
On a genuine Apple remote you CAN change the Remote ID. Rather than holding Menu and Next for 5 seconds to pair, you hold Menu and CENTRE for 5 seconds - this will increment the Remote ID as well as sending a pair command for the new Remote ID. If you change it enough times it should move out of the range used by the Plex/Harmony profile and no longer clash with it.
So take your genuine ATV remote, test it to see if it is clashing with XBMC on the Mac, assuming it is hold Menu and Centre for 5 seconds to change the code - after this you might need to go into the System preferences on the Mac to make sure it didn't pair to the Mac (either that or cover the Mac while sending the pairing code) - if it did just unpair it in the Mac again.
Test the remote on the ATV and make sure it doesn't falsely trigger any functions on the Mac. If it still does try again - remember there are eight possible Remote ID clashes that could occur, so you might have to try as many as eight times.
Once you find a Remote ID which doesn't clash - simply use IR learning on the Harmony to learn the ATV remote rather than using the profile provided on the website - this locally learnt copy of the profile will have the Remote ID that you have determined doesn't clash. There's no need to try to learn the pair code either, as long as you keep hold of the original ATV remote to send the pair code with Menu and Next (not centre) if you ever need to pair again.
Kodi 18.3 - Mid 2007 Mac Mini, 4GB, 2TB HD, Windows 7 SP1
Kodi 18.3 - Vero4k, Raspberry Pi 2. OSMC.