Windows Media Center Learning Remote Won't Learn!

Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 10:09 PM
We use Windows Media Center at our house. It's currently Vista Media Center, but as soon as my Ceton Cablecard Tuner arrives, I'll be switching to Windows 7 Media Center.

I love the Microsoft Learning Remote Control and was quite disappointed when they discontinued it. I picked up a box of 10 on eBay, just for a day like today. It's been 3 days since we last saw the remote. I'm sure the couch ate it or the baby threw it in the garbage.

In any event, I pulled a new one out of the box and had a horrible time trying to get it to learn a Vizio remote control. I finally got the proper sequence of learning down:

1.) replace the batteries with fresh ones, both remotes
2.) use a dark room
3.) hold DVD MENU and OK button on MS remote until light turns off
4.) press button on MS remote that you would like to train (TV PWR, VOL UP/DOWN), it will flash once.
5.) Press and hold the corresponding button on the Vizio remote.

If it flashes twice, you're good. If it flashes 4 times quickly, you must start over at step #3. I also found it helpful to move the remotes closer together/further apart during the actual learning process. Hope it helps someone out there.

Onkyo TX-SR607 Upscaling + HP 2709m = teh Suck

Friday, August 20, 2010 at 5:03 PM

We recently moved and my TVs are still wall-mounted in the old place. The house looks better that way, so hopefully it sells quicker.

Anyways, the kids have been begging for me to hook their video games back up. Since I don't want to buy new TVs until the old house sells, I looked at what I had laying around. I have an HP 2709m 27" computer monitor which should do the trick, but it only has HDMI/DVI/VGA inputs. The XBOX/WII have component and composite video outputs. I also have an Onkyo TX-SR607 receiver which upscales all the inputs to HDMI - PERFECT! This means I can hook the monitor up to the receiver with the single HDMI cable and let the Onkyo handle the input switching. I plugged it into the Onkyo, turned on the old XBOX, and all I get is a blinking display. That's it, nothing else. I tried the WII, which uses component video cables instead of composite... same thing: blinking monitor. Once in a while I will see the display for 3 or 4 seconds, but then it goes back to the on/off cycle. I even tried forcing the Onkyo HDMI output/upscaling to 480p/720p/1080i settings and nothing worked.

I tried the XBOX 360, at least that works. The original signal source is HDMI, so it's not really upscaling - just HDMI switching. So, long story short... Onkyo TX-SR607 doesn't like to upscale composite/component video to an HP 2709m monitor. Either that or I one of the two in the move. :( Only time will tell.

Avocent / Cyclades ACS & Foundry / Brocade Switches

Monday, August 16, 2010 at 11:23 PM

I work in the networking industry and have a 19" rack in my home office. I've gotten tired of having to string serial cables across the room to a specific device in order to get a basic config on it.

I picked up Web Power Switch from digital-loggers.com to handle Ethernet-based power control. I also picked up an Avocent/Cyclades ACS32 serial console unit on eBay ($150-ish). They both work great, although I couldn't get console access to the Foundry / Brocade gear working.

I pulled out the user guides and through some trial and error finally figured it out. You'll need some DB9 Female to RJ45 Modular Adapters, and an "insertion and extraction" tool if your dongles have the pins already inserted.

You can use a standard CAT5 Ethernet cable for the RJ45-side of things. On the DB9 dongle, you'll want to map the following colors to these pins:

DB9 Pin - Color
1 - White (not needed)
2 - Yellow
3 - Black
4 - Orange (not needed)
5 - Red
6 - Brown (not needed)
7 - Blue
8 - Green
9 - no connection

The "not needed" lines came from the Foundry manuals. It looks like their serial console ports only need TX/RX CTS/RTS and GND. The other pins needed to go somewhere, and since I didn't want to cut them off, I just plugged them in the other ports randomly.

Now I can sit at my desk and power on a network device, remote console into it, give it a config, do my testing, and power it off again, all without having to leave my desk.

Hope that helps someone out there. Good luck!

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