Background:
Most multi-media enthusiasts will have had a collection of remote controls required by the mixture of the non-communicative devices employed in a home system.
.png)
Reducing that number to just one remote was the first benefit I noticed moving to Windows Media Center.
A remote control will most likely be included with the TV tuner card along with an infra-red (IR) receiver, depending on the model it may or may not be tailored for the Windows Media Center environment. The two remotes shown below came with the "IR Blaster" units and designed to work with WMC.
The Blaster is required by WMC in order to install the Sky "pass through" signal from the decoder box to the TV tuner card. We tried for weeks to find a work-around for this requirement (a universal or learning remote might have done just as well) but in the end the $60 attachment turned out to be a pretty good investment as WMC apparently knew all about each of the two we tested - the Hauppauge and the HP.
The Blaster unit consists of the remote, an IR reciever, and an IR transmitter bulb that is fixed on or near the IR receiver on the Sky decoder box. A typical configuration is shown below. Software to drive it is loaded when the blaster is configured in WMC - a few simple steps during the WMC configuration informs the system as to the type of Sky decoder and remote control being used. The main purpose of the blaster is to accept Media Center IR commands, translate them into Sky commands, and send them to the Sky box via the transmitter bulb. In this way, the WMC remote control is the only one required to drive both the WMC and the Sky decoder box.
There may be other benefits. Some of the software included with the TV tuner card hinted at the ability to alter the Blasters conversion table.
The annotated picture below shows a popular model of the WMC remote control - the only difficulty thus far is remembering what the icons are for on the top 8 set of navigation buttons, but the judicious application of some text labels from a "Dymo" home labelling system solves the problem.
.PNG)
Fortunately the HP remote control provides an alternative (and there may be others). On my "wish list" for remotes would be "learning" function to tackle the "on-off" requirement for my TV's native remote, and with some documentation on the IR codes used by WMC, it might be possible to a few more tricks like switch between full-screen and a window.
To be honest, I haven't spent a lot of time on this aspect of the system as there are more pressing and interesting parts yet to be solved.
Here's a close up of the HP - excellent labeling:
.png)
As we'll see in the section on the "Extenders" (small devices that extend the WMC functionality to other display units around your home) a learning function can come in quite handy.
blog comments powered by Disqus