Anyone using a AR XSight Touch Remote w/ATV?

Question

I'm trying to integrate my ATV (gen1) system into my home theater setup so I don't have to have a gaggle of remotes next to me to control all my devices.  So far I have everything pretty much integrated and I can access my Mitsubishi DLP TV, My Panasonic BlueRay DVD, my DirecTV HD Receiver, and my Yamaha AVR.  I have added the AppleTV to my remote's device selection menu, but I'm having some issues with getting it to handle all the remote functions.  AR's web site where you do online modding of the "program" or algorithms that make the remotes work says they have a code that should work with the Apple white remote but when I test it nothing works.
I suppose I can keep the ATV remote handy, but it would be super cool if I could figure out a way to get it working properly.  Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Mike

Answer 1

Review of TouchOSC
TouchOSC uses the open, well-documented OSC protocol (basically the next version MIDI). The example code works well. As for any method, if working in a corporate environment you need to get around the issue of firewalls.
The remote/Client front panel has to be separately written. This is easily done.
There are a collection of 13 controls/indicators as follows: LED, Label, Push Button, Toggle Button, XY Pad, Fader/Rotary, Encoder, Battery, Time, Multi-Toggle, Multi-XY, Multi-Push and Multi-Fader (see http://hexler.net/docs/touchosc-controls-reference for details). The LED and Label are indicators. The rest are controls, however you can write to the controls. The problem with writing to controls is that a Client user can move the control that you intended as an indicator. It would be possible, in turn, to write straight back to the “control”, but the jerking operation may be disconcerting to users.
The LabVIEW code is very easy to understand and minimalistic. The protocol sends short human-readable messages (except for the value component which is straight binary).
Match to selection criteria:
1) Client can be a standard web browser without any plug ins? No (however an OSC client is probably available for most remote devices)
2) Minimal coding (in LabVIEW): No (front panel needs to be created on Client)
3) Inexpensive? Yes
4) Client able to have push buttons, indicators, images and graphs? No (images and graphs not possible)
5) Fast and efficient? Yes
In summary, TouchOSC is a quick to implement, simple, inexpensive and efficient method of providing a user interface with good controls, but effectively limited to just two indicators – LED and Label. For many remote user-interfaces this product is sufficient and simple.