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Slow navigation with Harmony remote


pmac
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Hi all, I've mentioned this a long time ago in another thread, and haven't found a fix for it yet.

 

The problem is, for some reason in MBT my Harmony 650 remote seems to work perfectly for everything, except when trying to "fast scroll" through my collections. What I mean by that is: I'm unable to hold down my arrow buttons and quickly move through my collection. Instead, I need to move through titles one at a time (I'd need to press the "right arrow" close to 900 times to get to the end of my movies collection).

 

A while back someone mentioned that my remote may not be configured to repeat commands with the button held down. This is not the case. While I couldn't find an option to change that setting anywhere in my remote setup, I'm sure there's no need to, since it works perfectly fine in WMC. This problem seems to be limited to MBT for some reason.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, since this problem keeps me from using my remote in MBT, and I'm stuck using my keyboard instead :( this really makes it an inconvienience, having the keyboard up on the couch next to you! Lol

 

Thanks,

 

Patrick

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That would be a decent temporary fix, but unfortunately, page up/down scrolling hasn't been implemented yet. So I'm still stuck with either using my keyboard to browse my collections, or moving very slowly with my remote.

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GrotShot

My Harmony One works OK and you can use the chapter skip buttons to move forward or back multiple movies at a time.

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Seems weird that I'm the only one having this problem. Even after I've reformatted my system and done a fresh install of everything. Including reprogramming my remote from scratch :(

 

@@GrotShot, the chapter skip buttons do nothing for me either. I'm on a Harmony 650, but I wouldn't think there should be much/any difference in button function.

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GrotShot

Seems weird that I'm the only one having this problem. Even after I've reformatted my system and done a fresh install of everything. Including reprogramming my remote from scratch :(

 

@@GrotShot, the chapter skip buttons do nothing for me either. I'm on a Harmony 650, but I wouldn't think there should be much/any difference in button function.

I would guess that the functionality is in the end dependent on the IR unit that you have installed. I don't get all of the WMC remote functions as the remote I bought was a cheap Cyberlink unit.

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I would guess that the functionality is in the end dependent on the IR unit that you have installed. I don't get all of the WMC remote functions as the remote I bought was a cheap Cyberlink unit.

 

Oh, I thought you said you were using a Harmony One? Also, I don't know if it would be the IR receiver causing the problem, it's the HP one that came with my HP WMC remote that I used to use. It's still an excellent remote IMO. The receiver seemed to work perfect with my Harmony 650 in MBC/WMC, it's just MBT for some reason that I'm having the problem...

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Davidtt485

I would check your "Inter Key" setting and lower it as much as possible, the harmony defualt is kind of high. and this does not allow the remote to send commands in quick succession.

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I would check your "Inter Key" setting and lower it as much as possible, the harmony defualt is kind of high. and this does not allow the remote to send commands in quick succession.

I've tried a few different settings in Inter-key, as well as tried some Inter Delay settings, none of which seem to allow me to scroll through titles by holding the button down. It just seems strange to me, that it would work perfectly fine in MBC/WMC, but not in MBT... It's a pretty simple command (the most basic functionality of any interface), I don't know why it won't seem to work for me.

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Swynol

strange thing with me is i had slow response in MBC and WMC but works fine in MBT using my Harmony One.  I learnt the commands from a non genuine media centre remote the non genuine remote works great in MBC but my Harmony is slow at sending the commands. 

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The title of the thread may be a bit misleading. It's not that the commands are slow, it's that navigating MBT is slow because I have to move through titles one at a time. (To move through 500 titles, I'd have to press the arrow button 500 seperate times, instead of being able to just hold the button down. )

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Davidtt485

Send me a PM with a picture of what your buttons are mapped to. I'll cross reference them to mine and see what i can come up with, My One Works flawlessly in MBT. Or Easier Yet if you pm me your Hamrony Password and Username ill Log in and check it myself.

Edited by Davidtt485
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BATTLE DONKEY

Can't help with ur scrolling issues but to skip ahead a handful of movies at a time both my windows MCE remote and my harmony remote use the skip forward/backwords buttons instead of the channel up/down. Have u tried them? Again it doesn't fix the issue just provides a hopefully temporary solution

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I didn't think there was a feature in MBT to skip ahead yet? I thought that was limited to MBC.

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Davidtt485

PM Me your info for either myharmony.com or the older style software (which ever you used to program it) I'll look at how your activity is setup and see why it isnt working properly.

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So I've had another development.

 

After trying a few things, I decided to give my old HP MCE Remote another try. For whatever reason, it seems that it's not a problem with MBT/Harmony at all. Because after trying my other remote in both MBT and WMC, I seem to have the same problem. Not sure why because it always worked fine for me, and I don't think anything's changed, other than the fact that I'm completely stumped as to why neither of my remotes are working properly anymore.. Probably a driver issue or something, but it isn't something I seem to be able to sort out.

 

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated, my remotes work decent right now, but not being able to hold down the arrows to "fast-scroll" is very annoying, and going through collections one-by-one takes forever.

 

Thanks,

 

Patrick

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  • Solution

I figured it out! My IR receiver is getting feedback from something. When I hold it behind my TV, and towards the wall, my remote works fine! haha I can't believe it's something as simple as an unwanted IR signal. I just wish I knew where it was coming from so I could eliminate the problem... And I feel a little stupid for not trying that a long time ago...  :huh: 

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So after doing some reading, it seems the likely culprit is my plasma TV (Panasonic 65GT30) sending rogue IR signals, which my HP IR Receiver is picking up. Now, if this is the case, those must be some pretty hardcore IR signals, because I've tried moving my receiver everywhere... I've put it on the floor under the TV cabinet. Next to the tv cabinet; inside my amp rack, which is behind tinted glass. On top, and towards the back of my tv, on a little shelf I made that sits up there. Beside my TV, on one of my tower speakers. On the floor, about 4-5 feet from my TV... All with no luck. The best I've got so far, is in the amp rack beside the TV stand, but even there I'm still getting a lot of interference, causing the scrolling issue I was having.

 

Anyone else had any IR interference problems they were able to solve?

 

Sorry, I now realize this probably doesn't belong in the MBT thread anymore, where should I move it?

Edited by pmac
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So after doing some reading, it seems the likely culprit is my plasma TV (Panasonic 65GT30) sending rogue IR signals, which my HP IR Receiver is picking up.

Have you tried locating the emitter? Look at your tv with a digital camera when using your remote to locate it, maybe you can block it.

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Have you tried locating the emitter? Look at your tv with a digital camera when using your remote to locate it, maybe you can block it.

Unfortunately, it's not exactly an emitter in the tv, it's in the way plasma TVs work. When the atoms in the plasma become excited, they release UV photons, which apparently also contain quite a bit of light in the IR spectrum, so basically, my television is a 65", super-bright infrared emitter: destined to wreak havoc on IR receivers everywhere. Consequently, I've relocated my receiver to spot which seems to have my remote more functional, but still isn't ideal, since the remote only works sporadically still... But at least I've managed to get some "fast-scrolling" functionality back.

 

I'm still not sure how this just started happening though, I've had the tv for a couple years now, and I've only had the scrolling problem since I started using MBT, can't remember exactly when that was, but I do believe it was the same day it was released. I'm not saying it's MBT's fault, since I can now see it obviously isn't. Just trying to figure out what else changed that could have caused this...

 

Either way, thanks for everyone's help, I guess the rest is on me to find a suitable spot for my receiver. I'd still like to hear from anyone else with a similar tv and receiver problem.

 

Thanks,

 

Patrick.

 

 

PS- Mods, perhaps the last bit of this thread could be moved to a different section with a title pertaining to the Plasma TV/IR interference problem, to better help anyone else having similar issues. I don't think anyone with those problems would come looking in this thread, as it's in the wrong section and has no tags concerning IR problems, etc. Thanks.

Edited by pmac
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Davidtt485

You would have to move the emitter in such a way that your remote is not trying to fight the tv to get its signal through its ir issue. so probably left or right of the tv.

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I've finally come up with a solution to the IR problem. I had an older MCE remote (Not sure the make of it, but similar to the Adesso ARC-1100), so I figured I'd try it's IR receiver in place of my HP receiver. Awesome, the IR from my TV doesn't affect it at all! But the problem was, my Harmony remote couldn't communicate with it, so I had to add the Adesso ARC-1100 as a device in my Harmony settings.

 

Seemed simple enough... Until I tried launch MBT from my remote like I was used to doing. Apparently the Adesso remote doesn't function quite the same as a Microsoft MCE remote, so I was unable to map "Win+1" to launch MBT from the tray, or "Alt+F4" to close it.

 

I found another command "Close" in the list of ARC-1100 commands, which apparently is just another word for "Alt+F4", so great. One step complete. Next was getting the remote to open MBT. This was a little more difficult.

 

After some trial and error, I ended up creating a batch file that opens MBT, and converting it to an EXE, and using this EXE to replace "ehshell.exe" in my eHome folder.

Once I replaced the file, I mapped the "Start" button (The button which launches WMC, from the Adesso remote) to my Harmony to open MBT.

 

Problem solved!

 

For whatever reason this IR receiver works amazingly fast, and with absolutely no interference from anything. The light only comes on when I'm pressing a button on my remote.

Glad to have that sorted out!

 

I hope this helps anyone else that may have this problem.

 

EDIT: For some reason the command I made for launching MBT only works some of the time... Sometimes MBT will launch right away, with no problem, other times it'll seem as if nothing happened. So I'll hit the button again... and again, and again. Still nothing happens, then a few minutes later, MBT will pop open, I'll close it, and it'll reopen again, as many times as I pressed my "Start MBTheater" button (linked to the .exe(.BAT) file I created). Not sure why this is happening, but I know this isn't the proper area for discussion, just thought I'd add this in here.

 

This is my simple batch file that I replaced "ehshell.exe" with:

@echo off
start "" "C:\Users\(User Name)\AppData\Roaming\MediaBrowser-Theater\System\MediaBrowser.UI.exe" /minimized
exit
Edited by pmac
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