Wonderful app so far! Thanks for creating this - it's very much what I'm looking for (essentially the equivalent of Apple's Remote, only for Windows Media Center).

A couple missing features I'd like to see (at least I couldn't find a way to do these):

1. Select Genre, Play All (with ability to optionally hit Shuffle)
2. Select Artist, Play All (with ability to optionally hit Shuffle)

Those are probably the most common ways I listen to music. Thanks!

I was happy to see that the 1.1.1 version became available in the Apps-store. I immediately bought and installed the app. Everything works perfect, except 2 issues: 1) In Library, when I select an album or a track and press Play, nothing happens. I was expecting the album or track to just start playing, or am I missing something? The communication seems to work fine, I can use the Remote to operate the Media Center, choose an album and start it playing. Then I can see the album in Now Playing, I can pause, skip to next track etc. 2) In the Now Playing, the volume slider has no effect at all. In the Remote the volume adjustment works without problems. Any idea what I am doing wrong? Best regards Allan

@amolldk: You are right, if you click play, the album or track should start playing. Thats the idea behind vmcMote. It seems that the communication between the addin and the vmcMoteServer.exe (which is started by the addin and is the real server) is not working on your machine. Tracks are enqueued via the addin, also, the volume remote execution is done in the addin when the slider is used (as opposed to the buttons, that are executed from vmcMoteServer.exe). There is a local network connection between the modules.  Perhaps the port (7485) that is used for this internal communication is already in use by another application on your machine. You should try to close all other apps and make sure that there is not an unclosed vmcMoteServer.exe still running on the system in the background (that would block the port). What windows version are you running? Vista/Win7? 32/64 Bit?

 

@pieroxy:

It is great to hear that you like vmcMote and I appriciate your suggestions. Quite a few of them were already discussed here in this thread. Therefore, I will make it a bit shorter here:

Installation: You are right. But it is quite difficult to do the dll registration stuff correct and also write to the media center folder via an installer. I looked into it shortly back in the beginning. Also, I think it is not that difficult with the install.bat.

Synchronization process: Well, I am simply not able to do it like Remote from apple, as I do not get some needed information from the WMP database (like information about what tracks are new). Therefore, I always have to read the complete DB from the WMP. This takes already  a considerable amount of time (about 1/3 of the sync process). Therefore, an incremental sync would never be really smooth. That's why I decided that implementing it is way too much effort (and my time is pretty limited) compared to the possible benefit. In the new version, the device is prevented to go to sleep while syncing. An unattended sync is therefore now possible and should make the process a bit more comfortable.

Search and keyboard directly: valid point, I will think about it.

Cover Flow: Well, I already have an Idea how to do something similar (Cover Flow is not available from the SDK!). It is a question of not enough spare time to implement it ;-)

Video / Recorded TV browsing: I already stated a lot of times that vmcMote is focussed on functions where you do not need a running TV to consume them. Well, I simply believe that the Media Center GUI is very good for selecting video, and the TV has to be on anyway to consume it.

TV Guide: I wood like that feature too. But it is impossible to implement as the guide data is encrypted by Microsoft. And I am not willing to implement yet another workaround via external guide data or something similar. Workarounds are incredible work intensive, believe me, and I do not have that time. My work is already stressing me a lot this year.

 

@jimre: I will think about your suggestions, they make sense. Even considering that most likely most people will play albums rather than whole genre selections.

 

Greetings, Thomas

 

 

@thm82: I'm running Windows 7 64-bit, on a HP TouchSmart 300. The pc is only used for playing music via the Media Center, so no additional software is installed. Trying to repair things I think I have really messed it up for good now: I rolled the pc back to before the installation of vmcMote, and tried a new installation, but now during the installation I get an error message related to the wmpuice.dll not being registered properly. An uninstall and a new install gives the same result. So now it's worse than before, sorry about that. Hope you can help. Best regards Allan

Have you executed the install.bat as admin (right klick -> run as ...)? Registering the dll is not possible if you have executed it normally. And ensure that MediaCenter is not running while installing / deinstalling vmcMote server.

Uninstall.bat has also to be executed as admin to work properly. Have you tried to restart after executing the uninstall.bat?

I tested the new server with Windows 7 64 Bit and it worked on my machine. It also worked for two users I gave a beta in advance, after I included the 64 Bit compatibility. So it should work.

Regarding your initial problem: You can use the windows build in netstat command to show occupied network ports. Simply run "netstat -a" in a command line window (command line can be opened by runnning cmd.exe from the search in start menu). There should be a line looking like this:

TCP 127.0.01:7485 "Your PC Name":xxxxx(a port) ESTABLISHED

It shows you that port 7485 is occupied by an application. This line should be there when vmcMoteServer is installed and Media Center is running (therfore the vmcMote addin is running). It indicates the internal communication between the vmcMote addin and server module. It is also possible to see which process is occupying what port with "netstat -ao". This website provides further information on this topic: http://www.petri.co.il/quickly_find_local_open_ports.htm.

I hope this information helps you to figure out the problem. Probably the solution can also help me to optimize vmcMote.

 

 

Apparently I must have forgotten the right click thing in the second round of installation, but now everything is installed properly and I am back to the initial problem (sorry about that). Thanks for the hint to that web-site. I found the following: The port 7485 connected to port 49170 is occupied by vmcMoteServer.exe *32 The opposite, port 49170 to 7485 is occupied by ehexthost.exe I have no idea whether the second line is correct or not? Best regards, Allan

The connection seems to be established as it should be. ehexthost.exe is the MediaCenter process that is hosting the vmcMote addin.

I have no clue at the moment about what could be the problem.That the slider control is not working is still a hint that commands from the phone are not reaching the addin in a correct way. Have you probably a firewall (not the windows firewall, that one is causing no problems from my experience) or something similar running on your machine that is probably disturbing the internal communication channel? For example a program that came eventually pre-installed from HP?

 

 I just wanted to add that I have the same HP TouchSmart 300 running Windows 7 64 bit.  I have installed the latest version of the vmcmote server and it is running with no modifications or changes.  I have not changed any of the stock programs that comes with the TouchSmart.  The only problem is that the slider volume does not work, but the volume button on the remote screen does.

 All in all, very happy with the latest version of vmcmote.

@Riker88: I'm glad to hear that it's working on your exact same machine. I assume it means that you are also able to select and play music from the library?

I think I might do a complete re-install of Windows (from the hp recovery partition) in the weekend.

 Best regards, Allan

I am happy to report, that a complete re-install of Windows did the trick. Now everything is working perfect, except the volume slider in Now Playing (minor issue).

 

Great app, exactly what I was looking for.

 

A couple of suggestions for future versions:

 

1) Start-up time should be reduced. The "caching library view data" takes several seconds for a large library

 2) In Library I could use an Album Artist view, like that in the media center (artist name + cover view).

 

Best regards, Allan

Hi all, What a great program! I'm only having one very small issue that hopefully someone can fix........... Using Vista 32bit Before starting vmcmote, if I'm watching some recorded TV and I use the 30secs forward or 5 secs back (on my logitech remote), the response from the VMC is extremely quick (instantaneous). After starting vmcmote and then going back into recorded TV, if I now go forward 30 or back 5 using the logitech remote there is a slight delay in the commands being executed, ie what took less than a fraction of a second takes about half to 1 second. Also the time bar is slower to pop up along the bottom when fast forwarding/rewinding. If I shutdown media centre and restart it, the problem is gone. Looking at the CPU load and processes after vmcmote has started reveals nothing odd. Is anyone else experiencing this? Workaround or fix? This is a very minor issue, but it was one that my wife found and you can imagine the grief I'm getting now - she has to accept a few more seconds waiting to zap through the commercials - eeekkkkk!!!! Thanks for a great program Harold

 This program is great and I greatly appreciate using it.  Just a couple of features I would like to see if possible.

1.  The ability to see and use the playlists saved in Windows Media Player or Center on the remote.

2.  The ability to just push a shuffle all button and have it play the whole music library randomly.

These would be great additions if possible.  Thanks again for the program and thanks for your time.

Hi everybody,

I just submitted version 1.1.2 to apple. It's now in the review process. This version will bring a much improved library caching time (approximately by the factor of 4 to 6). This will enhance the startup behaviour a lot (at least in my eyes).

 

 

@Harold Hold: I do not even have this keys on my remote ;-) I am always using fast forward. However, I tested it on my Windows 7 Machine with the corresponding keyboard shortcut, and at least on this machine with win7 there does not seem any problem at all. However, your problem could be related to Vista. I have an idea how to increase the idle time a bit as long as no client is connected, however I am not sure if it will have any effect. This will probably make it into the next version (beyond 1.1.2).

@ fingens1: Playlist Sync, hm, not on the first places of my list (would take a lot of time to implemnt that I am not having right now due to my job). Sorry! Play all button: On the list, at least for whole genres or artists. Controling shuffle is not possible (because not controllable by the MCE SDK) thought if the wmp remoting is broken as it happens often on windows 7. Therefore, most likely no shuffle all button, only play all.

@amolldk: Improving the caching has already been on my list as stated above ;-).  Artist Name + Cover View: Well, I have something in mind similar to coverflow that would get that sorting ;-)

 

Greetings, Thomas

Hi Thomas, I have just installed version 1.1.2 and the caching speed is perfect. Great. Volumeslider does still not work, however. I am not too fond of the cowerflow, having 1000+ albums makes it a bit difficult to navigate to a specific artist and view all the albums by that artist. That's why I prefer the Album Artist View in Media Center, where the albums are grouped artist by artist. The iTunes coverflow is great looking and flashy, but not that practical as a music library, imho. Best regards Allan

 I'm having the same problem with the volume slider in the now playing tab. I'm running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. The slider moves, but doesn't actually change the volume.

 Additionally, the play/pause button doesn't work with video files (I've tried .avi and .vob). Neither do the forward and rewind buttons.

 Great application (seriously, I've tried a lot now), but those problems are deal breakers. They're essential for an application like this.