Alternative remotes to CEC

[laz]

I've been using vomp with a couple of Media MVPs on and off for a few years now (usually when my main xineliboutput client is borked!). When I happened upon this port for the Raspberry pi, I finally had a reason to buy one!

I've only really started testing it as a vomp client in the last day or so but I've been really impressed so far and can see it taking over from my xineliboutput client that seems to need restarting more and more every day!

I finally have CEC working on the third HDMI cable I'd tried but I'm seriously missing a few buttons on my Sony Bravia remote, including the ability to skip a minute, etc.

I have a wireless keyboard attached which gives me more buttons but is not a very elegant solution!

Is there a USB remote that anyone can recommend for using with vomp? I've been using one of the grey Hauppauge remotes both with my Media MVPs and also with LIRC on my other vdr boxes over the years. If I could continue to use one of those, that'd be ideal but I very much doubt that's possible!

Laz

[tony]

I just wanted to share my remote solution for the Raspberry Pi vomp client without using CEC/HDMI.

As the Raspberry version of vomp also provides the UDP Port 2000 to accept remote commands like the old MVP vomp does, this is quite an elegant solution if you need to contol your device via network and cannot or do not want to use CEC.

In my scenario I already used openremote.org with the corresponding client apps on iOS to control all my Audio/Video. As openremote can directly send UDP commands, you don't need anything else, you can directly control vomp with openremote.

So all you need to do is to create your needed commands, then define these by connecting to your RasPi's IP address via UDP on Port 2000 and send the corresponding Code.
To get the full List of codes, the best resource is the source code's remote.h on git.vomp.tv:
http://git.vomp.tv/gitweb/?p=vompclient-marten.git;a=blob;f=remote.h
As an example, if you want to simulate a Direction Up key, this is simply code 20 to send via UDP. The digits are as they are, 0 = 0, 1 = 1, etc...

You can also use the approach from Yaris, this is quite cool to do a first test or a quick and dirty solution when connected via SSH to your raspi: http://www.russle.net/vomp/misc/remoteMVP

I used some PHP code in the past - if this is put on an internal web server, you can even control your MVP via HTTP (there's no GUI, but with the approach you could easily create your own web based layout that launches the needed commends, be it for your mobile device or any other browser). with the approaches, I think it would also be quite easy to write some python based code which can directly run on the raspi to create a simple REST API remote. Here the PHP code:

Code Select Expand

<?php
/***************
 * PHP VDR vomp Remote Control
 *
 * remote control idea from shell remote control from Yaris, HondaNSX@Gmx.de:
 * http://www.russle.net/vomp/misc/remoteMVP
 *
 */

// change to your VOMPs IP/Hostname:
$fp = fsockopen("udp://192.168.0.101", 2000, $errno, $errstr);
if (!$fp) {
echo "ERROR: $errno - $errstr<br />\n";
} else {
echo "Socket opened...";
switch($_GET[cmd]) {
    case "0": $cmd = "0"; break;
    case "1": $cmd = "1"; break;
    case "2": $cmd = "2"; break;
    case "3": $cmd = "3"; break;
    case "4": $cmd = "4"; break;
    case "5": $cmd = "5"; break;
    case "6": $cmd = "6"; break;
    case "7": $cmd = "7"; break;
    case "8": $cmd = "8"; break;
    case "9": $cmd = "9"; break;
    case "0": $cmd = "0"; break;

    case "Up": $cmd = "20"; break;
    case "Down": $cmd = "21"; break;
    case "Left": $cmd = "22"; break;
    case "Right": $cmd = "23"; break;
    case "OK": $cmd = "37"; break;
    case "Guide": $cmd = "27"; break;
    case "Go": $cmd = "59"; break;
    case "Back": $cmd = "31"; break;
    case "Menu": $cmd = "15"; break;
    case "ChUp": $cmd = "32"; break;
    case "ChDown": $cmd = "33"; break;
    case "Rec": $cmd = "13"; break;
    case "Stop": $cmd = "54"; break;
    case "Rewind": $cmd = "50"; break;
    case "Forward": $cmd = "52"; break;
    case "Play": $cmd = "53"; break;
    case "Replay": $cmd = "36"; break;
    case "Skip": $cmd = "30"; break;
    case "Pause": $cmd = "48"; break;
    case "Red": $cmd = "11"; break;
    case "Green": $cmd = "46"; break;
    case "Yellow": $cmd = "56"; break;
    case "Blue": $cmd = "41"; break;
    case "Power": $cmd = "61"; break;

    default:
            echo "no command...";
            break;
}

fwrite($fp, $cmd);
echo "Command ".$_GET[cmd]." sent as $cmd";

fclose($fp);
}
?>


you can then simply call this script via a link like e.g. http://yourserver/vompremote.php?cmd=Pause

[clausmuus]

Hi Laz,

if you load the uinput kernel modul and start the lirc daemon with the --uinput option, you can control the vompclient ba a remote that needs lirc. Your lirc configuration must generate Events of the Linux input namespace.

Claus