HP IR Receiver - doesn't work immediately on wake

[rockgatherer]

Hi,

I have a Win 8.1 Pro WMC machine which I'm generally very happy with which was bought to replace my old Sony Viao TP. After failing to get the flirc-SE IR receiver to play nicely with WMC (I still live in hope that this will work properly one day), I switched to using the HP IR Receiver very similar to this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AYE6JDO

in general it works fine except that when waking up from sleep, often the input from the remote is ignored. I can see the receiver is picking up the IR signals from the remote (there is a little red light that comes on when it picks up a signal) but these are either being ignored or not received by WMC for about 30s or so, even though I used the remote to wake the machine in the first place. Note that this only happens if the machine has been sleeping for a while. if you resume from sleep from after 5 minutes or so, all is well.

It looks to be a power or USB reinitialisation issue - any ideas on how best to debug this? I've tried USB2 vs USB3 ports and I get the same behaviour.

Many thanks

[mdavej]

I've had similar issues. In my experience, the fault seems to be with the dongle, and there's not really anything you can do about it besides get a different make. The only dongles I've found to wake reliably are Ortek/Adesso/Hama/Gmyle (Ortek protocol) or Diamond GRC100 (NEC1 protocol).

[rockgatherer]

Thanks, that's interesting - I'll look into them.

My old Viao had an internal ehome IR receiver which worked faultlessly for five years (it's also USB) - I might see if I can reuse it! I'll continue to play with the HP receiver, there are indirectly related discussions on other forums which suggest various software adjustments might help, I'll report back if they work.

Any further ideas gratefully received.

[Rainey]

Yes i agree with mdavej that the Ortek/Adesso works great waking the PC, but it has a few other issues that can annoy you.

The Play and Pause function/button both are toggles and both do the same thing. The Info function/button works strange and only works in liveTV but not in the guide.
I do not know of any way to change the functions for those button as i think it is hard coded in the IR dongle or driver. If anyone know how please tell.

[mdavej]

Yes i agree with mdavej that the Ortek/Adesso works great waking the PC, but it has a few other issues that can annoy you.

The Play and Pause function/button both are toggles and both do the same thing. The Info function/button works strange and only works in liveTV but not in the guide.
I do not know of any way to change the functions for those button as i think it is hard coded in the IR dongle or driver. If anyone know how please tell.

No way to change either of those, unfortunately. But you could use the Ortek dongle just for sleep/wake and another dongle for everything else, if you want.

I did make my own discrete wake command for Ortek which I could post the pronto hex or JP1 code for if anybody is interested. I've done quite a bit of analysis on the Ortek codes.

[CyberSimian]

The Play and Pause function/button both are toggles and both do the same thing. The Info function/button works strange and only works in liveTV but not in the guide.

Last year I looked at this to see if I could get the Ortek to work better with WMC. I developed the AutoHotKey script included below. I don't use the Ortek currently, and I don't remember what state I left the script in, so the script may not in fact work correctly.

The problem with the PLAY and PAUSE keys is that they are converted into the same keyboard shortcut by the IR receiver, so there is no way that you can define them to perform different actions. But what you can do is choose some other key on the remote to act as PLAY or PAUSE. The script below changes the PLAY and PAUSE keys to act as PLAY, and chooses the BROWSER_HOME key to act as PAUSE. I chose that key because it is the top left key on the remote (easy to locate by memory), and I don't use a web browser on my HTPC. Obviously you could choose some other key if you wanted.

You will need to install AutoHotKey in order to run the script.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

Code: Select all

;******************************************************************************
; AutoHotKey script for Ortek VRC-1100 remote control for Windows Media Center
; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
; The original equipment manufacturer is Ortek, but this remote control is also
; available under the following brand names:
;   Adesso ARC-1100;  Gmyle;  Hama 00052451
; The script performs the actions detailed below. Only the Media Center window
; is affected; other windows are not affected.
;******************************************************************************
#IfWinActive, ahk_class eHome Render Window
;
; The following line changes the "play" and "pause" buttons on the remote
; from "play/pause toggle" to "play only" (ctrl-shift-p)
    media_play_pause::^+p
;
; The following line changes the "browser" button on the remote
; from "browser home" to "play/pause toggle" (ctrl-p).
    browser_home::SendInput {ctrl down}{p down}{p up}{ctrl up}
;
; The following line changes the "i" button on the remote
; from "right mouse button" to "Info" (ctrl-d).
    rbutton::SendInput {ctrl down}{d down}{d up}{ctrl up}

[Rainey]

Thanks for the tip, on autohotkey.
That is what is needed because it must be changed after the IR dongle trys to send the command.
I don't use the remote that came with the IR dongle, i got a JP1 remote and i have lots of keys and program them as i want, but i can not change those keys to the correct commands as the dongle or driver has a fixed output that is not standard. So autohotkey could override the commands in the PC to correct them.

It is a work around i guess, but still APITA.

[Rainey]

Yes i agree with mdavej that the Ortek/Adesso works great waking the PC, but it has a few other issues that can annoy you.

The Play and Pause function/button both are toggles and both do the same thing. The Info function/button works strange and only works in liveTV but not in the guide.
I do not know of any way to change the functions for those button as i think it is hard coded in the IR dongle or driver. If anyone know how please tell.

No way to change either of those, unfortunately. But you could use the Ortek dongle just for sleep/wake and another dongle for everything else, if you want.

I did make my own discrete wake command for Ortek which I could post the pronto hex or JP1 code for if anybody is interested. I've done quite a bit of analysis on the Ortek codes.

Yes, i am already using your JP1 coding for the ECHO, and i think you made the Ortek one also. I finally got everything setup and control 6 devices with one remote. Got macros to power everything up and down, i can put the PC to sleep wake or even reboot it all from the remote, i can close WMC or any window, or start WMC (Green button).

I got one of those $17 wireless keyboards from Newegg (china) that is the size of my hand, it works great but i don't really need it unless i call up a web browser of work on the PC in windows.