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Hi,

I'm very new to the Rpi. I've been reading around, tried raspbmc, openelec then xbian, and seems the late one suits me the best.
I manage to set it up, with network, and all, now I'm down to the remote.

I use a logitech 700 (WAF..), so I got myself a cheap IR receiver to use with the Rpi.
The receiver seems to be working, as with its remote, I can control xbmc. Though I can't seem to be using the harmony, for whatever reason. Configured it as Microsoft MCE 2nd Ed device, but it doesn't work.

Then I read about CEC. I'm not sure I understand all that it does, nor how it works.
I use the Rpi connected to a video projector Vivitek HD1085FD, which has CEC. In xbmc, there is a CEC item in the peripherics.

Though I don't know if it just is able to power up (like you power up a tv and the pi is powered through the CEC). I've read here and there that it seems some people managed to configure their remotes but I don't find how, and I don't find if it's possible to use the harmony to do it.

Anyone can enlighten me?

Thanks !
A.

HDMI-CEC is effectively a single pin/wire in the HDMI cable spec that is dedicated to allowing HDMI devices to send control signals to each other.

For example, button events from a HDMI device's remote control can be relayed or sent to another HDMI device.

In your case, some button events from your projector's remote control may be passed on or relayed to the Raspi and XBMC, potentially allowing your to interact with XBMC without the need for a secondary remote control. With a bit of luck, you may want to list that expensive Harmony remote on eBay soon

Is this your unit and projector and remote control ?



If so you are probably in luck. The main buttons needed to control XBMC via CEC are up/down, left/right, enter or OK and a back button. It appears that your remote control has most of those however there is no guarantee that the button events will be passed through the CEC wire from your projector to the Raspi. In most cases, only a subset of buttons events are passed through.

For an indication of what features are available through CEC, check out this table:

http://libcec.pulse-eight.com/vendor/support

Pulse Eight is the company that writes the CEC library used to make the CEC adaptor you have seen in the Peripherals section of XBMC.

You can remap the button events that your remote control does send through to the Raspi if needed.

Thanks for the answer, it's all clearer to me now.

The video projector on the picture is the one, same as the remote.

On the Pulse Eight page, Vivitek is not listed, so I guess it needs to be tested? I don't know how to? I just take the remote and try?

And last but not least, if it works, can it work with the harmony remote? I can't go without it, as it also controls my creative dds decoder, which provides the sound from the different sources (bluray player, Rpi and wii).
I guess the bluray player would be ok with cec too, as it's a panasonic one, but no hdmi on the creative decoder.

Unfortunately I can't vouch for whether the Harmony and CEC will work together. The Pulse-Eight reference was as much to give you an idea of what is possible with CEC and an indication that it's an imperfect system since no manufacturer supports it completely. Nonetheless it can still work very well. I'd just give it a try. AFAIK there is no way that you can break anything by doing so.

To test which button events are being passed through, you can enable Debugging in the XBMC System settings (don't have them in front of me right now so I cannot give you an exact reference). Once you enable this, SSH into your Raspi and run a tail on the xbmc.log file. Using the -f option, you can see which button events produce a response in the log file as "CecLogMessage" lines will display. If your projector does not send a button event through to the Raspi, you won't see any change in the log file.

Good luck, keep posting in here if you have any issues. Your next step might be remapping some button events relayed by CEC and I can help you with that too.