MCE 2004 Remote

[St. Babu]

Hi, all!

I'm not sure whether this should go in the Hardware forum, or the Support one, but I'll post here, and someone can tell me if I need to move. I just got a fresh instll of GBPVR up and running on a Chaintech Nforce2 board with an Athlon XP 2000+ and a PVR250. I originally had XP MCE installed on it, but I'd had problems with it, so I wanted to try GBPVR out. I did a fresh install of XP Pro, and installed GBPVR. So far, it's awesome, but I have a few questions about the MCE remote:

1. Its response is really slow, sometimes I have to wait a few seconds for the remote to "catch up" if I hit a couple buttons one after the other.

2. I've read here that the buttons should work as labelled, but that's not been my experience. If I go into "Live TV", in order to get to the guide I have to hit "Back" to go to the main menu, then choose the guide option. I don't have MCE installed any longer, it's just XP Pro, so is there a driver I need or something? Is there some way to configure the buttons on the remote?

If someone can help, I'd really appreciate it, this looks like really cool software, and I think it's everything I'm looking for.

Thanks in advance,
St. Babu

[sub]

The MCE 2004 remote shares the colour keys with the guide etc keys, soo GB-PVR just treats them as colour keys. It cant tell your intention was to view the guide etc. The hauppauge remote seperates these keys.

I dont what caused your slow response.

[sub]

My comment above was not quite correct. I pulled my old MCE2004 remote out to take a look.

The MyVideos/Music/Tv/Pictures buttons are shared with colour on this remote, so are just treated as colour buttons by GB-PVR.

The Guide button is separate, and I've just tried to implement support for bringing up the TV Guide using this button, but it doesnt seem to behave like the other buttons. Niether the 'Guide' or 'More Info' buttons seem to send a button press notification to GB-PVR. These seem to be swallowed up by Windows. That said, I'll keep looking and will try to get this functional for the next release.

[St. Babu]

Thanks for the help, Sub! I'm still a little confused, though, when you say "The MyVideos/Music/Tv/Pictures buttons are shared with colour on this remote, so are just treated as colour buttons by GB-PVR." Do you mean that these buttons will have the same functionality as the color buttons on a Hauppage remote?

Thanks again!
St. Babu

[sub]

I'm assumming your remote it the same as mine, and the coloured keys also have 'MyVideos/Music/Tv/Pictures' written below them. What I'm saying is these buttons *wont* take you to Video, Music,Tv,Pictures, instead they will just be treated as colour keys.

The Hauppauge 45 button remote has these functions on separate keys, so you can use them to go directly to (for example) the Video Library etc.

[Torque]

The buttons in the middle of the remote:


I used Girder to map the Live TV, Guide, and More Info buttons. Also, since I don't really care what the color buttons do, I used Girder to map them for other stuff: Red=Alt-F4 to close programs, Green=Restarting the GBPVR service, Yellow=Launching GBPVR, and Blue=Task-Switcher. The DVD Menu button brings up the start menu. With just those 5 buttons remapped, I haven't touched the keyboard and mouse in a long time.

Until Sub gets the remote issues sorted out, here's the keyboard equivalents:
http://www.bladerhq.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...dReference
(what i used to program the Live TV, Guide, More Info buttons using Girder)

[callagga]

Torque - I'd be interested to learn how to use Girder to do what you are doing. Any pointers? E.g. does Girder have a way to record a remote button push, then map it to an Applications menu/button using knowledge of how microsoft applications are built?

Could you also use Girder to control other aspects of your PC? (e.g. fire up a non-GBPVR application which you may temporarily want to see on the TV, then once finished close this and you're back to GBPVR?)

Also you do need to pay $$ for Girder don't you?

[scottchez]

Is using the Girder app the only way to get a MCE remote to work with GBPVR, I need the blue button to work (Cnt+B).

I cant find any other way. Is there maybe some INI file in GBPVR to map it?

[sub]

Is using the Girder app the only way to get a MCE remote to work with GBPVR, I need the blue button to work (Cnt+B).

No, you shouldnt have to use Girder to use an MCE remote with GB-PVR. I'm using the same MCE 2004 remote as pictured above. All I had to do was set the remote type to "MCE Remote" in the config app. You shouldnt have to do anything else. That said, not all MCE remotes are manufactured by the same company, so if you've got a strange brand MCE remote it may be behaving slightly differently.

If you're watching video in GB-PVR, does pressing the blue button bring up the OSD information? If so, then your blue buttons is working. If not, then post your gbpvr.exe.log and I'll take a look.