New way to get MCE Remote signals in EG (for Vista/Win7)

[jitterjames]

I really like what Bitmonster is doing. You've read this thread on the forum, so you know about the separate installer for the service. A user who downloads EG won't necessarily know about this thread, so having the plugin install the service makes everything easier for the user.

I haven't found a way to avoid reboot, and I don't think Bitmonster has either. If anyone finds a way, please let us know!

Brett

You are absolutely right. I hadn't thought about making it part of the standard install but that would be great of course. I would think that most users would want the option of installing the service or not in that case. So I guess the service would be installed automatically only when the user enabled the plugin?

James

[stottle]

New version available, with preliminary blaster support and Bitmonster's installation from within the plugin. You can download it (the 8/18/2009 zip file) from the first post of this thread.

There are now three actions associated with this plugin:
1) GetBlasterInfo, which tells which blaster ports are populated.
0 -> None, 1 -> 1st port, 2 -> 2nd port, 3 (?) -> both. (I only have one blaster)
2) SendProntoCode. This will transmit a (raw?) pronto code through the blaster. I didn't set up any configuration for this action, I just hardcoded an MCE code for testing purposes.
3) SendLastReceivedCode. This will transmit the last code received.

Right now, the 2nd two functions are hardcoded to transmit to blaster port #2. My intent was to prove functionality worked, which I think I've done. I've got feedback from the device, a rudimentary learn, and a basic pronto transmission. It certainly needs work on the configuration front, but Bitmonster has discussed a separate IrEncoder plugin, so just having the building blocks will allow most any design he wishes....

Also, pretty much all of the work is done in python within the plugin. The data passed to the service is passed directly to the device driver by the service. This gives lot's of flexibility without needing to recompile/reinstall the service.

Bitmonster - thanks for paying for the Mce Remote with blaster capability, and for making a way to install from within the plugin itself.

Remember - THIS IS BETA CODE

Enjoy,
Brett

[jitterjames]

excellent. I will try to test it. I don't have actually blaster wires (can't find them), but I have blaster ports on my receiver so I'm going to try to take some output readings. I wonder if I can just hard wire to an IR emitter from an old remote...

[jitterjames]

no dice here: I hope I installed it correctly. This is on my x64 machine. I originally tried to install the service using the 64bit msi file on top of the other one. When that didn't work I did an uninstall then installed right away before rebooting (because I am impatient). When that didn't work I uninstalled the service, rebooted, installed the service, rebooted and tried again but I still get this error (when I try to add the plugin to the config tree).

Error while loading plugin-file plugins\MceRemote/.
Traceback (most recent call last) (1449):
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\eg\Classes\PluginInfo.py", line 118, in ImportPlugin
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\plugins\MceRemote\__init__.py", line 146, in <module>
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\eg\Init.py", line 255, in __getattr__
ImportError: No module named IrDecoderPlugin
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\eg\Classes\MainFrame\__init__.py", line 785, in OnCmdAddPlugin
eg.Greenlet(eg.UndoHandler.NewPlugin().Do).switch(self.document, pluginInfo)
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\eg\Classes\UndoHandler\NewPlugin.py", line 37, in Do
file=pluginInfo.pluginName
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\eg\Classes\TreeItem.py", line 75, in Create
self = eg.actionThread.CallWait(partial(cls, parent, node))
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\eg\Classes\ThreadWorker.py", line 72, in __call__
self.returnValue = self.func()
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\eg\Classes\PluginItem.py", line 56, in __init__
self.name = eg.text.General.pluginLabel % info.label
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'label'

I am trying on a 32bit vista machine which never had the old version on it... I'll let you know soon.

[jitterjames]

looks like exactly the same log in 32 bit but I'll paste it here in case I missed something.

do I need a minimum version number of EG for this to work?

Error while loading plugin-file plugins\MceRemote_Vista/.
Traceback (most recent call last) (1484):
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\PluginInfo.py", line 118, in ImportPlugin
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\plugins\MceRemote_Vista\__init__.py", line 67, in <module>
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Init.py", line 262, in __getattr__
ImportError: No module named ActionBase
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\MainFrame\__init__.py", line 800, in OnCmdAddPlugin
).switch(self.document, pluginInfo)
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\UndoHandler\NewPlugin.py", line 37, in Do
file=pluginInfo.pluginName
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\TreeItem.py", line 75, in Create
self = eg.actionThread.CallWait(partial(cls, parent, node))
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\ThreadWorker.py", line 72, in __call__
self.returnValue = self.func()
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\PluginItem.py", line 56, in __init__
self.name = eg.text.General.pluginLabel % info.label
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'label'

[stottle]

do I need a minimum version number of EG for this to work?

I put this in the first post, I should have added it to the post above:

* Can be installed from the plugin configuration, rather than separate msi (requires EventGhost 0.3.7.r1187, released today)

Can you see if it works with this version? This don't look like errors from my code.

Thanks,
Brett

[jitterjames]

it seems to be working very well now. I have been using an older version of EG because my ps3 doesn't work anymore after 3.6.something

I also had to uninstall the driver again and install from within the plugin using the provided button. It then worked immediately without me having to reboot. hurrah!

Also, I am able to note a voltage spike on the 2nd blaster port when sending last received code through the blaster so it's certainly doing something. I have already taken apart an old remote, but it's past my bed time so I'll try wiring it up to the scavenged emitter tomorrow morning.

Does it currently actually send the last received code to the blaster? Can I essentially test the "learn" functionality now?

very exciting!

btw if my hodgepodge emmitter works I'll post some photos. I have no idea if it will work or not.

J

[stottle]

it seems to be working very well now.

Nice!

It then worked immediately without me having to reboot. hurrah!

That's probably because you uninstalled and reinstalled without have the registry keys present during first boot. In other words, that was more accidental than a fix to the code. Hopefully we can get a real fix at some point.

Does it currently actually send the last received code to the blaster? Can I essentially test the "learn" functionality now?

Yes, but I found that my results were somewhat erratic. I could transmit pronto codes reliably, but when I collected from the MCE receiver and transmitted to a USB-UIRT, about 30% of the signals weren't recognized. I'm not sure if that is a bug, or if the tolerances need to be adjusted in the decoder. I wanted to get Bitmonster's opinion on that.

I'm curious what you get, especially with your makeshift blaster!

Brett

[jitterjames]

well, the makeshift blaster doesn't seem to work. the emitter may be designed to work at a higher voltage or it may be way more complicated than I thought! Hopefully my original blaster wires will turn up.

One thing I forgot to mention. When I perform the Get Mce Transveiver blaster capability I always get this:
Blaster Data: 7
but i thought it was supposed to be 0-3. Maybe this is the code that returns if you have a 2 port device (which I have).

Should the number that is returned depend on whether you have blasters plugged into the device or is it just telling you how many ports you HAVE and not howmany are plugged in?

J

[stottle]

One thing I forgot to mention. When I perform the Get Mce Transveiver blaster capability I always get this:
Blaster Data: 7
but i thought it was supposed to be 0-3.

In all my testing (that's a joke, I only have one device), the return value has been which ports blasters are plugged into, giving 0, 1, or 2 (I don't have two blasters). I'll have to look into why you are getting 7.

I'm posting a reply here for how to install that was sent to a different thread:
Installation simply requires unzipping the latest version (from the first post) into your eg plugins folder. Once the folder is there, you can restart and MceRemote_Vista will show up in the list of EG plugins. Add the plugin and when the config dialog shows up, hit the install button (which will install the service).

Brett

[predatorftp]

thanks,

I installed alright, "services installed successfully" + restart of the computer. i then moved forward to install the relative macros.
how do i make it work ?
adding "send pronto" gives this error:
Microsoft MCE Remote - Vista/Win7: Send Pronto Code
Error in Action: "Microsoft MCE Remote - Vista/Win7: Send Pronto Code"
Traceback (most recent call last) (1187):
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\ActionBase.py", line 168, in CallWrapper
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\plugins\MceRemote_Vista\__init__.py", line 75, in __call__
NameError: global name 'uirt_blue' is not defined

how do i teach the EG the code (learning ) ?

where can i get pronto codes for my lcd tv ? (LG 42LGs60FR)

how does the transmit last received code work ?

thanks

[jitterjames]

thanks,

I installed alright, "services installed successfully" + restart of the computer. i then moved forward to install the relative macros.
how do i make it work ?
adding "send pronto" gives this error:
Microsoft MCE Remote - Vista/Win7: Send Pronto Code
Error in Action: "Microsoft MCE Remote - Vista/Win7: Send Pronto Code"
Traceback (most recent call last) (1187):
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\ActionBase.py", line 168, in CallWrapper
File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\plugins\MceRemote_Vista\__init__.py", line 75, in __call__
NameError: global name 'uirt_blue' is not defined

how do i teach the EG the code (learning ) ?

where can i get pronto codes for my lcd tv ? (LG 42LGs60FR)

how does the transmit last received code work ?

thanks

I get the same error when trying to send pronto code.

predatorftp: you can't modify the pronto codes yet anyway - it's still being developped. Right now it is supposed to always send the same code as a test.

I don't know how well the "transmit last received code" is functioning but I think the idea would be to point a remote at the receiver and press a button. It should show up in the log. Then when you execute the "transmit last received code" it should spit the same code out via the blaster.

is that right stottle?

[stottle]

Yes, the last code works like jitterjames describes it.

As for the pronto code, I went "D'oh!" as soon as I saw that. That was a pronto code that I removed from the source, but forgot to change in a function call. There's a new zip file loaded to the first post with a fix for that.
If you prefer, change the following line in the __init__.py
from

Code: Select all

freq, transmitValues = Pronto2MCE(uirt_blue)

to

Code: Select all

freq, transmitValues = Pronto2MCE(teletext_pronto)

(The line above that in the code assigns teletext_pronto to the pronto code, so change it there if you want to test different pronto codes)

As for getting pronto codes, that's a good question. I pulled a CCF file from here, opened it with CCFExtractor, then did a cut and paste to get the pronto code into my source.

Obviously there needs to be a better way. That's still in progress.

Brett

[predatorftp]

doesnt work for me.

I pressed a button on my TV remote (power) and the log shoes mceremote.408 , i then pressed the test on the send last received and pooled the blaster cable close to the TV receptor and nothing happened (tried it on both read jacks).

I then went to the site and d/l a ccf code and extracted the Power command from there using the tool you pointed. i made this change:

power_pronto = "5000 0073 0000 0001 0000 000C"
freq, transmitValues = Pronto2MCE(power_pronto)

so i renamed the var to power_pronto and the code it contains is the new one i took off the CCF.

all this with no success, how can i know if the blaster is even blasting something ?

I had the blaster cable in front of the mce receiver and i sow no response in the back light of the receiver. any other way to test this ?

thanks.

[stottle]

My blaster flashes when it transmits, so I know it is working. Yours might not.

Couple of things to try. First off, go back to the teletext_pronto code that I know works. Move the blaster in front of the MCE Receiver, and run the action. The Mce Receiver should detect the signal, if sent, and show it in the EG event log.

I would also try that with the SendLastReceivedCode to see what happens.

I've been looking at CCF formats, and it turns out there are several formats. The plugin currently only works with codes that start with 0000 xxxx ..., which are learned codes. Yours is 5000, which is an RC5 format, not currently handled by the plugin. But the Last Received should have worked, at least.

Let me know what happens with the above tests, I'll take a look at adding the RC5 pronto format. Also, you should have the blaster in port #2, unless you change:

Code: Select all

header = pack(7*ptr_fmt,2,int(1000000./freq),0,0,0,1,len(transmitCode))

to

Code: Select all

header = pack(7*ptr_fmt,1,int(1000000./freq),0,0,0,1,len(transmitCode))

[edit] I tried to bold the 2nd parameter in the function, but that tag doesn't work within code. The only change above is the 2 to a 1 after ptr_fmt.[/edit]

Brett