IR Dongle for Windows Media Center [closed]

IR Dongle for Windows Media Center [closed] I am putting together a Windows MCE (Win7) using a Dell Zino. Are there any USB dongles that will allow a Logitech Harmony universal remote (IR) to control the box as if it were a MCE Remote?
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 304

Total answers/comments: 1

Comments display order:

Guest [Entry]

"An IrDA won't do the trick, you need a genuine IR and the problem is that they are a bit hard to find around here, I don't know about where you live though...

This is how I solved the problem:
I bought a USB TV tuner that appears to Windows 7 as HID: The Terratec Cinergy DT USB XS Diversity.

It came with it's own software that I never installed (drivers are already in Windows 7) and it's own remote control, that I used to teach my universal remote control so I won't need Terratec's remote any more.

Next step was to install EventGhost and teach it to use the new remote commands to send them as keystrokes to Windows (and eventually to MCE itself).

Here is a list of all the keyboard shortcuts that MCE accepts: Windows Media Center keyboard shortcuts.

I suspect that any Terratec TV tuner that uses the same remote control (check out the product photos), appears to the system as HID as they are all bundled with the same software. Avoid AverMedia's TV tuners as I've found out (the hard way) that they don't appear to the system as HID and they use custom software that EventGhost can't detect.

The only problem I have is that MCE doesn't provide a keyboard shortcut to open the on-screen keyboard, so prepare to miss that...

Good luck!"