Help! OrigenAE X11 v2's IR and VFD Can it work?

[Homebuilder]

Hi, got the new x11 v2 with the built in IRTRANS with vfd. It is supposed to be MCE standard. Keep in mind I hate MCE, installed on XP PRO.


Everything works great but nothing shows on the VFD and the IR doesnt seem to be running.

I read where it supposedly can work with girder(now 150 bucks), supposed to work with meedio...

But how about sage? With lcdsmartie? I tried lcdsmartie, but I couldnt get it to work

Any ideas of how to get the IR to work? the VFD?

help!

[Homebuilder]

Anyone anyone ? Bueller?

[DwarF]

Wow, small world. I am in the exact same boat. Got my x11 in thursday and built it last night. the vfd works fine. I assum you got the power switches hooked up right or it wouldn't work. You also have to get the atx module hooked up right to see the vfd. If you get it right, it will come on, even when the computer isn't booted. Just power supply on and you will get a vfd readout.

I am trying to get the included remote (MCE) working with IRTrans now. Let's keep each other updated.

BTW, does the power led around the power button work on yours?

[Homebuilder]

Originally Posted by DwarF

Wow, small world. I am in the exact same boat. Got my x11 in thursday and built it last night. the vfd works fine. I assum you got the power switches hooked up right or it wouldn't work. You also have to get the atx module hooked up right to see the vfd. If you get it right, it will come on, even when the computer isn't booted. Just power supply on and you will get a vfd readout.

I am trying to get the included remote (MCE) working with IRTrans now. Let's keep each other updated.

BTW, does the power led around the power button work on yours?

I get the blue around the power button, but nothing on the screen... umm.. what do you mean by atx hooked up right?

Are you using xp mce? I am using xp pro... wondering if that has something to do with it.

I have a usb cable hooked up. a 2 line power supply coming off the main atx supply (is that waht you mean) and then two lines going to case power and two going to motherboard... Since the computer turns on and off, I thought it was hooked up okay but nothing on the display.


I found some updates for the irtrans here:

http://www.irtrans.de/en/download/dign.php

and a flash update for firmware here

http://www.origenae.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47

let me know how it works!

[DwarF]

I am XP Pro too.

I have the wires hooked up as you do. Might want to check the usb hookup, though I have had mine totally unplugged and I still got the generic "Welcome to HTPC" message on the vfd.

One thing to consider, since they give you the USB hookups as individual wires, I hooked up the front usb incorrectly, and burned out my MS Intellimouse. I hooked them up like a user on their forum and didn't read the post from Origen till after I had fried my mouse about the correct way to do it. If you have hooked up the vfd incorrectly and put power to it, it could have done something similar to your vfd?

My firmware was the latest. I will check the IRTrans software to see if it helps. Its so frustrating! I can see the signals being recived by Girder, but Sage is just sitting there. Girder doesn't have sage listed as an application it can send the signals to in the define application list.

[Homebuilder]

I am guessing I have a bad vfd/IR.

I just took it all apart and rechecked the wires. The USB was correct, but I took it a part and re-did. The switch lines I reverified... No VFD, on start up or anything.

Also, when I start up the software for the ir says " no irtrans devices found"

I hate returning things...

Eventually I will get it up and working. In the mean time, since you havexp pro, would you let me now how you set yours up? Whcih version of girder? any scripts you use to get it to work? From what I have read, you can get girder to work with sage but it is hard to get the VFD to work without MCE. Somewhere I read about LCDHYPE. I googled, downloaded... couldnt test it since mine isnt working, but it might work for you.

Let me know!

[Homebuilder]

Soem more info...
girder version 3 with lcd plug in for $9.99

http://www.digitalconnection.com/Pro...are/girder.asp

LCD plug in downloads...
http://girderplugins.sourceforge.net/LCD/

[DwarF]

Ok, I have some good news (sorta)

I have found that IRTrans has a dir called remotes with a file called apps.cfg

You can program remote buttons to keys, chars, etc in this file. As an example:
[APP]*
[ACTIVE]
[TYPE]KEY
[REMOTE]mediacenter
[COMMANDS]
PLAY [KEY]L
PAUSE [KEY]U
[END-COMMANDS]
[END-APP]

The mediacenter PLAY button is mapped to L from the keyboard.

Then, in Sage, goto learn remote commands and click play, then press the play button, it will use the keyboard button "L" to work PLAY, and "U" to work pause. you will have to restart the IRTrans USB server each time you adding mappings to the apps.cfg file. So far, I can get everything working as I wanted.

I have an email out to IRTrans to get commands to the OS, so I can suspend windows with power, etc.

Cheers,
DwarF

[Homebuilder]

Sounds great!

I am awaiting the return of my vfd/IR from the place I bought it.. seems I got a bad one so I havent been able t try this out yet.

Let me get this right, you made all the changes in sage configuration, not IRTRANS?

Can you change or make a IRTRANS config to use the base sage codes?

I am thinking of portability... Can you cut and paste the changes you made in sage (are they saved in the sage.properties file?) or attach a config file from irtrans to work for me and others?

Thanks for the info!

[DwarF]

Actually, I have been through many iterations since that post. I have even installed and tweeked Meedio and BTV. I did a lot of playing with all of them now to see which I prefer, and have come back to Sage. In the end, i downloaded Girder 3.3 ( I tried the newer one too, but it didn't have anyting compelling engou to part me wtih an extra 25 bucks ).

I use IRTrans, with the default setup, to send commands to girder that I parse out to other applications as I want. It recognizes all commands as "mediacenter xxx" where the xxx is vol+, vol- etc.

I have it all working quite nicely now and am very happy with the overall setup. Sage's music jukebox is the weakest of the three, but it's picture is far superior. I couldn't get the other front ends to work seemlessly enough to use anthing other than Sage with much joy for the family.

Most of what I thought were Sage shortcomings in the begining could be gotten around wtih some patience, tweeking and figuring out how sage handles things.

IT STILL NEEDS AN FM RADIO BUILT IN THOUGH. if any developers are making a short list

If you end up needing any help, just post your email (obfuscated for humans) or im contact and I will do what I can. I have spent about 20 hours on this in the last week and could probably save you some frustration.

[Homebuilder]

Thanks for the offer. I just got my new IRTRANS in the mail, it works. Guess my last one really was bad.

Can you give a quick guide on how you set up irtrans and girder to work with sage?

I found the a gml for sage on the community page.. but can not get irtrans and girder to play nicely together.
So far, IRtrans is apparently working okay.

Installed girder, added irtrans plug in to girder plugin directory. added plugin, set up plug in.. plug in seems to be installed.

added the sage gml

but nothing happens when I use the remote.

my normal email is irishattorney at aol com
Thanks!

[teknubic]

Even though you added the Sage.gml file to Girder, you still have to set it up. The command mappings to the remote buttons is in the gml file but not the commands to Sage. Edit your gml file to add what you want Girder to do when it receives the command from IRTRANS (send CTRL+R to the sage application, for instance).
HTH

[Homebuilder]

Originally Posted by teknubic

Even though you added the Sage.gml file to Girder, you still have to set it up. The command mappings to the remote buttons is in the gml file but not the commands to Sage. Edit your gml file to add what you want Girder to do when it receives the command from IRTRANS (send CTRL+R to the sage application, for instance).
HTH

Thanks! I will try that tonight.. Curious though, can a gml be saved that has all that info? In otherwords, I create this pvr, create an exact duplicate of it, can I just transfer over the GML?

[teknubic]

Yes, you can just transfer the GML file to the new machine if it's the same.
In Sage, you'll need to go to the command mappings in detailed setup. There you will find the keystroke commands that get mapped to buttons on your remote in the GML file.
The only button you won't match up is the power button. IRTRANS does that on its own.

[bbig119]

So to the topic of the VFD. There's an LCD Smartie plugin for Sage, but irTrans doesn't support LCDSmartie, they support LCDHype.

Is there an easy way to adapt a current plugin or make a new one to make the irTRans VFD on the Origen X11 case work with Sage?

[grooves12]

I am trying to get this same configuration setup, and unfortunately this thread is not helping me much. Is there an exact step by step out there somehwere on configuring Girder?? I am trying to use the version 4.0... but it sounds like the older version may work out better.

[bbig119]

An update for those who have been left out in the cold without being able to use the LCDSmartie plugin developed for Sage with irTrans VFD module in Origen cases.

check out this link at the Origen forums builds in compatability to LCDSmartie for irTrans VFDs.

Bottom line, it works! So yes I am able to get my VFD to display information from sage using the LCDSmartie plugin. I haven't messed with it enough to make it useful yet, but that will simply require some configuration and script writing to get it working.

So give this a try before you try to invest many many hours trying to get it working with LCDHype-- which I'm sure can be made to work, but given the lack of useful documentation and support in english, its an endeavor that wasn't worth it to me.

I can barely read the VFD from seats in my family room anyway, so I'm not sure it'll be of any use in the end.

[grooves12]

I have this working awesome with Sage now...

I gave up on trying Girder, it was MUCH too complicated. But, I am up and running with HIP (which is free) it was a simplae configuration and will do verything I want it to do.

And, with the addition of IRtrans support for LCDSmartie, this makes for a pretty slick setup.

[bbig119]

What's HIP? I haven't spent much time with it because it still don't think it does quite what I want it to, but if there's way to improve things, then I'd like to check that out.

Thanks

Originally Posted by grooves12

I have this working awesome with Sage now...

I gave up on trying Girder, it was MUCH too complicated. But, I am up and running with HIP (which is free) it was a simplae configuration and will do verything I want it to do.

And, with the addition of IRtrans support for LCDSmartie, this makes for a pretty slick setup.

[grooves12]

Its basically the same thing as Girder, with a MUCH simpler interface. It will receive IR commands from any remote and assign them to one or multiple program commands.

It also can send IR commands to other devices if you have an IR blaster... (but I don't so I can't comment on how well that functionality works.)

But, for setting up a remote to work with Sage (or any windows program) it works great.

http://www.byremote.com.au/