Specifications

Remote Control and Receiver-Transceiver Specifications and Requirements

for Windows Media Center in Windows Operating Systems

Two-Way Remote Devices

Two-way remote devices are devices where the communication between the remote control and

the receiver goes in two directions. So, for instance, an LCD on your remote could display the

currently playing song. In many ways, this is similar to the above item ―RF receivers –

transmit/receive‖ in that the device is expensive. This device would need to be a full function one-

way receiver plus the added cost of the two-way protocol.

The hardware for this device would be very expensive. It would cost as much as an one-way IR

device plus the additional cost for two-way support. Because Windows XP doesn‘t support port

driver devices, you would need to build a legacy device on a board with a USB hub chip and a

second device for the two-way functionality.

Connecting Your Receiver to the PC

If you are building a legacy or emulator device, you need to connect your device using USB. If

you are building a port driver device, you have more freedom to decide how to connect your

receiver to the PC. However, there are several caveats which make several choices expensive or

impractical.

USB

This is the most common way to connect a device to the PC. It is most likely to work successfully

and incurs the least risk.

IEEE 1394

1394 is possible, but incurs risk due to the untested nature of this scenario. 1394 may not allow

the wake from remote feature.

PS/2

Using a ps/2 connection could work, but there may not be any advantage to this over USB. This

would require a port driver on the PC. Making an IR receiver appear to the PC as a keyboard is

not possible because existing keyboard drivers do not contain scan code mappings for Windows

Media Center-specific keys.

Serial Port/Parallel Port

This would require a port driver on the PC. It would require an out-of-band signal to signal

wakeup to the PC when the user presses the Sleep button on the remote. Because serial ports

and parallel ports are fairly old technology, the likelihood of colliding with existing devices and

software is fairly high. A large amount of integration testing would be necessary to ensure

compatibility.

Super-IO Chip

Putting IR functionality onto a Super-IO chip is very desirable from a cost perspective for PC

companies. This will require a port driver to make it work.