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HP TSGH-IR07 - nearly perfect!


rockgatherer97

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Hi,

 

I have successfully set up my HP Windows Media Center RC6 Remote Control (TSGH-IR07) using the flirc se for use with Media Centre on Windows 8.1.  Configuration file is attached. I'm using the firmware associated with the current stable GUI (1.3.4)

 

Not all the buttons are programmed (Visualisation, Print, Radio and Eject), but the wake and shutdown has.  All the keys are double coded because each button produces two different IR blasts on subsequent presses. A key thing when getting this setup was never to use the erase button.

 

There is one major gremlin though.

 

While the context menu and skip right and skip left buttons have been correctly assigned, whether they work or not is entirely context dependent.  For example the skip buttons work on the TV Guide, but not on Live TV!  This seems to be nothing to do with the remote, just how the flirc keyboard commands get interpreted by media centre.  They do work when watching DVDs though!  The context menu (ctrl+D) never seems to work.  Putting these commands in via a USB keyboard does give the desired behaviour.

 

I've tried mocking up the same behaviour using EventGhost and that behaves even worse - I can only get basics like the arrow keys.

 

I know there has been a long forum post on the topic in the past, but I'm very willing to do additional testing if anyone has some bright ideas - my Mrs won't cope without being able to use the skip keys for TV!!

 

Thanks

Edited by rockgatherer97
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Hi.

 

We are currently experiencing technical problems with the forum system, that's why you're not able to upload a file right now.

 

Do you have "sequence modifiers" checked in advanced options? Try changing this option and then check if the context menu started working.

 

As for the context dependent keys there is not much Flirc can do as it is not aware what is currently going on in the host system. All it knows is IR signal hash and key combination assigned to it that it needs to send when the correct IR signal is received. If the Media Center have different combinations for skip buttons depending on the current mode then I would say that's a really poor software design on the Microsoft part. The only thing you could do is to sacrifice some two buttons on the remote to use as skip buttons for the TV mode.

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Hi,

 

Thanks for the reply

 

The GUI actually won't let me turn "sequence modifiers" off - I switch it off and the next time I open the advanced settings it is back on again (v1.3.4 Win 8.1 Pro).

 

Regarding the MCE problems, the key combinations "should" be the same (that is the way they are in all the documentation), but clearly there is something subtle going on which makes it not the case.  I can't get any key combination to make it skip forward or back.  As I noted above there is a long forum over an extended period going through these types of problems with MCE.  I see that MCE fixes are on the To Do list for the next beta, so hopefully some progress will be made there.

 

In the processes of that 5 mins tinkering I've managed to completely disable waking up from sleep with the remote (still wakes up from the wireless USB keyboard)!  Looks like things are still a little fragile with this remote under flirc.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update to the above.

 

I updated to the latest stable version (GUI v1.3.6 Firmware v3.6) and it is oh so nearly working perfectly - but not quite.

 

The media keys (play, pause, skip forward, skip back, menu) all now work when watching TV/video - great.  However to avoid double key presses while watching video/DVD I have to have the following advanced options set:

 

- Sequence modifiers on

- Built-in profiles off

- Noise Cancellation on

 

The problem is that having Noise Cancellation turned on makes the other keys quite sluggish outside of watching video.  For example the skip forward and back keys barely work when looking at the TV Guide.  If I turn Noise Cancellation off then the interface outside of the videos works very well, but I get the double key presses back with the media keys when watching TV/video.

 

I've tried playing with the interkey delay but this doesn't seem to have very much effect.

 

So very, very nearly there, but there is still this gremlin left that makes flirc hard to use for WMC under my setup (Win 8.1 Pro, flirc-SE)

 

All thoughts gratefully received!

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I'm wondering what Microsoft programmers are doing that there are so much issues with WMC. If the application changes the key recognition mechanisms depending on the mode there may never be a 100% working solution with Flirc (I still hope Jason will somehow find a way). I think that if even the EventGhost has issues with WMC then the problem is the WMC itself.

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Yes, it is all a bit strange.  I did try a hybrid solution using EventGhost to put the media key inputs into WMC (via other unused keyboard shortcuts) and this worked.  However EventGhost is a bit flakey and after a while it would start putting random extra 'U00' keystrokes into the keyboard plugin input, and so everything stops working until you restart EventGhost, so I can't use this as a 'production' solution.

 

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on developments and keep testing new versions of the firmware - very happy to do some testing if that helps the overall development effort.

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Well it all seems to be working now, however I did need to make use of a hybrid solution. Here is the recipe I followed:

 

Firmware: v3.6 with GUI v1.3.6

 

Advanced Settings:

 

InterKey delay: 4

Noise Cancellation: Off

Built in Profiles: On

Sequence Modifiers: On

 

Remember that for this remote you need to program each button twice because each button alternates IR signals on sequential presses.

 

1) Don't use the WMC profile in the GUI!

2) Go to the media keys profile and configure all of these buttons, for this remote it will leave pause, record, eject and a whole bunch of WMC keys unprogrammed - we'll come back to those. This is important because using these keys flirc will send the specific HID command not the keyboard shortcut.

3) Program the remaining keys using the WMC keyboard shortcuts and numbers using the full keyboard EXCEPT for the WMC start (big green button) and the context menu. I get multiple button presses with these shortcuts so we'll do this differently.

4) Use the flirc_util command line tool to directly set the HID events for record, pause and eject - see the excellent discussion on how to do this here:

5) Install EventGhost and get it responding to the HID events from the remote reliably using the modified EventGhost Generic HID plugin (changes by @yawor) to prevent multiple HID events on a single button press - see  to get the modified plugin. Use the already programmed media keys to test. 

6) Add in the MCE program interaction plugin (not the MCE remote plugins, they do something different) and setup two macros, one to do the context menu event and one to do WMC start. Using the ability to add arbitrary HID events use two of the unused entries in table 12 (I used 4 and 5) set the flirc to send these HID events on the key presses for 'more information' (context menu) and the big green button and then use these events to trigger the corresponding MCE actions in EventGhost. (note that you have to use EventGhost because the corresponding HID entries are too far up the table for flirc to use - or at least I couldn't get them to work)

7) Have a beer (or other libation of you choosing) and save the configuration

 

Doubtless I'll change things and I will post my ongoing experiences here.

 

UPDATE:

 

The Play, Pause and Guide keys can sometimes be a bit twitchy, especially if the wielder of the remote has heavy fingers.  So I've put Play, Pause and the shortcuts (like Guide and Live TV) all on blank HID entries to avoid double presses.  So that play and pause still work with PowerDVD, I've also setup a switch in EventGhost that detects whether PowerDVD is in focus, and if so, adds in the appropriate shortcuts. WMC shortcuts don't interfere with PowerDVD but the opposite is not true, hence the need to switch on certain keypresses depending on the program.

 

Very close to calling this 'final' now.

Edited by rockgatherer97
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