Pulse-Eight CEC +

[kgschlosser]

So I went ahead and purchases a Pulse-eight for my NUC,

what exactly did you purchase?


You also keep on mentioning cec and the bios.. what bios? the bios on the NUC??

the CEC adapters I am familiar with are the ones that you plug the HDMI from the projector into it and then you plug it into the HDMI on the computer.. then you also plug in the USB from the cec adapter to the computer..

it does not matter what CEC device you use it can only be accessed from a single program.. so if you are running eventghost and have the cec plugin installed then you cannot have anything CEC related installed into Kodi. same goes vice versa.

You need to install the 2012 c++ runtime redist for x86 it can be gotten from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... x?id=30679
This is needed in order to use the plugin.. You then need to also install the drivers for the adapter. they are attached to the first post.. as well as the plugin.

whatever HDMI port the adapter is plugged into on the projector you need to set that in the plugins config under the HDMI port

Lets start off with that and see where you get.. remember uninstall anything related to CEC that is installed into Kodi.
install the redist and the drivers.
install the plugin and set the HDMI port.

also send me a link to where you get the adapter from. I want to take a look at it. I say this because if you bought the USB version but there is a setting in the NUC's bios you may have bought one when you didn't need to.. the cec adapters do come pre installed on some devices.. Raspberry Pi's are one of this devices.. A NUC may also be one. and if you have 2 of them on the same HDMI bus it may not work properly.

This is a MUST.. you MUST have the adapter plugged directly into the projector.. It cannot pass through an AVR or any kind of a video switcher. The reason why is not all AVR's or video switchers have a CEC pass through.

[dt1000]

Hi there, kgSchlosser - thanks once again for the reply.
I'll answer your questions in detail...

What did I purchase?
An internal NUC CEC adapter for my 7th Gen NUC. https://www.pulse-eight.com/p/154/intel ... ec-adapter

CEC / Bios
The NUC7CJY has CEC built in (but I couldn't find a way to get this to work with Eventghost and Kodi, hence the adapter).
Here are the system specs: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/suppo ... odSpec.pdf
After digging around in the bios I found a setting that disables the onboard CEC, which has a note saying that it needs to be disabled if an alternate solution is plugged into the CEC header on the mainboard... which I assume is what the Pulse-eight adapter is, so I disabled the onboard option. It's worth noting that my projector can see the NUC in its "Connected Devices" list when the onboard system is active... but it can't when it isn't.

Adapter only accessible from a single program
Yeah, I noticed that. It looks like Kodi won't activate it's Pulse-eight plug-in if the device is already in use. I ahve been making sure only one system is active at a time.

2012 c++ runtime redist for x86 & Drivers
I installed the latest drivers & bios from the Pusle-eight website. From what I recall this includes a 2013 C++ redist. Do I need the exact drivers on this post, or are the latest ones from the manufacturer OK? Either way, the included software still threw up lots of errors. I also updated the Pulse 8 firmware to v8.

Once my wife has stopped playing Fallen Order on the projector, I'll uninstall everything and try again with the specific installation on this post.

I've also reached out to Pulse-eight's tech support... but I don't expect to hear back from them until next year!

My gut instinct tells me the connection between the Pulse-eight and the NUC's CEC header is faulty. But as I am not an expert, so this hunch could be utter rubbish.

Thanks once again for the helpful advice! Very excited to get this working.

Cheers,
Dan

[kgschlosser]

you MUST use the driver package that is attached on the first post in this topic.. that is because of a modification that has been done to the drivers due to an error in the code for the driver that is available on the pulse eight site..

This correction was made by the developers of the pulse eight driver and all driver signing is in good order.. They have not released a driver that has the correction made.. So you have to use the one that we are supplying. If you are sure that the firmware is up to date in the cec device and you then have our drivers installed you should be good to go.. I mentioned the redist because the redists that are packaged with the driver are not the correct ones.. I do not know what happened there I think that they compiled the driver with a newer version of Visual Studio and that is what caused the issue. I made a mistake about using the 2012 redist.. you need the 2013 x86 redict.. no other redists are needed...

you will have to uninstall any drivers you currently have installed. verify that the 2013 redist is in fact installed and then install the driver from the first post.. You will probably find that the CEC adapter that is built in will then start to work... I know it is kind of a kick in the nads when this kind of a thing happens. Kodi also uses python so I am sure that you probably had the same issue in EG as you had in kodi because of the use of the drivers supplied by pulse eight..

to my knowledge no one else has a working driver. the problem with the driver only effects using CEC in python. Now that being stated.. there are modifications that need to be done to any code using the new driver in order for it to work.. so chances are if you install the one attached to the first post and then expect CEC in kodi to start working, it probably won't. I hate to deflate your balloon on that..

I am almost 100% certain that these problems are happening because of the driver.. give the one attached to the first post a shot..

if you are getting any errors in EG please copy and paste the error into a post so i can have a look at it.

[dt1000]

Alrightee then...
I set everything up carefully, as instructed, but still no dice.

The log files have some clues...

Debug:
31/12/2019 09:37:22 - CEC DEBUG: Flamebox: << Recorder 1 (1) -> TV (0): POLL
31/12/2019 09:37:22 - CEC DEBUG: Flamebox: CEC transmission - received response - TRANSMIT_FAILED_ACK
31/12/2019 09:37:22 - CEC DEBUG: Flamebox: CEC transmission - received response - TRANSMIT_FAILED_ACK
31/12/2019 09:37:22 - CEC DEBUG: Flamebox: >> POLL not sent

Info:
31/12/2019 09:37:22 - CEC INFO: Flamebox: << 10

Warning:
31/12/2019 09:41:08 - CEC WARNING: Recorder 1: COMMAND_REJECTED: TRANSMIT_EOM

Any ideas as to what might be up?

[kgschlosser]

It looks as tho it is seeing the adapter which is a good thing.

If you installed the drivers attached to the first post then the cectray application would also be installed. I want you to close eventghost and run the cectray program. see if it is able to work.

[kgschlosser]

how long is the hdmi cable that you have running from the NUC to the projector??? I believe pulse eight says a maximum of something like 6 or 8 feet.. if you have the ability to test with a short cable if your cable is over that give that a shot as well... the cable does have to be CEC compliant as well. you might consider getting a new one that states CEC right on the packaging if you are unsure. There is an additional wire in the CEC compliant cables.

[dt1000]

Partial success!

After mucking around with various cables, I decided to try connecting the projector to HDMI 1 on the NUC (as opposed to HDMI 0). Pulse-eight is now sending remote commands to my PC.

So... it looks like the internal Pulse-eight adapter for NUCs only works with the second HDMI slot.

Also, the new drivers work fine with KODI as long as Event Ghost isn't running.

Now for the not so good news...

Audio commands from my remote don't seem to come through (i.e. the volume buttons do nothing).

Also, I can't work out for the life of me how to send a power on/off command to my projector via Eventghost. All I can do so far is get my projector to switch HDMI inputs.

Any tips would be most welcome.

Thanks once again,
Dan

[kgschlosser]

OK each setup is going to be slightly different based on what the projector has implemented as far as the protocol is concerned..

There are a few ways to accomplish each task depending on the support.

Power is handled in 2 ways.. the first way is more of a direct thing where it will tell the projector to turn on or off..

if you look you will see 2 groups of actions.. one for power and the other for volume.. I am betting those are the ones you have tried and are not working.. if that is the case.. then scroll down to the remote group at the bottom.. in there should be actions for volume and also power.

The actions in the remote group send the command to the projector as if it was a button press on the remote control if one does not work the other usually does.

CEC is a goofy specification. there is no requirement by the specification for how much of it they need to have available.. so a lot of times they will use a very small amount of it to be able to use that CEC logo. they will then hack up the rest into a brand specific version of it. so you can end up buying a samsung TV that has the CEC logo and then buy a sony BD player that also has the CEC logo and the only thing you can do is turn the BD player on and off.. But if you bought a samsung BD player you would have the whole gambit of controls available.. This is done intentionally to persuade you into buying matched brands.