Harmony Remote & XBMC

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cAfstA

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Hey guys..

I recently acquired a harmony remote so as to use on my equipment to make my home viewing a much better experience.

I then also purchased a second cheapie remote for it's IR receiver. I installed the IR receiver which needed it to be plugged onto the mobo itself as well as into the 20 pin power cable.

With all of this I have got my Harmony remote setup to power on my devices including my pc which is a dedicated media pc now running xbmc on Windows 7.

My problem now is that once powered up and in XBMC itself I cannot do anything. I can't scroll left /right or up/down through the menus or choose anything. I have edited/added the keymap.xml file for the extra buttons not in the standard .xml file. The remote is setup as a MCE Keyboard as per instructions obtained via the web.

My question now is.....
Has anyone got their Harmony remote working flawlessly with XBMC?
If so then what have you done to get it working?
Could my IR receiver be the problem in the equation as I have come across quite a few sites mentioning that the receiver needs to a a RC6 receiver.
How do I know if my receiver is a RC6?

Your help is much appreciated guys coz if any of you are married will know that if electronics do not work smoothly in your house then you are foooooooked coz the wifey aint happy.

Thanx guys
 
My receiver isn't rc6 capable but I can teach it most functions. Sounds to me like you've set it up wrong. You need to set it up as a media centre remote, then use the mce keyboard to map buttons like c and s to the remote. C for example brings up the context menu. It won't work as an mce keyboard alone. The keyboard only adds additional functionality to an activity based on the media centre remote...
 
DJ... said:
My receiver isn't rc6 capable but I can teach it most functions. Sounds to me like you've set it up wrong. You need to set it up as a media centre remote, then use the mce keyboard to map buttons like c and s to the remote. C for example brings up the context menu. It won't work as an mce keyboard alone. The keyboard only adds additional functionality to an activity based on the media centre remote...
Click to expand...

So add a new media centre remote as a device. Then remap the activity buttons to use the mce keyboard. You should only have to change a few like the c button and s. The media centre remote should control most functions.

If not then you'll be stuck in my position where you'll have to teach your remote the functions one by one and the activity won't control the box. You'll have to manually change to media centre.

Or buy an rc6 receiver which is my next purchase...
 
Hey DJ.....

Thanx man. Do you have any links where I could get the assistance from to setup my remote properly then?
 
Flawlessly is a bit of a loose term. I had a MCE remote & MS IR Reciever, the remote took too many drops and I replaced it with a Harmony 500. I configured it to replicate the MCE remote, it works alright. The only change I needed was installing the MCE Remote plugin and assigning a key to disable subtitles on .mkv files (WHY this cannot be done through the settings, I don't know). Would be cool if XBMC registered a control set for the Harmony, things like context menus etc would be awesome.
 
cAfstA said:
Hey DJ.....

Thanx man. Do you have any links where I could get the assistance from to setup my remote properly then?
Click to expand...

The official xbmc wiki has a detailed guide. On tapatalk so I'll let you do the googling...
 
Ok so basically I should delete the MCE Keyboard device and the add a MCE Remote device instead and then configure the buttons from there?
 
Fudzy said:
Flawlessly is a bit of a loose term. I had a MCE remote & MS IR Reciever, the remote took too many drops and I replaced it with a Harmony 500. I configured it to replicate the MCE remote, it works alright. The only change I needed was installing the MCE Remote plugin and assigning a key to disable subtitles on .mkv files (WHY this cannot be done through the settings, I don't know). Would be cool if XBMC registered a control set for the Harmony, things like context menus etc would be awesome.
Click to expand...

You can switch them off from the osd menu in the video settings. And context menu is the c button. Just program a button to hit c and enable remote sends keyboard presses. At least that's how I understand it...
 
Yeah on the XBMC forum I have obtained all the help after googling for... Ja wat.

Anyway I've gotten that thread where it shows to setup a MCE Keyboard and XBMC device.

I will search further though if you say that there is a thread though for the mCE remote device
 
cAfstA said:
Yeah on the XBMC forum I have obtained all the help after googling for... Ja wat.

Anyway I've gotten that thread where it shows to setup a MCE Keyboard and XBMC device.

I will search further though if you say that there is a thread though for the mCE remote device
Click to expand...

What Harmony version do you have? I had to load remotes onto my remote using the USB cable and the Harmony software.
 
Fudzy said:
What Harmony version do you have? I had to load remotes onto my remote using the USB cable and the Harmony software.
Click to expand...

That's the method I'm talking about. Just load windows media centre as a device, add it to an activity and assign some buttons to the mce keyboard...
 
Just a side note, I have an 'air mouse' as well, it's a tiny wireless keyboard that connects via a USB dongle and you use gestures to control the mouse. It works very well (typing to search through Youtube/songs etc) sadly Takealot don't stock them anymore. Esquire make quite a good mini wireless mouse too I hear.
 
DJ... said:
That's the method I'm talking about. Just load windows media centre as a device, add it to an activity and assign some buttons to the mce keyboard...
Click to expand...

Yes this is what I did as per instructions on XBMC forum but it was to add MCE Keyboard device and XBMC device as well
 
Unless this is brand spanking new, there is no xbmc device in the harmony remote database. The windows media centre remote is the one that works but xbmc has a few additional functions so you need to add a few by assigning buttons to mce keyboard functions...
 
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