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Mireille Duhon
What's the best way to control a PC running Windows 10 with a C4 remote? Using the Windows Media Center driver? Will that allow you to map a button to "Ctrl-Escape" which is equivalent to pressing the windows key? That then allows you to use the transport keys to select items on the Win 10 tiled start screen, including Netflix, etc.
I know, but I have an older remote that is a Windows media center remote and my HTPC has an IR receiver built into it. Microsoft used to sell these remotes in conjunction with IR receivers (that also had blaster connectivity). I am pretty sure that the drivers for this still work in Win 10. And this is the only C4 driver I found that looks applicable
But are there other ways that make more sense when you have a controller like C4 that has IP connectivity? Like maybe running a program on the PC that listens for commands on an IP socket that simultes a HID on the PC - assuming that there would be a C4 driver. For example: MCE Controller -
On a PC as a server it opens a raw TCP socket and listens for commands. If you send it "winkey" that simulates the Windows Key on a PC which brings up the menu on Win 10. You can then send "up", "down", etc that are the equivalent of direction keys. It also easily acepts the transport keys. Sending "Mute" to the socket has it execute VK_VOLUME_MUTE on the PC.
MCE Controller was initially developed to enable integration of a Windows based home theater PC (HTPC) into a Crestron whole-house audio/video system. However, it is general enough that others have used it within other control system that support sending text strings to a TCP/IP port.
This actually looks like a very powerful tool. And the functionality goes way beyond controlling a Media Center PC. It should be fairly easy to write a driver to control a PC including running programs on your PC - not unlike the Chowman Generic TCP command driver.
One basic thing is to be able to start Netflix from the Win 10 tile menu. This is easy to do as long as you can send the Windows key which is also Ctrl-Escape. Once that menu is up you just need directional keys. Being able to send any of the Media keys would also be usefult control playback of various
Which driver did you start with as a base? I'm happy to throw some development time at this as well, I agree it would be a useful drive to have. Maybe not for many of our customers, but certainly in my own system!
I used a driver for SageTV that was IP based - I was familiar with this driver as I adapted it to create a new SageTV driver. But I think this may have come from an XBMC driver. Take a look at the MCE Controller docs on Github - it is pretty flexible as you can send all sorts of commands from media commands (Play, Pause, Mute, Vol+, etc) to start application commands to mouse clicks. And you just send them as raw text - I was using Putty to send commands to the MCE Controller server. Then within putty if you type "Mute" you can see that the MCE Controller received something like "VK_VOLUME_MUTE"
Good suggestion Ryan - that seems quite similar to MCE Controller in terms of functionality although EventGhost is acting as a web server and MCE Controller is just listening for raw commands on a port.
It really is pretty trivial to do, either with C4:SendToNetwork for sockets or C4:urlGet for Eventghost. The main work will be in mapping keys on a C4 controller to the commands you want on the PC. It might make sense to have most, or all of them, be Properties that can be changed in Composer.
Maybe the best way to even do this is to create a generic driver where you enter a URL prefix and port as Properties. You also have all of the keyboards mapped to commands in Properties. Then you could use this for pretty much anything. You could also add a suffix in case some apps needed that as well.
The issue occurs when a browser flap with the netlfix player stays open for a long time or the MPC HC player stays open for a long time. If one issue issue, the other will already be. For example, MPC HC is open a long time and the issue occurs, closing it and opening netflix in the browser, it will already be with the issue.
While the small continuous crashes occur, closing the netflix flap or closing the MPC HC window, the crashes disappear, but immediately come back if I try to open them again, making it impossible to use the PC.
PS: I'm not confident that the new versions of the drivers have resolved the issue ... And getting back to previous driver versions because of that is not at all interesting considering the support for new games.
i can confirm this issue, upon opening a video file with MPC-HC, PC freezes, affecting even the mouse cursor, this happens for about 5 seconds before the video is finally opened, when this happens on MPC-HC, Netflix on Chrome also behaves the same. the only way to resolve this is to restart windows, log out and log back in does not work.
But no. Sony has not gotten to their senses. In fact, they have lost what little sense they had when designing the PS4. Not only have they removed the media player completely on the PS5, but they have stripped the system of all and any means to play media except through external, commercial services! So for music you have Spotify, YouTube and Apple. Home videos? Oh you need a Plex account and server!
I would have understood this if there was some technical issue preventing Sony from adding VLC or media server detections. But there is none, they have in fact gone out of their way to remove network playback of media.
And if this is about piracy or something like that, then why on earth would they allow Plex on their platform to begin with? That is 99.9% piracy and media sharing on a scale that even dwarfs Torrents!
Just stop the nonsense and let VLC onto the platform. Case closed. Right now you stand to lose every adult customer above 30 years of age, because why settle for your limitation when Microsoft gives us the exact same, at a lower price, without any of the restrictions? The west is not Asia. Some of the legal concepts you are so obsessed with means absolutely nothing to the average Joe over here.
I remember when I bought a PS4 on launch day, only to find out there was no Media Player. I immediately boxed it back up and sold it on Craigslist all in the the same day. Eventually they added the capability, and I bought a PS4 again, begrudgingly.
Windows Media Center (WMC) is a digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, as well as all editions of Windows 7 except Starter and Home Basic. It was also available on Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro as a paid add-on. It was discontinued as of Windows 10 and the operating system also removes all of Windows Media Center during an upgrade from previous versions of Windows, although it can reportedly be unofficially reinstalled using a series of Command Prompt commands.[1][2][better source needed]
Media Center can play slideshows, videos and music from local hard drives, optical drives and network locations. Users can stream television programs and films through selected services such as Netflix. Content can be played back on computer monitors or on television sets through the use of devices called Windows Media Center Extenders. It is also possible to watch and pause live TV. Up to six TV tuners on a tuner card are supported simultaneously. Both standard- and high-definition unencrypted video are supported through DVB-T and ATSC standards. It is possible to view encrypted cable television channels by using an internal or external tuner that supported CableCARD.
Shortly after Windows 7's 2009 release, Microsoft disbanded the Media Center development team, thus abandoning any further software developments. Consequently, the Media Center interface remained unchanged for Windows 8 and 8.1 users. In May 2015, Microsoft announced that Windows Media Center would be discontinued on Windows 10, and that it would be removed when upgrading; but stated that those upgrading from a version of Windows that included the Media Center application would receive the paid Windows DVD Player app for free to maintain DVD playback functionality.[3]
A new version of the WMC was included in the Home Premium and Ultimate Windows Vista editions. The user interface was redesigned and tailored for the 16:9 aspect ratio. Support for multiple tuners was added in later releases and varies depending upon the version of the operating system purchased. Support for many Windows Media Center Extender hardware devices, that had been released pre-Vista, was also dropped leaving many owners out of luck if they did not upgrade to one of the supported Windows Vista versions from the Windows XP Media Center Edition. Also introduced to U.S. users was Internet TV, which allows access to streaming content through WMC. It also allows video game content.
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