When is a remote not a remote?
Strangely, only a day after Mitch wrote a recent entry about Media Center [I've just become a Media Centre junkie], I've got something to say roughly on the same topic.
I've been running a "Media Center" for 3 or 4 months now. I say "Media Center" rather than Media Center (look carefully, there's a difference) because of one tiny thing - I don't actually start the Windows Media Center application. It's a relatively powerful computer running Vista Ultimate (AMD X2 4600+, 2 gig ram, pretty decent video card, a TV card - only one so far, but the same as one of Mitch's two - and a pretty big fast SATA drive). It's certainly capable, but I don't run it.
You see, here's my logic:
- Whenever Media Center starts, the resolution on my TV changes slightly or something and i lose the edges. It might make full-screening the video a little better, but I lose the start bar when I revert back to windows.
- While it might watch TV ok, I also watch a lot of downloaded avis. Last time I tried to play a divx in media center, the computer bluescreened. Twice.
- Media Center is ugly and annoying.
So anyway, that's where I was at. I watch TV using the TV app that came with the TV card (which came with a remote that only works with that TV app), and I have a bluetooth mouse (so that the range works from the couch) to use iwndows explorer, browse for avis, launch them, and control media player (which doesn't bluescreen).
I used to think that all I wanted was some sort of remote driver that would give me a mouse driver - left right up and down to move the mouse, and the enter button to left click. And i'd be happy.
Of course, it rarely works out that way :)
Today I thought I'd get myself a media center remote. Not so that I can use media center, but because I learned how to write my own apps that take input from a media center remote control. I thought this might give me the best of both worlds - I could use a remote for watching TV, and a remote for doing avi stuff. Since I've got a universal remote, I could blend the two together and live happily ever after with myself :)
Man, I certainly haven't forgotten how to waffle, have I?
Today on my lunch break I bought a media center remote control. Not a microsoft one, but some other brand, for much cheaper - 25 bucks. Bargain! I plugged it into my laptop when I got back, fired up my test app, and it was receiving input! Sweet. No disc came with it, windows just knew what to do. Didn't even contact windows update.
Except that it only got half the keys. But I did some playing, and I thought I had it figured out.
I got home tonight, plugged the receiver into the media center, and...
Now I'm getting an unknown device problem, and it can't find the driver anywhere. And I certainly don't have one. And there's almost no mention of the brand I got on google. Almost no mention, except for this.
It ends up that the cheap remotes don't install remote input thingys. Instead, you get a ps2 keyboard plugged into the USB port. The infrared receiver sends key down events. This is neat in a way - since therefore on my laptop the remote works in just about every application, since it's only sending key codes. The 'MSN' button sends ctrl-n, so at the desktop that opens windows explorer. Up and down navigate the contents of folders, the ok button navigates into a folder or launches the selected file. Pause (shift-ctrl-p) pauses media player.
But on the actual media center i'm getting an unknown device of 'USB to PS2 devic' - yes, no e on the end of device. I need sort of driver that handles ps2 hardware plugged into a usb port. My laptop has it already, I'm guessing, because I imagine the keyboard on a laptop is really ps2. Or something. But I imagine that the driver came with the rest of the chipset drivers for my latitude D820. But this 'device' doesn't appear in device manager that I can find, so I don't know what driver files I need to make it work on the non-laptop computer.
So anyway, yeah. I have a remote that's really just a keyboard. Pretty cool in it's own way, if it worked on the computer I want it to work on.
Oh, and I'm thinking of testing out media center again once I get it working. Maybe it'll be better when I have a remote for it. And maybe the divx-bluescreen issue has been fixed too. I'm not holding my breath of course.
Anyone got a driver for me? Or any ideas?
Oh, and side note, this comes just after I discovered (on the weekend) that my XBox 360 can play divx movies. By turning on media sharing in media player on my media center machine, the XBox can browse it's library and play them. So I've already got a remote for watching my avis. But I'm on the quest for perfection...i'm just not sure what that is yet :)