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+---- Thread: eHome remote or non-eHome remote? (/showthread.php?tid=133195)
eHome remote or non-eHome remote? - james - 2012-06-05
Hi,
There appears to be various answers about this. Can someone please clarify for me.
I'm looking to buy a MCE remote/receiver, and then program or teach a universal remote to control XMBC.
Is it better to buy a MCE remote/receiver that is an "eHome" device or a "non-eHome" device? And why?
I will be using XMBC with Windows 7 64bit.
Thanks
James
RE: eHome remote or non-eHome remote? - lrusak - 2012-06-05
check this thread
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=132960
RE: eHome remote or non-eHome remote? - james - 2012-06-05
Thanks but that thread doesn't clarify it, the only mention is that the receiver is in fact eHome. If I had the ASRock motherboard I'd get that remote to have the benefit of powering on, but I don't unfortunately.
In some posts people are mentioning eHome being difficult to use and recommending ones that are non-eHome, while others are praising it. I'm still confused after reading the wiki on XBMC.
Does the issue of eHome matter at all if I use a universal remote?
RE: eHome remote or non-eHome remote? - james - 2012-06-05
Even on other wiki pages, it's a contradiction. "The simplest way to use an eHome remote with XBMC is to configure it to emulate a keyboard". So does this mean a non-eHome remote is better since it already is a keyboard?
RE: eHome remote or non-eHome remote? - james - 2012-06-05
More contradictions:
"eHome remotes are generally more expensive than the non-eHome remotes, but they are highly configurable and work very well with XBMC"
Then elsewhere there are some limitations with eHome remotes such as...
"The volume buttons will control the Windows volume setting not the XBMC volume"
"The four coloured buttons (not all MS remotes have these) won't do anything"
"The Green/Windows button will start Windows Media Center"
So how is it that it works very well?
I don't know which page is outdated or incorrect, it's just very frustrating when a simple thing like picking a remote control is a mess like this without an official specification and impossible to research on my own without asking people, and there many helpful people here who helped me out with building my first HTPC, but again sometimes basic things should be possible to research on your own. I don't have the time nor the money to buy different remotes to test it out. I appreciate that this is an open source project available free to everyone, but there should be some sort of organization and quality control.
Honestly, if I could go back in time, I would just buy a device that does what xbmc does and would have probably cost me less and resulted in no frustration.
RE: eHome remote or non-eHome remote? - jhsrennie - 2012-06-05
The only reason not to buy an eHome remote is if you use a low end Harmony universal remote, e.g. a Harmony 300. These have a very slow button response with eHome receivers and unlike the more expensive Harmonies there's no way of adjusting the delay.
In all other circumstances the eHome remotes are the best.
In Windows virtually all remotes emulate keyboards. The advantage of the eHome remote is that you can choose what keypresses the buttons send. The cheaper MCE remotes cannot be configured so for example it takes lots of messing around to get the green button to do anything useful.
The limitations "The volume buttons will control the Windows volume setting etc" describe the behaviour of the remote out of the box i.e. before you have configured it using the MCERemote add-on or Elitegamer360's scripts.
RE: eHome remote or non-eHome remote? - james - 2012-06-06
Thanks for the response and providing some info on the eHome issue.
I'm not 100% certain I made the right decision, but I went ahead and ordered a non-eHome/non-RC6 remote.
I made this decision based on:
- XBMC is not Window Media Center and uses a keyboard anyway
- The "official" XBMC remote is not even RC6
- I'm not going to use the actual MCE remote so I probably won't need to reconfigure any button
- I have a low end universal remote, not the Harmony but URC WR7, so perhaps eHome would have caused a delay too