PSP Universal Remote
PSP Universal Remote
I was wondering if anyone has developed a universal remote. Not just for sony tv's
The PSP comes with support for IRDA (not useful) and Sony's "SIRCS" protocol (useful for Sony devices only)
What is needed is a general purpose "consumer IR" utility routine (ie. send raw IR data bits, modulated with common carrier frequencies)
If interested, disassemble the "SIRCS.PRX" kernel module. You will see how the Sircs support is done (eg: sceSircsSend).
I looked at it briefly (turns off interrupts, enables the IO pins using Sysreg, then parties on the GPIO output pin #4 for the IR signal)
I think it is doing all the timing itself in software. Don't know how flexible it is for modulated frequencies (SIRCS is apparently 40kHz)
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After that, writing/porting a remote program should be easy. Most remotes assume a touch-sensitive screen - so making it work well with the PSP buttons will require some thought.
Finally look at other open source efforts for databases of remote control codes [considering the 100s of remote controls, everyone doing it different]. Alternatively read in an existing file format (eg: Pronto CCF)
Bottom line: a lot of work, and the final remote control (without a touch sensitive screen) would be rather lame IMHO.
What is needed is a general purpose "consumer IR" utility routine (ie. send raw IR data bits, modulated with common carrier frequencies)
If interested, disassemble the "SIRCS.PRX" kernel module. You will see how the Sircs support is done (eg: sceSircsSend).
I looked at it briefly (turns off interrupts, enables the IO pins using Sysreg, then parties on the GPIO output pin #4 for the IR signal)
I think it is doing all the timing itself in software. Don't know how flexible it is for modulated frequencies (SIRCS is apparently 40kHz)
---
After that, writing/porting a remote program should be easy. Most remotes assume a touch-sensitive screen - so making it work well with the PSP buttons will require some thought.
Finally look at other open source efforts for databases of remote control codes [considering the 100s of remote controls, everyone doing it different]. Alternatively read in an existing file format (eg: Pronto CCF)
Bottom line: a lot of work, and the final remote control (without a touch sensitive screen) would be rather lame IMHO.
Theres the source code to a remote program that works by sending specific data bytes to a UART attached to an IR LED at a certain baud rate. Its actually pretty clever. But I figure it would take hours with a scope to get the right data to do every function of a TV that way.
If you do figure out how to work the IR LED directly, I would be very interested in seeing that.
-Klim
If you do figure out how to work the IR LED directly, I would be very interested in seeing that.
-Klim
> What about a remote that has on-display preview? ...
True, but IMHO having a preview play on the PSP is a plus, but it outweighed by the lack of a touch screen.
Take a look at all the fancy smart remotes out there. Most come with touch screen features. Even the non-touch screen ones have a heck of a lot of buttons.
Technically possible, but impractical for use.
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>is it possible to rewrite a prx file and replace it on the psp?
OT: No (not with our knowledge). The "PRX"s in question are specific format ELF files -- which are encrypted. We don't know how to encrypt them, and probably never will.
Technology like this is not longer discussed on this BBS. To repeat -> Don't attempt unless you want to brick your PSP.
True, but IMHO having a preview play on the PSP is a plus, but it outweighed by the lack of a touch screen.
Take a look at all the fancy smart remotes out there. Most come with touch screen features. Even the non-touch screen ones have a heck of a lot of buttons.
Technically possible, but impractical for use.
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>is it possible to rewrite a prx file and replace it on the psp?
OT: No (not with our knowledge). The "PRX"s in question are specific format ELF files -- which are encrypted. We don't know how to encrypt them, and probably never will.
Technology like this is not longer discussed on this BBS. To repeat -> Don't attempt unless you want to brick your PSP.
Are you kidding? You think that some cheap touchscreen universal remote would beat a nice menu that you could customize yourself?PspPet wrote:> What about a remote that has on-display preview? ...
True, but IMHO having a preview play on the PSP is a plus, but it outweighed by the lack of a touch screen.
Take a look at all the fancy smart remotes out there. Most come with touch screen features. Even the non-touch screen ones have a heck of a lot of buttons.
Technically possible, but impractical for use.
Besides the PSP has 17 buttons and you could reuse them by combining with trigger pulls.
This application would be awesome and really good use for a PSP.
With some external hardware, you could probably do a few things. Since you can use the normal IrDA block device to talk via IrDA, simply make an IrDA device that sits atop the IR transceiver on the PSP and converts the commands into TV signals out of another IR LED. This could also open up possibly overlaying a touch-sensitive layer onto the psp screen (there are some decent low profile ones that may work well). Then interface it with your microcontroller and use it via IrDA.
I was thinking of doing something similar, just havent had time.
I'm sure it would be better and easier to interface with the remote control port on the bottom, but I personally am not 100% sure how to access that UART and it's control registers (for baud rate, start/stop bits/parity) and such. Anyone know how?
-Klim
I was thinking of doing something similar, just havent had time.
I'm sure it would be better and easier to interface with the remote control port on the bottom, but I personally am not 100% sure how to access that UART and it's control registers (for baud rate, start/stop bits/parity) and such. Anyone know how?
-Klim
> Are you kidding?...
Of course not... I've included a lot of "IMHO"s because everyone has a different opinion on what makes a good remote control.
IMHO easy-to-find-in-the-dark physical buttons win over touch screen.
Your opinion may/will vary.
> Besides the PSP has 17 buttons and you could reuse them by combining with trigger pulls.
> This application would be awesome and really good use for a PSP.
My suggestion: write a mock-up of an interface you think would be awesome (can be done with the SDK today). Say something as simple as changing the TV channel to channel 53.
[right now my remote will do it in 2 or 3 keystrokes, "5" + "3" + (optional) "Enter"]
Of course not... I've included a lot of "IMHO"s because everyone has a different opinion on what makes a good remote control.
IMHO easy-to-find-in-the-dark physical buttons win over touch screen.
Your opinion may/will vary.
> Besides the PSP has 17 buttons and you could reuse them by combining with trigger pulls.
> This application would be awesome and really good use for a PSP.
My suggestion: write a mock-up of an interface you think would be awesome (can be done with the SDK today). Say something as simple as changing the TV channel to channel 53.
[right now my remote will do it in 2 or 3 keystrokes, "5" + "3" + (optional) "Enter"]
It looks like I meant a touchpad, not a touchscreen. Synaptics makes them, but it looks like any used for PSP (can they be transparent?) would have to be custom made.mrbrown wrote:Out of curiosity, how much do touchscreens cost? I'm talking about a basic, raw touchscreen with a serial interface. It would be cool if you could make a clip on touchscreen interface for the PSP.
Googling...
With p-sprint like button combos you won't need much more than that. But you could win much more by being able to program favorite button combos. After all, you don't really use that many buttons on a remote control, usually. You have:PspPet wrote:Say something as simple as changing the TV channel to channel 53.
[right now my remote will do it in 2 or 3 keystrokes, "5" + "3" + (optional) "Enter"]
channel up/down
tv off
volume up/down
mute
favorites up/down
I suggest assigning immediate buttons for those (left-right, up-down, etc.), and then add a fancy software graphics interface for everything involving settings.
Or what could also work quite nicely is using the analog button as a dial pad for volume control, quick channel selection and so on.
I've seen overlay touchkits being sold for as little as $100US (a year ago).
But I'm not sure of the quality or driver support. I ended up going with the tried and tested Lilliput 7". The 'touch' circuitry seems to be a daughterboard powered by usb 5v. The 12v is only required to power the screen.
So a true tightarse might want to buy a touchscreen and then sell the screen.
But I'm not sure of the quality or driver support. I ended up going with the tried and tested Lilliput 7". The 'touch' circuitry seems to be a daughterboard powered by usb 5v. The 12v is only required to power the screen.
So a true tightarse might want to buy a touchscreen and then sell the screen.
3M makes a touchsurface called Microtouch
http://www.3m.com/3MTouchSystems/Produc ... /NFI.jhtml
I'm sure if it was fitted to the PSP and there was something to hold it in place, a simple circuit could be made to convert the signals the screen sends out into RS-232. The RS-232 can be read through the remote port. I suppose you could do the same thing through the IRDA.
There are two holes to the right and left of the USB port on top of the PSP. I wonder if something could be made to lock in to those holes to hold the touchscreen while still allowing access to the USB and UMD eject mechinism.
Some other possibilities:
http://www.touchwindow.com/miva/merchan ... y_Code=OEM
http://www.3m.com/3MTouchSystems/Produc ... /NFI.jhtml
I'm sure if it was fitted to the PSP and there was something to hold it in place, a simple circuit could be made to convert the signals the screen sends out into RS-232. The RS-232 can be read through the remote port. I suppose you could do the same thing through the IRDA.
There are two holes to the right and left of the USB port on top of the PSP. I wonder if something could be made to lock in to those holes to hold the touchscreen while still allowing access to the USB and UMD eject mechinism.
Some other possibilities:
http://www.touchwindow.com/miva/merchan ... y_Code=OEM
FYI/FWIW: I whipped up a simple "RAW IR" remote control sample (will post it soon).
re: Sending general IR signals
The PSP hardware can be exploited for more general IR signals. It has a FIFO and an interrupt handler that is very general. That's what "SIRCS" uses.
I currently have it working for robot control (RoboSapienV1 and ICybie) - both which use their own proprietary "consumer IR" signals (not "SIRCS"). The modulation is around 40kHz (39.2kHz give or take).
Also I've tested it with other modulation rates (adjustable, 36 or 56KHz are also common frequencies) and other encoding schemes. It appears to be general enough to do most common "Consumer IR" signals
I may port/adapt some of the Proto CCF tools (which will give you "Universal Remote"-like features). If someone is interested in this kind of stuff, please let me know.
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re: not enough buttons
In this case, the small number of PSP buttons was not a problem.
For the RoboSapien the main buttons do the logical things (UP makes the robot walk forward, LEFT turns left, etc). If you hold the Left Trigger, then the buttons become actions for the robot's left arm....
All the important buttons on the regular RoboSapien remote can be done on the PSP with one or two buttons [the regular remote has 21 buttons and two extended modes]
For a regular TV remote control, I am still sceptical. If someone ported a CCF rendering module, a simple cursor movement around the screen may be managable.
re: Sending general IR signals
The PSP hardware can be exploited for more general IR signals. It has a FIFO and an interrupt handler that is very general. That's what "SIRCS" uses.
I currently have it working for robot control (RoboSapienV1 and ICybie) - both which use their own proprietary "consumer IR" signals (not "SIRCS"). The modulation is around 40kHz (39.2kHz give or take).
Also I've tested it with other modulation rates (adjustable, 36 or 56KHz are also common frequencies) and other encoding schemes. It appears to be general enough to do most common "Consumer IR" signals
I may port/adapt some of the Proto CCF tools (which will give you "Universal Remote"-like features). If someone is interested in this kind of stuff, please let me know.
------
re: not enough buttons
In this case, the small number of PSP buttons was not a problem.
For the RoboSapien the main buttons do the logical things (UP makes the robot walk forward, LEFT turns left, etc). If you hold the Left Trigger, then the buttons become actions for the robot's left arm....
All the important buttons on the regular RoboSapien remote can be done on the PSP with one or two buttons [the regular remote has 21 buttons and two extended modes]
For a regular TV remote control, I am still sceptical. If someone ported a CCF rendering module, a simple cursor movement around the screen may be managable.
Great Job!PspPet wrote:FYI/FWIW: I whipped up a simple "RAW IR" remote control sample (will post it soon).
re: Sending general IR signals
The PSP hardware can be exploited for more general IR signals. It has a FIFO and an interrupt handler that is very general. That's what "SIRCS" uses.
I currently have it working for robot control (RoboSapienV1 and ICybie) - both which use their own proprietary "consumer IR" signals (not "SIRCS"). The modulation is around 40kHz (39.2kHz give or take).
Also I've tested it with other modulation rates (adjustable, 36 or 56KHz are also common frequencies) and other encoding schemes. It appears to be general enough to do most common "Consumer IR" signals
I may port/adapt some of the Proto CCF tools (which will give you "Universal Remote"-like features). If someone is interested in this kind of stuff, please let me know.
------
re: not enough buttons
In this case, the small number of PSP buttons was not a problem.
For the RoboSapien the main buttons do the logical things (UP makes the robot walk forward, LEFT turns left, etc). If you hold the Left Trigger, then the buttons become actions for the robot's left arm....
All the important buttons on the regular RoboSapien remote can be done on the PSP with one or two buttons [the regular remote has 21 buttons and two extended modes]
For a regular TV remote control, I am still sceptical. If someone ported a CCF rendering module, a simple cursor movement around the screen may be managable.
Who isn't interested, I'd say. :) It'd be great fun to be able to do all sorts of things. My personal favorite thing to do would probably be programming a macro for certain button combinations, maybe on different remotes. For instance, I have a Sony Receiver and a Philips TV. I would like to be able to, say, program a Macro called 'Cinema' which sets the Sony Receiver to Surround with certain front and center settings, and sets the TV to Widescreen. Not that I really need something like this, but it would be pretty cool to be able to do stuff like that. Or for instance if you regularly watch certain text-pages, you could record a macro that goes through a number of set pages with a time interval that gives you enough time to read them before it switches automatically. Just some wild ideas. But being able to program a really nice slider for controlling anything, like hooking the Analog stick to the volume, would in itself already be cool.
After all, the advantage of having the PSP as a universal remote is that I don't have one now and I wouldn't by one either. But great to be able to have the PSP even as a remote control backup.
@PspPet - Im stoked to read about your RoboSapien app, my son still gets a kick out of his RS and to get the PSP involved would add fuel to the fire. Hope to see it posted soon.
I use an ATI remote wonder to control a mp3 server G4 Cube and the possibility of mimicking the ATI remote with a PSP would be fantastic. Until the bug re: mouse cursor invisible in PVNC (using mac os X) an IR solution would be highly useful.
I use an ATI remote wonder to control a mp3 server G4 Cube and the possibility of mimicking the ATI remote with a PSP would be fantastic. Until the bug re: mouse cursor invisible in PVNC (using mac os X) an IR solution would be highly useful.
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djstriker91
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Tue Aug 23, 2005 10:04 am
> How about just a universal on/off remote?
FWIW: to do it properly is a very hard/impossible problem. There are no standards for the way signals are encoded, and the on signal is usually the same as the off signal.
Doing a slimy version is easy. Send several common on/off codes one after another allows you to screw around with TVs in public places. Easy to do if you want to figure out the encodings and convert them to the PSP format.
FWIW: to do it properly is a very hard/impossible problem. There are no standards for the way signals are encoded, and the on signal is usually the same as the off signal.
Doing a slimy version is easy. Send several common on/off codes one after another allows you to screw around with TVs in public places. Easy to do if you want to figure out the encodings and convert them to the PSP format.
> This would indeed be a great app for the psp.
Agreed.
What we needeis someone to write the user interface, and deal with the necessary IR codes (perhaps leveraging LIRC or Pronto CCF file formats)
I've done the lower level work to make the IR transmission part more general.
It is up to someone else to pick up the gauntlet and come up with a "Perfect Remote" kind of app for the PSP.
Agreed.
What we needeis someone to write the user interface, and deal with the necessary IR codes (perhaps leveraging LIRC or Pronto CCF file formats)
I've done the lower level work to make the IR transmission part more general.
It is up to someone else to pick up the gauntlet and come up with a "Perfect Remote" kind of app for the PSP.