Fiire Chief vs Gyration MCE Remote

[1audio]

Sounds like the $50 is worth it for the extra functionality, and saving a lot of time and angst.

[ddamron]

Yes, I totally agree.. the Fiire chief is worth it's weight in gold.  I have 2 of them... one for my wife, and one for me..

with 7 dongles... follow me works really well...

Dan

[darrenmason]

I just wanted to report that I have tried LMCE with the Gyration Remote.

The gyro stuff works out of the box. Only a few keys worked without a custom .Xmodmap. Once the keys were mapped to X11 key events using .Xmodmap, I had to configure individual applications to understand the keys (i.e. using the "Edit keys" MythTV plugin and the KDE setup program.)

Below is my xmodmap...

Hi, this might be a bit of a thread hijack but I will ask here anyway...

Daniel (or anyone),
I have a remote that I also wanted to do a custom Xmodmap for, but when checking keycodes I discovered that it is not sending single unmapped keycodes above 128 like I expected. Instead it is sending the key equivalents for Windows MCE keyboard shortcuts. For example, the PLAY key sends <CTRL><SHIFT>P

Any ideas on how I could make this usable. I figure it must be part of the hardware in the receiver doing this so I could use another receiver but I would prefer not to have to purchase this (or build this).
Anyway, I am after ideas and at this stage I don't have many more.

regards
Darren

[ddamron]

Darren,
When you plug in the receiver for that remote, does it show up as a USB HID device?

Reason for asking:  I have  a few remotes/dongles that came with my DVB-S cards.. but they don't work with UIRT as they show up as a HID Keyboard..
I'm guessing that might be what you are seeing...

When I was playing with those, I was trying to get them to work with MythTV... was a while ago, and I DID find a webpage somewhere that showed how to add a rule to 'tell' the system that device
(specified by it's USB UUID I think) was a 'Remote', not a 'Keyboard'

HTH,

Dan

[darrenmason]

Dan,

Yes, that is exactly what is happening. I had a thread going a while back which related to the efforts I went to do, as you suggested, make it appear as a remote. I even modifed some of the lirc source code and tried various things, all with little to no success. I gave up at the time and have just been using the remote as a mouse (it has sort of a thumbstick built in). Daniel's post here re-kindled some interest.

I would be interested in the web page you mentioned as ultimately that might be the only solution, perhaps with a UIRT. If I can get a solution then it will be a great 'cheap' remote solution for linuxMCE as the remote/receiver was only $28 (Australian dollars) delivered.

I might look further into the scancodes that are sent (rather than the keycodes). But from my current understanding of the way it works the hardware in the receiver is probably sending scancodes for the key combinations as well.

Darren

[ddamron]

Yes.. but:
By defining a rule, you can separate the 'HID' keyboard from the 'real' keyboard..
once it's separated, it shows up as another device.. /dev/input/remote (or something like that)

Sorry, I don't have the link, maybe you can find it.. the relevant details were:

Twinhan VP-1024 (or VP-1022 or VP-102C, can't remember which one, they all come with the same remote)

'MythTV', 'Remote' and possibly 'HID Device' were other terms I recall searching for...

HTH,

Dan

[danielk]

I saw separate HID devices for the keyboard and remote here.

I used this as a rough guide:
   http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Use_Multimedia_Keys#Setting_up_xmodmap

I did have to download some sources, when I couldn't find a package with the needed apps. xev got me most of the keycodes.

I also hacked "getscancodes" to print out all events, but I couldn't find a way to map the keys with keycodes > 255.

My experience with Xmodmap before this was limited to mapping "Caps Lock" to "Ctrl" on PC style keyboards. But it's function is to override any preset mappings like "Ctrl-P" to more sensible values.

[ddamron]

I do NOT remember having to do anything with xmodmap..
Once the driver is sensed as a remote, then it's a translation table in UIRT

[darrenmason]

The search terms gave a few hits that might be useful. They are leading back down the path that I originally focussed on which is using the /dev/input/eventX device under LIRC.

The original problems with this were that it was really hard to not use the usbhid driver and use a lirc driver, but I am sure that this is fixable. However, if I do fix it will I then lose the mouse functionailty of the device? I will investigate thsi a bit further anyway following advice here
http://www.doctort.org/adam/nerd-notes/mythtv-and-the-twinhan-remote.html

Regards
Darren

[danielk]

darrenmason, I just used the HID driver that is enabled by default for it, hence the need for a .Xmodmap file. I later remapped some of the keys to F6,F7, to better work with LMCE; the .Xmodmap I attached is just to get others started.

Using LIRC might get you some of the dead keys, but it may loose the gyro functionality. Only one way to find out...

[ddamron]

darrenmason,
Yeah, that's how it was implemented .. you have to figure out the UUID of the device, then add a line in /etc/rules.d or something like that...
basically, telling the system NOT to treat is as a keyboard.

HTH

Dan

[jeangot]

Hello,

I don't presume that anyone would have the Fiire firmware and a method to flash the Gyration remote and dongle with that firmware? :-)

Also, has anyone been able to make a template for the Gyration remote by now? I found various information on how to remap keys, but the real reason why I had bought these remotes was to use the gyro features to move forward and backward in media...

Thanks!

Jean

[freymann]

Also, has anyone been able to make a template for the Gyration remote by now? I found various information on how to remap keys, but the real reason why I had bought these remotes was to use the gyro features to move forward and backward in media...

 I believe the results of this thread can be found in the wiki, here:

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Using_the_Gyration_Remote_GYR3101US_(Non-Fiire_Chief)

[jeangot]

Thanks, I did look at this and that's how I setup my remote. I was inquiring about the other things that this remote is technically capable of, such as controling media with the gyroscope (movement)...

[freymann]

Thanks, I did look at this and that's how I setup my remote. I was inquiring about the other things that this remote is technically capable of, such as controling media with the gyroscope (movement)...

 Hmmm. The gyro commands work for me? The "absolute" part doesn't, but I can definitely hit the Vol+ and Vol- buttons to bring up the gyro commands for volume, lights, ffwd, rewind, pause, up/down...