New Media Player Remote Control
Remote controls are wonderful devices. Not great for a person’s overall health being a couch potato, but doggone convenient.
The living room media player has been in use for several years. Although newer hardware is now used, the original system and components were placed into service around 2009. The remote control is part of a Media Center MCE RRS9002-86XXF RC6 kit that came with an Hauppauge HVR-1250 PCIe WinTV capture card.
No pain or headaches for many years, even after moving the remote control to newer hardware.
Nothing lasts forever. Some of the buttons on the media player remote control were becoming stubborn. To the point that using the remote control was irritating.
Time for repairs or a new remote control.
I was not going to risk repairs with only one functional remote control. I found the same model online. I was about to order one when I remembered another remote control in the computer junk box. That device was an Hauppauge WinTV A415-HPG-A remote control that came packaged with an Hauppauge HVR-1600 TV capture card.
While sharing many common buttons, the two remote controls were notably different. I wondered whether the unused control could be used. Even if the control was functional I would have to remove many cobwebs in the brain remembering how to configure a remote control in Linux as well as specific software.
My first attempts failed. Using the irw command the remote control was not recognized. I let the project rest for a few days. More often than not, walking away from a project for a spell tends to produce useful results. Some days later the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
In my next effort the device was recognized with the irw command. I do not know why the first attempt failed, but a good explanation is being tired and not having my “mind right.”
After mapping all of the buttons I studied all of my related LIRC configuration files. I had not looked at those files for some years. Unlike my original effort, as I remembered how the files functioned, I added comments and notes within the config files. There were several LIRC config files and because an older version of XBMC is used, related userdata config files.
Along with the comments I renamed the original config files associated with the erratic remote control. Should some spare time arise I hope to break open the remote control, clean the button pads, and test the older files.
Button by button I configured the new remote control. After a while the new remote control was functioning as needed.
Hopefully this remote control functions as long as the first remote control. My pragmatic side says I should find a replacement control sooner rather than later.
Posted: Category: Usability Tagged: General
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