Posts: 181
Joined: Aug 2011
Reputation:
0
Oooh! That'll be handy. I have a Panasonic G30 and the remote control for it is great in comparison to third party remotes... it'd be amazing if I could get it to control XBMC.
Posts: 456
Joined: Dec 2010
Reputation:
0
I am a bit confused about this product. How would this allow me to control XBMC via my TV remote? Am I missing something?
Posts: 181
Joined: Aug 2011
Reputation:
0
I'm a little clearer on it...
I've gone and ordered one as well as the Pulse Eight remote...
The device intercepts signals sent into the HDMI port and sends them to a USB port. If your TV has the feature (Panasonic call it Viera Link) then you can have the TV send commands from the TV remote. Normally it'd be to the DVD player or the amp, but there's no reason why it couldn't do it for XBMC. Additionally it can be made to send HDMI signals to your TV.
That means you can use the device in two ways.
1) You can keep your TV remote and use some of the functions on it to control XBMC.
2) You can get rid of the TV remote, and use your XBMC to control XBMC and also the TV
Route 2 is the right one for me I think. I've ordered the remote so that I'll be able to use it to control the TV and XBMC. The remote itself looks better quality than the MCE one I'm using, and since it's RF and not IR then it should function better too.
Posts: 311
Joined: Sep 2009
Reputation:
0
This looks very cool, I want one! I too have a nice Panasonic remote, and would love to use it for XBMC. My TV (VT20) already integrates nicely with my amp (Onkyo 705) to do the volume, etc. It would be awesome to have it control my media center aswell - no need for IR on the HTPC, then!
Posts: 411
Joined: Jul 2010
Reputation:
17
Malard
Team-Kodi Developer
Posts: 411
We've know about the rainshadow tech version for some time, but the issue I've always had with it is the lofty price tag,
There is no serial port on the USB - CEC Adapter from Pulse-Eight but libCEC will allow you to do anything you like, XBMC will use it through a new Peripherals subsystem in development
Posts: 1,264
Joined: Sep 2009
Reputation:
34
If the signals go through the hdmi cable, why is this device needed (that essentially uses a usb connection to the htpc)?
Can't the htpc receive the signals directly through the hdmi and send them on there??
What I mean is, can't this hdmi-cec protocol supported by software?
Thanks
Posts: 311
Joined: Sep 2009
Reputation:
0
aptalca - The reason for this device is that most (if not all) graphics cards out today have not implemented the necessary support for HDMI-CEC in hardware. No software solution can solve this, hence the need for the device from Pulse8.
What this device does, is take the a/v signal from the HTPC's HDMI output, and inject control messages received via USB. It then sends a signal on it's HDMI output that includes the controls received via USB and a/v received via HDMI.
So yes, the signals go through the HDMI cable, but the current crop of HDMI hardware for PCs don't support CEC, so we have to use USB instead and inject the commands outside the PC with a device like this.
Ideally, we would have full support for CEC in our graphics cards, and wouldn't need a device like this.
Hope that clears things up.