View Full Version : Media Center Extender remote and Universal Remotes
smokinabowl
2007-05-14, 02:45
Ok... heres my first post. this question is mainly for people who have an extender remote, and use the extender program.
before i begin, i need to say that ive read the manual, and been searching the forums for about a week before i resorted to signing up and posting - i dont normally ask for help.
to start off, i have a 1.0 xbox, duox2 gs mod chip with x2 5035 bios. i'm using xbmc as my default dash. I have a xbox dvd remote, and an old universal remote. I also have displayremotecodes turned on.
as listed on the xbmc website:
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Keymap.xml#Remote_Buttons
the normal media center extender remote outputs codes 45 and 44 for channel up/down respectively. I have set my universal remote to RCA output, and can press the channel up/down buttons, and see codes 44 and 45 displayed on my screen. so - with this output, these remotes should be doing the same thing, correct?
I can bind these buttons to things in xbmc, such as stop/play... but the problem is, i want them to work in an outside application... microsoft's media center extender. (the xbox dvd remote doesnt have channel up/down, kind of annoying). so if my remote creates the same output as the mce remote, why doesnt the channel change work? if someone else out there has a mce remote, and uses the mce software, does your channel change work? also - anyone have a universal remote that they have programmed from the mce remote, and have had success with getting functions like channel change and volume to work with it?
I have tried setting up a universal remote section in my keymap anyway, thinking this might work, even though its an external application. this doesnt seem to have any effect at all, besides changing actions in xbmc.
thank you
smokinabowl
2007-05-15, 13:30
bump....
....no one uses mce remote?
Maybe the people that do don't check these forums every day. What's up with bumping so soon?
smokinabowl
2007-05-16, 06:03
bumping so soon because the thread was almost to the end of the second page of threads when i did.
smokinabowl
2007-05-19, 06:03
alright - im having a new problem. i had originally bought an xbox dvd remote on ebay that said 'fast shipping' - only to find out shipping would take about 2 weeks. so i went to walmart and 'borrowed' one for the time being. now that the new remote came in the mail, i took the original back to walmart.
the new xbox remote now doesnt want to work at all with a universal remote - the only thing i changed was the ir reciever. the 44 and 45 codes no longer show up when i use channel up/down on the remote. i tried programming the universal again, in case it lost the codes i put in a week ago, but that didnt seem to help. i also bought a cheap universal remote at walmart to see if i could get that to work. its an "all for one 3220", jp1 compatable. it even lists 'xbox' as a choice for dvd player code in the manual, but even using this code (0522) the xbox still does not pick up the ir signal. i tried using all the other rca codes under dvd, as well as rca codes for tv, vcr, and pvr/cable boxes. basically tried every rca code in the book with no luck.
the new xbox dvd remote i got was in a different package than the walmart one, im thinking it is newer. it also says for use with dvd region 1 AND 2. would this have anything to do with it not wanting to pick up the signal from the universal??? it works just fine with the xbox remote, and displays the codes on the screen still. is there some newer version of the xbox remote that is incompatable with universal remotes, and somehow has the default xbox dvd remote locked in as the only thing it will respond to?
im about to break down here and just go buy the mce remote off ebay, after buying 2 xbox dvd remotes and a cheap jp1 universal remote. this is exactly what i was trying to avoid doing but i guess i should quit before i go farther in the hole.
smokinabowl
2007-05-21, 18:24
anyone with a universal remote that knows something i dont....?
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Universal_Remote_Control
smokinabowl
2007-05-22, 05:06
ok, ive read thatbefore, and i know it uses the rc5 protocol. the problem is, the reciever isnt picking up any signal at all from my remotes (i have 2 different rca universal remotes) - i cant even get to the keymap part yet if the reciever doesnt pick up the signal
i'm wondering if the reciever has just the xbox remote locked in as the only thing that it will respond to - havent heard of this problem before
smokinabowl
2007-05-29, 04:54
bump
I have a fundamental understanding of IR, the XBOX DVD remote and programming Universal Remotes.
But I cannot for the life of me decipher from your writing what it is you are trying to do and how you are trying to do it.
I have started to reply to this post at least twice, but every time I read it through I am nowhere close to understanding what it is you are doing and then I just close the window.
(It may because I have no experience with MS Media Center and "the extender program").
But I would assume anything you do in XBMC has no bearing on what happens in another unrelated program.
My question would be, is this region 1&2 XBOX DVD remote an original MS remote?
(It is extremely unlikely that an original IR receiver is locked to a specific remote).
My only thought at this point is that the remote/receiver pair you have are knock offs and not RCA compatible. (Should be theoretically possible to decode it to something the Xbox understands at the receiver, but perhaps not very plausible)
smokinabowl
2007-05-31, 10:11
sho: i think you have a pretty good understanding of what im trying to do. what you said above is correct. lets leave media center extender out of it to simplify things. in reality, i should have started a new thread.
*i have a dvd1&2 non-original remote/reciever.
*the dvd 1&2 region remote works with xbmc, and it displays the displayremotecodes on button press. means its rc5 compatable.
*universal remotes seemed to work with xbmc on the old walmart ir reciever, but not on this 1&2 region one.
so from what youre saying, it sounds like that just because something is rc5 compatable on the software level, that doesnt mean it is compatable on the hardware level. really, i think this is probably out of the xbmc realm, as it seems to have more to do with the hardware since the reciever is sending out the rc5 that the xbox needs. but i figured i would ask here anyway, since i had no idea where to start.
either way, i think im just going to give up and buy a media center extender kit off of ebay, since that is guaranteed to work. the generic reciver probably uses some proprietary i/r signals, and then decodes it to rc5. i think the $40 on ebay at this point is worth saving me the trouble of building an ir reciver for my computer, capturing and decifering the ir signal sent out by the generic xbox remote, building a cable to program my jp1 remote, and figuring out how to use the software correctly to program it and get everything to work, if it can even be done at all.
so, you guys can consider this thread dead, im on ebay right now =]
smokinabowl
2007-05-31, 10:14
by the way, is anyone looking to buy a generic xbox remote/reciever that wont work with universal remotes? =D
Glad I could help.
PS. RC5 (or RCA as it happens) is the communication between the remote and the receiver. The receiver takes the RCA stream and changes it to something the Xbox understands. So actually the protocol between the two has no bearing on what the Xbox sees and could mean your pair is not RCA compatible at all.