Notice: This forum has been recovered from an old backup, so some content, links, and dates may be outdated. The forum is currently read-only while we restore sign-in and registration functionality. Details

If you find this forum valuable and would like to help keep it online, donations to help cover hosting and domain costs are greatly appreciated, but never expected. You can support the forum through Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Thank you for helping preserve the EventGhost community.

"Safe for MCE" IR Blaster?

If you have a question or need help, this is the place to be.
Post Reply
optimumchaos
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Mar 12, 2015 9:34 pm

"Safe for MCE" IR Blaster?

Post by optimumchaos »

Hi,

I'm trying to use EventGhost to solve a little home automation problem, and having only partial luck so far.

The executive summary:

I installed the "Microsoft MCE Remote - Vista/Win7" plugin, to gain the use of my MCE "beanbag"s IR blaster. I was successfully able to "blast" codes to my stereo, only to find some remote functions disabled when I'm actually trying to use MCE. (The green button, back button, and some other buttons stopped working.) After days of troubleshooting, I finally "Configure"d the plugin and uninstalled "AlternativeMceIrService", which fixed the MCE problem. But I also lost my IR blaster support in EventGhost. Does anyone have a solution that will allow me to send IR codes to my MCE IR blaster, without disabling the use of Windows 7 Media Center?

Further details:

I have a Windows 7 box connected to my TV, from which I use Media Center as a DVR. I also use the box as a home server, which is also running "squeezelite" (Logitech Squeezebox emulator) for playing music to the connected amplifier. When I press the "play" button on my nifty wifi-enabled Squeezebox Controller, I want my amp to power-on as well. EventGhost is the best (and only) solution I can find that doesn't require a new amp. I installed the "xPL" plugin to get Squeezebox "play", "stop", and "pause" events from Logitech Media Server (running on the same server), and set up a macro to respond to the "play" event by turning the amp on. Everything works well! Except that I can't use MCE anymore. As stated, the green button, back button, and a few others (I forget which) don't work when the plugin is processing the IR commands.

I've seen posts indicating that the MCE IR plugin(s) intentionally hijack IR events, because most users want to use them for something other than MCE, and that the standard solution is to set up events that pass the important events through via keyboard emulation. Is there any solution that bypasses the whole "input" problem and just gives me control of the "blaster" part? Or that preserves the input functionality, at least?

Any input would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Top
blaher
Experienced User
Posts: 487
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2011 1:27 am

Re: "Safe for MCE" IR Blaster?

Post by blaher »

Have you tried the MCE program control plugin, in conjunction with the "Microsoft MCE Remote - Vista/Win7" plugin?
Top
Post Reply

Return to “General Support”