Harmony and USB-UIRT?

[rbarr110]

I have been using Sage for a while now and realy dont like the Hauppauge remote. I just bought a Harmony 659, literally just showed up on my desk at work, and also got a new case for my HTPC. The case has a built in IR receiver that is supposet to connect to the motherboard USB headers. I am thinking it is probably similiar to a USB-UIRT receiver. However, when visiting the cases website they say the receiver only works with their remote products. I think it is probably BS, but does anyone have experience otherwise. I thought about trying to install the USB-UIRT drivers and testing it out. WHat do you all think?

http://www.nmediapc.com/support_IR.htm

[g808]

Couldn't hurt to give it a try. If it doesn't work, then you can always just get a USB-UIRT. I use my Harmony with it and it's great.

[Crashless]

My guess is that that IR reciever will not work with sage natively. There may be workarounds with it to send commands to sage, but AFAIK there is no plugin available for sage to make that device work.

Can you make the Harmony work with that reciever? Of course, give it the codes, and the harmony will work with anything. The trick will be getting that reciever to work with sage, and that could range from difficult to impossible depending on the software that supports it.

The odds of installing the USBUIRT software for that device and it working are low. Not impossible, but improbable.

Your best/easiest/more expensive option will probably be to remove that device and plug a USBUIRT into it's place, as that works natively with sage and can be used as a signal blaster also that will control your STB.

Give everything a try though, and let us know what happens. It would be interesting if you can get it to work.

[rbarr110]

OK - I did a little digging and if I am reading things correctly the built in IR receiver of the Nmedia case is a USB IR receiver that is MCE plug and play compatible. So any MCE remote should work with the built in IR receiver. So if I take my harmony and load a microsoft MCE remote profile it should work.

I will be testing it out after the super bowl. Don't want to have to take out guts of exisitng HTPC and put in new case and end up with a non-functioning PVR before the game.

Next question: I have read that Windows MCE is basically WinXP SP2 with a edited GUI. Is that correct? I am hoping that my WinXP with SP2 will auto load drivers for the nmedia case IR receiver since I can not find any drivers from the nmedia website.

I will keep you posted in about 2 weeks.

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by rbarr110

OK - I did a little digging and if I am reading things correctly the built in IR receiver of the Nmedia case is a USB IR receiver that is MCE plug and play compatible. So any MCE remote should work with the built in IR receiver. So if I take my harmony and load a microsoft MCE remote profile it should work.

That is the case if you end up using Windows MCE.

I will be testing it out after the super bowl. Don't want to have to take out guts of exisitng HTPC and put in new case and end up with a non-functioning PVR before the game.

That is always the WORST time to tinker. Good call.

Next question: I have read that Windows MCE is basically WinXP SP2 with a edited GUI. Is that correct? I am hoping that my WinXP with SP2 will auto load drivers for the nmedia case IR receiver since I can not find any drivers from the nmedia website.

Yes, MCE is basically an additional program that runs on top of XP. (I don't know if it is SP2 or not, but I would assume that you can upgrade it, MCE 2005 should be the equivilent to a standard XP installation with SP2.)

It might autodetect it, it might not. You might want to fish around to alternative drivers from another manufature just in case. Maybe even the microsoft site.

In any event, getting MCE to install the device is only half the battle. As I mentioned in my previous post, the main battle will be getting Sage to listen to it.

I will keep you posted in about 2 weeks.

Please do. Good luck.

[rbarr110]

I dont really need sage to listen to the built in IR in the case, i still plan on using the Hauppauge IR with my harmony remote. I set up the Harmony yesterday and so far the hauppauge remote profile on the harmony works flawlessly (So far).

I am hoping for a windows capable "mouse" movement and clicking with the harmony. I was under the impression that the MCE remotes worked similiar to a mouse in the regular windows environment, but I could be wrong. I dont want a second windows compatible remote to perform as a mouse function. I want 1 remote to rule them all.

So far the Harmony remote is awesome for running my TV, digital cable receiver, A/V receiver, DVD player, and in Sage TV (via hauppauge remote profile).