Tag: Remote control

Wakeup for HTPCs and Servers

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A remote control's infrared seen as near-infra...
Image via Wikipedia

Tonight, we upgraded an old computer we use as a secondary MythTV combined backend and a frontend. It is currently the only computer we use ACPI Wakeup on, so we spent some time resetting this feature.

There are three basic Wakeup Types that are useful for computers nowadays.

  • Wake on LAN – Wake the computer up in response to a signal over the network.
  • Wake on USB – Wake the computer up in response to a USB signal
  • Wake on Alarm – Set a time for the computer to wake up

So, how can we leverage this into power-savings and efficiency? By having the computer turn itself off when it isn’t in use. We’ve been using it in cooperation with our TV recording schedule. Computer starts up, records, sets a wakeup for the next time, then shuts down.

But after that, what can we do with this? Wake on LAN allows the computer to be tripped into an active state over a network. Wake on USB would allow us to activate the computer with a USB remote control or other USB communications device, such as a sensor.

The feature is built into every current computer. So, why around we using it? We didn’t even get to the discussion of Suspend to RAM and Hibernate, two features that either save the system state to the hard drive or keep the system on minimal power to keep data in the RAM, which offer additional options.

So, why aren’t you using the power-saving functions of your computer?

Streaming Video Update

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Boxee iPhone app
Image by nwistheone via Flickr

On Tuesday, we’re heading down to the Boxee NYC meetup. For those of you not coming(probably a lot of people), they will stream it live here. We’ll blog a bit about the experience of hanging out with 650+ Boxee enthusiasts when we get back from it. The meetup will launch a new version of the Boxee Alpha, as well as discussing some of the changes planned for when the product moves into beta. seveal guest content providers, such as Blip.tv, a surprise guest, and a q&a session.

A few other things that we’ve spotted:

  • Boxee released an iPhone app to allow the iPhone to act as a remote control. For those of you with iPhones, the screenshots look like this is a wonderful addition to their offerings.
  • In a recent post, we mentioned that Windows Media Center users were having trouble with guide data. Engadget reports that some, but not all of that has been resolved after they blogged about it. They have restored analog guide data which was used to populate digital channels, which means it is still not entirely accurate.
  • In our search for new media hardware and apps, we cannot always present our own reviews, as we don’t have the money to buy everything we like the sound of(Someone can send us free things though, and we guarantee we’ll review them fully). Engadget reviewed the Popcorn Hour A-110. The Popcorn Hour line of products sounds very promising, even if used only as a media streamer from your computer. The final line of their review of the item sums it up: “While it can do just about anything, we didn’t find it super easy and wouldn’t expect those without a fundamental knowledge of networking and video to be able figure how to make it do anything useful. But for those who like to tinker, you’re in for a real treat.” We like to tinker, but we hope firmware and future updates will enhance the product offering.  If so, we are in the market for a set top device that can play all the stuff we normally use an HTPC to play.
  • iPlayer, the BBC’s internet streaming player, may bump itself up to HD offerings as soon as April. Unfortunately, the BBC doesn’t allow us here in the US to stream using their player…at least not officially.
  • The daughter of a Spanish city councilor used her mom’s 3G modem to download episodes of Lost, not realizing that the size of the episodes would end up costing $40,000 in data fees, or $300 an episode.

Otherwise, we continue to look for new news on easy streaming video, and to make plans to enhance our broadcast offerings, mostly by trying to pick up stations farther away.

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A Temporary Solution for Hulu Issues

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Image representing hulu as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Recently, we commented that one of our top issues with Hulu was aggregation. The website, as well as other video websites are not easy to navigate for someone sitting on their couch, or to control once the video starts Playing.

We know how to hook a remote control up to a computer and to program the computer to Play/Pause etc when the appropriate button is pressed.

But Hulu, even though it does respond to Hotkeys…

  • F for FullScreen On/Off toggle
  • Space Bar for Play/Pause

It does not integrate well with remotes, mostly because you need the Hulu player to have focus in order for it to respond to these keys, and it often does not, so ones commands are sent to the browser, instead of the Hulu player.

Then, on December 30th, we checked out Woot, the one deal a day site, and saw this…Woot was selling a two-pack of Gyration Gyroscopic Media Center Mouse/Remotes inexpensively.

We ordered a pack of them. But the idea hit us. The Gyration is designed for presentations. There are a variety of presentation mice, designed for giving Powerpoint Presentations and such, that could be used in lieu of a remote, until someone figures out a way to make Hulu more remote friendly.

This seemed like a simple and easy device to add to our arsenal. There is also software that will have your remote control emulate a mouse, however, from our experiments, it is hard to navigate with any precision using them.

We’ll advise how the presentation remote works out for us as a tool, and continue our experiments to figure out how to give Hulu focus automatically so the keyboard hotkeys will work. If they work, they can be linked to a remote control.

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