Entries by Geert-Jan

As my remote is working now, it is time to install a new skin for Media Portal. I picked the famous Monochrome skin, to be downloaded from the Media Portal site. The current version comes as a nice installation program, which first let's you pick the installation language:

Of course, as always, I'm using English as the setup language, clicking OK reveals the following dialog:

Clicking Next brings us to the license agreement:

Of course we accept this agreement, as we can not continue otherwise. Pressing Next:

This let's you select the installation folder, which I left as is, pressing Next again:

This let's you select all the options. The only thing I changed compared to the default settings is the IMDB Data view, as you can see above. Pressing Next:

Pressing Install will start the actual installation, which displays the following dialog when finished:

As we need to activate the skin in the Media Portal Configuration, I ticked the Media Port Configuration Lunch bullet. After pressing Finish the Media Portal Configuration starts, and in the Skin section you can activate the Monochrome skin. I hope you like it as much as I do.

According to a thread in the Media Portal Forum, the IR Server Suite will enable me to resolve the problem I had with my Harmony 555 remote control. The setup to make it all work is not straight forward, but finally I succeeded in solving all the problems I was having with my remote control. So, bear with me, while I take you through the steps I took to make it all happen.

First of all I downloaded several files from the thread mentioned above:

1. The IR Server Suite - Test Build 1.4.2 RC1
2. The IR Server Suite - Test Build 1.4.2 RC1 - MP Control Plugin Update
3. The IR Server Suite - Test Build 1.4.2 RC1 - IMon update
4. Imon USB Receivers_05_12_2008_test

Next step, after unpacking all the zip-files, is launching the IR Server Suite installation program from the first zip-file (IR Server Suite - Test Build 1.4.2 RC1) downloaded. This will pop up the main installation program:

Clicking Next reveals the following:

On which you have to agree to the GNU General Public License, no choice, as the only way to continue is to press "I Agree":

I decided to install all the MediaPortal and TV Server plugins, I removed all the settop box drivers as I don't have any of those things. Pressing Next:

You have to supply the Media Portal installation directory (the one shown above is the default directory). After a click on next:

Asking for the IR Server Suite installation directory, for which I left the default untouched. Add a press of the Install button, the installation takes place:

After a short while, the installation is completed, and by pressing Next we get to the next screen:

And by pressing Finish we close the installation program. Now the difficult part starts as we need to copy some individual files manually to the right place. But, before doing so, we need to stop the Input Service, as this was automagically started when we installed the IR Server Suite. To stop this service, type services in the Vista Start menu. In the services window that pops up, find the Input Service in the list of services installed on your machine. By pressing the right mouse button, a popup menu appears. One of the options is "Stop" to Stop the service:

Select the Stop option. After the service has been stopped, we can start copying the relevant files to the right folders:

1. Copy the contents of the IR Server Plugin folder (three files called "Imon usb recievers": a dll file, an xml file and a pdb file) from the "The IR Server Suite - Test Build 1.4.2 RC1 - IMon update" file to C:\Program Files\IR Server Suite\IR Server Plugins.
2. Copy the contents of the Abstract Remote Model folder (one file called "imod pad": an xml file)  from the "The IR Server Suite - Test Build 1.4.2 RC1 - IMon update" file to C:\ProgramData\IR Server Suite\Input Service\Abstract Remote Maps\iMon. The ProgramData folder is a hidden folder on you system C: drive. To access this folder type C:\ProgramData in the location box on top of the windows explorer program:

   

3. Copy the contents of the The IR Server Suite - Test Build 1.4.2 RC1 - MP Control Plugin Update (three files called "MPControlPlugin": a dll file, an xml file and a pdb file) to  C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\plugins\process.
4. Copy the contents of the Imon USB Receivers_05_12_2008_test (a dll file called "iMon USB Receivers") to C:\ProgramData\IR Server Suite\Input Service.

After copying all these files, we need to start the Input Service Configuration program, by clicking Start, All Programs, IR Server Suite, Input Service Configuration:

Scroll down to view the iMon row, which should have a tick in the Receive column, and press the Configure button in this row:

I kept all the defaults, but it is very important to press OK on the configuration screen, as otherwise the appropriate configuration file(s) will not be generated. After closing the IMon configure screen, click on Advanced in the top bar of the IR Server Configuration program:

Select "Server Mode (default)" in the Input Service Mode section, and activate the "Use the Abstract Remote Model" in the Abstract Remote Model section. Press OK, and close the configuration program by clicking OK again. The configuration program will restart the Input Service automatically for you, which will assure the use of the configuration as we just configured:

Finally we have to configure Media Portal to use the Input Service as the remote control. We will do so using the Media Portal Configuration program. So fire it up by clicking on the appropriate icon on the desktop, and go to the remote control section:

As you can see, I deselect "Use Microsoft MCE remote or keyboard". Next, go to the plugin section by clicking on the Plugins in the pane on the left. It might take some time before the infor appears in the right pane. When it appears scroll down to the process plugins section. And click on the MP Control Plugin for IR Server icon with your right mouse button. This will pop up a menu, in which we select Configuration:

This will bring up the MP Control Plugin for IR Server Configuration window:

In this screen delete the MCE remote from the Remote Controls, by selecting it and pressing Delete (and OK in the confirmation dialog). Select Abstract Remote Model in the popdown box besides the Add Remote button, and click the button. Finally select OK to save the configuration, and close the Media Portal Configuration program by pressing OK again.

On my system the Harmony 555 remote control is working all the way through, all the buttons are showing the expected behavior.

As you could have read in my previous post, I downloaded the latest Media Portal SVN Snapshot from the Media Portal site. After installing and configuring (don't forget to change the number of CAM crypto channels, refer to one of my previous blogentries on switching channels) TV Server I fired the Media Portal SVN Installation program:

Pressing Next gets us to the following screen:

I like the defaults, so I pressed Next, revealing the following:

Also the default location is fine with me, so click Next again:

Start menu group is fine with me also, so let's press Install:

The installation takes some time to create a backup and install the new files, but after it finishes I presssed Next:

And the installation is finished already. Up until now I did not change anything to the configuration, I will keep you posted!

Today I had some time again to spend on the installation of my HTPC. I decided to start with the download and installation of the latest SVN Snapshot. The snapshots can be downloaded from the Media Portal Site. Unzipping the downloaded files reveals to installation packages, one for the TV Server and one for Media Portal. I started with the installation of the TV Server snapshot, by firing the appropriate install program:

Pressing Next reveals the following:

AS you can see, the installation program detected an existing installation of the TV Server software. As some time has past since experimenting with the system I decided to do an uninstall first (selecting the appropriate radio button as shown above and pressing Next):

Off course Media Portal is not running, so I press Next again:

The installation program warns you that all configuration information will be lost, so make sure this is what you want! It is exactly what I want, so I pressed Yes to continue:

It seems like the programmers are trying to make this a really fool proof installation, as they ask for confirmation again. I'm really sure, so I pressed Yes again:

Now the actual uninstall will start be pressing Uninstall:

The uninstall will take some time to remove all files and folders, after it has completed, press Next to continue:

The system let's you know that the uninstall was successfully completed, which is exactly what we wanted. By pressing the Finish button we can continue with the installation:

First thing is to decide which components to install, I need them both so no much thinking on this one. Pressing Next reveals the next screen:

Here we have to decide were to put the software. The default settings (as shown above) are fine with me, so pressing Next again:

Picking the start menu folder or group, again I'm going with the default settings, and press Install:

After a while the installation completes, and by pressing Next we get to the following screen:

Which brings us to the final screen, which will automatically brings us to the TV Server Configuration screen after pressing Finish when we want this. As the system is useless without configuring it, I keep the default and press Finish. The will automatically fire up the TV Server Configuration program. As the procedure for the configuration has not been changed since the last time I configured TV Server, I will not describe the configuration process again. Please refer to the TV Server Configuration Blog entry for more information on the configuration process.