remote control

allucid · Veteran Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 1314 Location: atlanta

A remote control and usb infrared receiver came with my WinTV XP Pro tv tuner card. I am pretty sure I can get the remote working with lirc. I was wondering if I could get it to work with multiple applications (tvtime, mplayer, xmms, vlc, etc) and also use it to start these applications so I could (for example) start xmms or tvtime from across the room.

misho · Apprentice Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 189

Once you get LIRC working, you can use a program called irexec comes with the lirc package and a ~/.lircrc or /etc/lircrc config file, to execute any command you want. mplayer itself, comes with built in lirc support (which i have never used). The documentation at lirc.org is pretty good at explaining all of this, including how to set up your config files.
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allucid · Veteran Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 1314 Location: atlanta

thanks, I've got it partially working now. I'll have to look into modes later, too.

phsdv · Guru Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 372 Location: Europe

allucid,

Did you get it working?

This weekend I managed to get LIRC working on my system with this very simple receiver http://www.lirc.org/receivers.html. At the moment I can control xmms with an old Sony remote control. I can also eject disks with help of irexec.

What I am looking for is to stop xmms and start (g)mplayer with this same remote. So I guess I need to define a button on the remote that tells irexec to stop xmms and start mplayer and vica versa. Is that how you did it?

Thanks,
Paul

nightmarez · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 11:57 am Post subject:

in your ~/.lircrc you can define actions specifically for one application. e.g.:

phsdv · Guru Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 372 Location: Europe

OK, next question. Can I give multiple commands? ie stop xmms and start mplayer with the same button?

Hmmm, just thinking about it, I could launch a script that checks the current status. If xmms is running it will be stopped and mplayer launched. And next time just the otherway around. The button on the remote would be linked to this script. Would that be the best way to do it?

I would prefere just to leave xmms and mplayer running and only change the mode of the remote. Maybe I have to find a remote that is capable of handling dvd, radio, cd etc. and sends out different codes depending on what you selected on the remote.

nightmarez · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 12:40 pm Post subject: