Using a PC as a Remote Control?

Dave2 Wickham asks: "I am interested in using one of my PCs as a remote control. The most likely candidate for this would be my laptop - which runs Windows XP (flame on, but I don't want to make any major changes in my last year of school). It has a standard IR port built in - nothing fancy. If there is, for some reason, no option for this, then is there any way for me to use my Live! Drive with LIRC on my Linux machine?" For those interested, Ask Slashdot handled the converse of this issue, in an article on controlling PCs with IR remotes.

IRDA vs IR

[Niksie3]

Are you sure that you have an remote control style IR port built in? Most laptops ship with IRDA style IR ports, these are designed for communication with other laptops, palmtops, mobile phones, etc.

It might be possible to rig something up with a parallel port and a IR LED. But I'm not sure about that...

Re:IRDA vs IR

[renehollan]

A parallel port (or even using the control line from a serial port) and an IR led will work, though you'll have to bit bang it, and may need external power for amplification (or steal it from a USB port, he he).

Alternately, Xantech makes RS232 to IR converters which are designed to translate a character code sent over an RS232 line (i.e. your computer's serial port) to an IR signal which can be broadcast. However, the unit is quite large, and definitely requires an external power supply.

Since you apparently didn't even bother to do a rudimentary Google search for "RS232 to IR", or you would know this already, doing that is left as an excercize.

Re:IRDA vs IR

[Dave2 Wickham]

Yeah, it probably is IRDA - but doesn't LIRC support that? It seems to imply that...

Re:Why?

[Dave2 Wickham]

Mostly "just because"... but it would be useful when I'm on the bed on my laptop and can't find the remote ;).

Re:Why?

[mnmn]

You dont ask that question in geek circles. Why is always an afterthought, when youve made your creation and need to make money off it. Same applies to good scientists.

People have beowulfed PDAs, emulated IA-64 on 386s and created VPNs in VPNs with no WHY in sight.

Live Drive IR

[GoRK]

The live drive IR device is not a general purpose IR reciever. It works only with certain remotes, and it sends a decoded remote code out over the MIDI bus. If you use a recent version of the emu10k1 driver (as of 2.4.18 the capability is in the kernel driver) you can enable the live drive IR's IR port with a switch in emu-tools. IR messages come out of /dev/midi as general purpose MIDI message frames where they can be decoded.

Again, this does not work with LIRC. I tried to add some support for it once, but didn't really get very far. I don't think that LIRC really has the code internals to deal with this sort of hardware. It'd be easier to write an app that decoded the IR codes from /dev/midi and listened on lirc's socket and port (thus emulating lirc and allowing any app that was designed to work with lirc work with the live drive ir)

~GoRK

Remotes that work

[GoRK]

I have found that any remote from a creative-branded product (such as the remote that comes with the live/audigy/audigy2 or the remote that comes with creative speakers) can be decoded by the livedrive ir hardware (probably they use all the same remote control ic's across the board to save money.

I also noticed that it could correctly decode the remote that came with my BetaBrite (LED Sign), which as fortune would have it, contains a full alphabet with punctuation and everything! It might work with remotes

Re:flame on

[Dave2 Wickham]

Well, once I've finished school I almost certainly will change it to Linux...

Anyway, the lirc site seems to imply that it does support IrDA.

Re:flame on

[GiMP]

Supporting IRDA isn't the problem.. the problem is that tvs and other devices don't use IRDA.

Nope.

[cybermace5]

There is one major reason this will not work: power.

The IRDA port is not meant to blast IR energy across a room and bounce it off the walls. TV remotes are.

Your best bet is to build a serial port IR transmitter, such as described here [armory.com].

IRDA is only meant to work over distances of a couple feet. It is too tricky to get the IRDA port to match standard IR remote frequencies anyway.

LiveDrive remote comes alive!

[jforman]

I've got the Sound Blaster Live 5.1 platinum with the livedrive unit and i use the remote (RM-900). I use it with a program called rcenter
http://rooster.stanford.edu/~ben/projects/rcenter. php
I have scripted it to work with xmms, xawtv, and other programs. Works like a charm!

Dont want to make changes?

[mnmn]

Well then use knoppix. I have a PC with no free hdd space running Win98. But I personally keep needing Linux, knoppix works real beautiful and fast, and best of all no virus/spyware worries there. It ALWAYS works.

Most popular apps for Linux is already installed on Knoppix, I'm tempted to think IR controllers are also installed. You need to check it out. But I must warn you, the laptop has to be within 4 feet of the TV to work. The IR range of computers is much lesser than that of remotes.

Hmm, I wond

The easy way to do it

[miyako]

although there are many other, more technical solutions, may requiring some sort of external power supply, there is a much simplier way to do this.
first you have to get duct tape, a foot or so should do, although as with all things duct tape the more the better
next get a universal remote and find a good, non-intrusive spot on the laptop. make sure you have batteries in the remote and it is programmed for your TV/VCR/DVD Player/etc. Place the remote firmly against the laptop and apply duct tape*.

*note you may need to cut the duct tape into thinner strips to avoid covering any buttons on the remote*

LIRC

[Milican]

Well, you should check out LIRC [lirc.org]. There software is pretty good, but you'll have to get your hands dirty. Phil, my roommate in college used this softare and built a transmitter from some parts at Radio Shack. We hollowed out in the eye ball in a Jack in the Box and went to town. Good luck, and oh yeah.. ya gotta ditch Windows ;) [jacks-gear.com]

JOhn

Someone else's solutions

[Froggie]

Showshifter's extras page [showshifter.com] (part-way down) lists a few products they interface to to do exactly what you want to do, from Windows. You'll have to dig through a few links to work out what suits, but it should make a good starting point.