Author | Thread |
User 26.08.2014 04:20:25 | Since Apple DVD Player won't play to my TV, any other media players worth trying? (compatible w/ RB) | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. On a Mac Mini, with HDMI output to my TCL TV - trying to use DVD Player, but mostly I get only gray video. Apple support docs indicate this is some kind of DRM. (boo....) I've tried some other apps, and the one I like best is DVDFab Media Player 2. Works nicely with a mouse under Screen Sharing; i'm hoping it has keyboard controls. Unfortunately, it doesn't respond to Apple Remote or Harmony Smart Remote using RB. Any suggestions for a good DVD player that will actually display video and accept Apple Remote and/or RB commands from a Harmony Smart Remote? FWIW I'm also using Plex. Keith
| These entries from the FAQ may be relevant to this topic: Hardware - Apple® Remote
To enable you to use all capabilities of the IR Receiver of your Mac®, Remote Buddy is using its own driver. In contrast, all other applications with integrated Apple® Remote support usually use the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem.
As long as you're running Remote Buddy, Remote Buddy and its driver are responsible for turning the received button presses into actions. As soon as you quit Remote Buddy, this task is again handled by the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem.
If other applications don't use the interface to the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem correctly, this can lead to the effect that nothing happens when you press a button on your Apple® Remote. For as long as you're running Remote Buddy, issues like this are covered by Remote Buddy and it's driver and are therefore not visible to you. However, as soon as you quit Remote Buddy, the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem is back in control and any issues caused in it by other applications become visible.
Therefore Remote Buddy is neither the cause of the issue nor is it responsible for it. Instead, the cause of the issue exists independently of Remote Buddy. It's located elsewhere and can also only be solved there.
Although our products can't cause any such issues, we're regularly contacted about such issues and asked for help. In order to make locating and fixing the cause of such issues as easy and efficient as possible, we've developed a free diagnostics tool: Remote Control Diagnostics. It can locate issues with a single click and will provide you with information about the issue as well as with instructions on how you can fix it.
Please update your copy of Remote Buddy to version 1.15 or later.
Hardware - Harmony® Smart Control
This can be due to a number of many, very different reasons:
- Wrong/No Activity: the Smart Control will only send your button presses to Remote Buddy if you've selected the "Remote Buddy" activity. Activities on the Harmony Smart Remote are chosen by pressing one of the buttons from the "Music, TV, Movie" row at the top of the remote. Please note: short and long presses of these buttons can select different activities.
- Bluetooth turned off: please make sure that Bluetooth on your Mac is turned on.
- Harmony Hub not paired: the Harmony Hub sometimes looses the Bluetooth pairing when making changes to its configuration. To initially establish - or re-establish - a Bluetooth pairing between the Harmony Hub and your Mac, follow this guide:
- Soft keyboard pairing: make sure you only have paired your Harmony Hub to your Mac as a "Sony Playstation 3". If you also pair your Harmony Hub as a soft keyboard, Remote Buddy will no longer be able to capture input events coming from it. Why is this? In "Sony Playstation 3" mode, the Harmony Hub identifies as "Consumer Control" device to your Mac. For this class of devices, any app is allowed to exclusively capture all input. For keyboards, however, OS X only allows access to apps running with root/administrator priviledges, locking out Remote Buddy. To properly remove the pairing as a keyboard, first use the Harmony in that mode, then remove "Harmony Keyboard" from System Preferences > Bluetooth - and finally remove the respective device from your Harmony's configuration. Since OS X caches the identity of Bluetooth devices, it may take some time, several attempts and maybe even a system restart before OS X sees your Harmony Hub as a "Consumer Control" device again and again allows Remote Buddy access to it.
- Empty batteries: if you can't control any devices with your Harmony Smart Remote at all, while using the "Harmony Control" app on your iOS device still works, chances are the battery of your remote needs to be replaced. Logitech provides instructions for this.
The table that follows lists the commands the Harmony software assigns to the respective buttons by default - and how these need to be changed for Remote Buddy. For Remote Buddy, the commands for short and long button presses should always be identical.
Button |
Harmony Default: Short |
Harmony Default: Long |
Adapted for Remote Buddy: short & long |
Rewind |
ScanPrev |
Prev |
ScanPrev |
Fast Forward |
ScanNext |
ScanNext |
ScanNext |
Play |
Play |
Play |
Play |
Pause |
Pause |
Pause |
Pause |
Record |
- |
- |
Circle |
Stop |
Stop |
Eject |
Stop |
Red |
Red |
Red |
Red |
Green |
Green |
Green |
Green |
Yellow |
Yellow |
Yellow |
Yellow |
Blue |
Blue |
Blue |
Blue |
DVR |
- |
- |
Triangle |
Guide |
- |
- |
TopMenu |
Info |
- |
- |
Display |
Exit |
- |
- |
InstantLeft |
Vol + |
- |
- |
L1 |
Vol - |
- |
- |
L2 |
Mute |
- |
- |
L3 |
Menu |
Popup/Menu |
Popup/Menu |
Popup/Menu |
Ch/Pg + |
ChannelUp |
ChannelUp |
ChannelUp |
Ch/Pg - |
ChannelDown |
ChannelDown |
ChannelDown |
Return |
Return |
Return |
Return |
Left |
DirectionLeft |
DirectionLeft |
DirectionLeft |
Right |
DirectionRight |
DirectionRight |
DirectionRight |
Up |
DirectionUp |
DirectionUp |
DirectionUp |
Down |
DirectionDown |
DirectionDown |
DirectionDown |
OK |
Enter |
Enter |
Enter |
0-9 |
0-9 |
0-9 |
0-9 |
.- |
-/-- |
-/-- |
-/-- |
E |
- |
- |
InstantRight |
Here's where and how you can make the changes:
Unlocking all buttons of the Smart Control Show
Please verify that no power saving options are enabled at "Remote Buddy > Preferences > Hardware > Bluetooth Receiver".
| User 26.08.2014 09:38:01 | Re: Since Apple DVD Player won't play to my TV, any other media players worth trying? (compatible w/ RB) | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. VLC can also play DVDs - including menus - and is supported by Remote Buddy. Unfortunately, VLC currently doesn't provide any info on when it displays a menu, so you need to manually switch in and out of a special menu mode to control the menus. Best regards, Felix Schwarz
| User 04.09.2014 00:46:01 | Re: Re: Since Apple DVD Player won't play to my
TV, any other media players worth trying? (compatible w/ RB) | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. Excellent suggestion! VLC works fine. I had forgotten I had it :) I haven't tried its "special menu mode", can you give me a tip to invoke that? Thanks On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 5:50 PM, Keith Corbett wrote: Excellent suggestion! VLC works fine. I had forgotten I had it :) I haven't tried its "special menu mode", can you give me a tip to invoke that? Thanks Keith Corbett On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Felix wrote: VLC can also play DVDs - including menus - and is supported by Remote Buddy. Unfortunately, VLC currently doesn't provide any info on when it displays a menu, so you need to manually switch in and out of a special menu mode to control the menus. Best regards, Felix Schwarz [standard mail footer removed] | User 07.09.2014 11:38:01 | Re: Re: Since Apple DVD Player won't play to my TV, any other media players worth trying? (compatible w/ RB) | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. With default settings, you can toggle the menu mode on and off by long pressing the Menu button while using VLC. Best regards, Felix Schwarz
| User 09.09.2014 22:02:01 | Re: Re: Since Apple DVD Player won't play to
my TV, any other media players worth trying? (compatible w/ RB) | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. I've tried invoking the VLC behavior, and it starts fine. Oddly, it doesn't exit when I try to deactivate the behavior. When I long-press Menu, I see a RB popup saying entering or exiting DVD menu. Is that what I should be seeing? When I enter DVD menu mode, should the other buttons work? VLC does not respond to any buttons, as far as I can tell. I think I do have default settings. That is, I followed the blog post and created the Sony PS3 device and associated activity from scratch - throwing out the old multi-Apple remote setup. Keith Keith On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 5:38 AM, Felix wrote: With default settings, you can toggle the menu mode on and off by long pressing the Menu button while using VLC. Best regards, Felix Schwarz [standard mail footer removed] | User 28.07.2015 10:59:51 | Removed on request by customer | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. Removed on request by customer
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