Mac Mini (PPC) which remote?

[ukmgranger]

Hi there

I have an old Mac mini (1.42GHz PPC - 1GB RAM) an have just installed the new mac placeshifter onto it. What remote can I use to control Sage?, bearing in mind that the old mini does not have an infrared port (for use with the mac remote).

Any ideas?

[hotwire]

Have you looked at IRTrans?
http://www.irtrans.de/en/index.php

It's not a remote control, but an ir receiver that can be used with your mac with third party software.

[jlindborg]

The IRTrans is a little pricy for what is essentially not quite as good a device as USBUIRT on Windows.

I've been switching back and forth between OSX and XP on my MINI and I've been using the Keyspan remote on both - For $39 it's not a bad deal and their 17 button remote is workable if not perfect:

http://www.keyspan.com/products/usb/.../homepage.spml

The wife likes the simpler remote - I pine for a few more buttons.

I also tried the Remote Wonder from ATI - works ok in OSX, is useless and awful in Windows. And I didn't care much for the remote itself, but hey...

The Keyspan reciever that comes with the remote is supposed to be able to handle input from other IR remotes - their docs aren't real wordy on this point and I didn't burn very many cycles trying it but didn't get real far in the time I did spend on it.

[Scriber]

Would this assist in some way: http://twistedmelon.com/.

[jlindborg]

no, not really - that's just so you can use the little Mac remote (which is far too simple to be a really useful remote for much of anything in my opinion) with other applications. You can aready do that for free with iRed by having it send keys to the Sage application. Most of us need more than 6 buttons, however, so that's not going to get you real far.

The probem is we want to use "real" remotes with the Mac. Ideally the built in receiver on the Macs could be configurable to deal with other remote input but typical Apple has it locked down to only see AR codes only - which is annoying since the Mini makes a wonderful client option otherwise.

[Scriber]

I had hoped that this SW would permit use of other remotes not just the AR by supporting other IR receivers in OSX - bummer...

Kinda in the same boat once MacClient is released. Not sure my extra PPC mini is up to the task remote-wise and performance-wise. Might all be moot though with the Sage HD extender.

[FidgetyRat]

Have you tried the placeshifter on it yet?

The Mac Placeshifter is pretty much inoperable on my G4 1ghz machine.