Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

johnlian.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 147 posts

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#101

Post by nullhole »

I used a similar setup to translate CEC user commands (volume/fwd/reverse/etc), that travelled from my TV remote to the TV to the CEC bus to a pi that was plugged into the TV via HDMI. The pi was running jukebox software (moode audio). Similar to the article, the pi had a shell script that reads all the loglines coming from cec-client and acted on them when appropriate, in my case translating a subset of the CEC user commands to moode commands.

Worked pretty well, was nice to CEC-ify a pi program and eliminate the need for special-purpose hw/sw to interact with the audio player.

The CEC spec has all of the user control codes on the 2nd last page[1], in table 27.

[1] https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads...

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#102

Post by sho_hn »

nullhole wrote: post #101

I used a similar setup to translate CEC user commands (volume/fwd/reverse/etc), that travelled from my TV remote to the TV to the CEC bus to a pi that was plugged into the TV via HDMI. The pi was running jukebox software (moode audio). Similar to the article, the pi had a shell script that reads all the loglines coming from cec-client and acted on them when appropriate, in my case translating a subset of the CEC user…

I made myself a little HDMI dongle (about half the size of a classic Fire Stick) with a WiFi modem that I use to remote control my TV from Home Assistant. My remote is the HA app.

Why? Because Google Home's TV remote stuff can do a lot, but not turn on the TV. CEC can.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#104

Post by rblatz »

robflynn wrote: post #88
codepoet80 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to go the other way. The Apple TV controls the LG. It wakes it, controls the volume and turns it off when it sleeps.

Mine will turn my LG on, control the volume, do all of that, it just won't ever turn it off. The AppleTV will turn itself off, but the TV itself will revert back to its screen saver display complaining about No Input.

My Samsung frame does that too, some TVs ignore the off CEC command. It might be a setting you can control on the tv. Last time I checked the frame did not have that option.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#106

Post by retsyx »

In a similar vein, I created a project, Amity, that uses HDMI-CEC to control the whole home theater with one remote. Using a simple streamer remote you can select an activity (watch Apple TV, play on the PlayStation) navigate interfaces, control the system's volume, and power it off. One of several fairly common streamer or TV remotes can be used.

Amity, too, is based on a Raspberry Pi but also uses a very simple custom PCB to hook into the HDMI-CEC bus between the TV and the receiver. One of the most common problems encountered with HDMI-CEC is that different components will often compete to be displayed by the TV (for example, turning on your Apple TV, turns on the TV, which turns on the PlayStation, which requests to be displayed, which switches the TV to displaying the PlayStation. So you end up viewing the PlayStation when you wanted to stream Netflix on your Apple TV). I found that the only way to fix this problem is to sit between the receiver and the TV to break the cycle. Hence, the PCB.

Amity is available here:

https://github.com/retsyx/amity

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#107

Post by hackernudes »

davidczech wrote: post #40

A side note: I am very sad that HDMI-CEC apparently can only support like 3 "console-like" devices. I have an Apple TV, Nintendo Switch 2, Sound Bar (eARC) and PS5 hooked up, but only 3 can really interact with CEC. It took me a long time to diagnose why it seemingly wouldn't work with my Nintendo Switch 2. I ended up disabling it on my PS5 because I never use the darn thing, but it kind of stinks since most TV's hav…

Yes, the three playback limit is so annoying. Just... why?! CEC is so stupid. Way overengineered yet completely undercooked. I'm imagining some day soon TVs/receivers will start proxying the CEC bus instead of sharing it globally.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#108

Post by bijant »

neuroelectron wrote: post #59

"Media closet tour" Just looks like a Rube Goldberg server to me. This is really illustrative of the nonsense that media copyright has manufactured. I'm not going to solve "HDMI-CEC weirdness with a XYX" I'm going to download the movie from a torrent or run an emulator.

As if the sight of this dystopian thread wasn't depressing enough, there is your one gold nugget of a comment, downvoted into oblivion, grayed out at the bottom of the comment section. A hundred comments of people reverse-engineering vendor handshakes, writing Python daemons, and debating the finer points of CEC frame injection - and not one of them asking why this is necessary. The answer is in three letters: DRM. Your PlayStation is a computer. Your Xbox is a computer. Your Apple TV is a computer. Your "smart TV" is a computer. You already own a computer. The reason you can't just... use it... is that the entertainment industry spent two decades making sure the bits know who owns them at every step of the pipeline. HDCP, HDMI licensing, CEC's vendor-specific "quirks".I see no interoperability failure, it's interoperability prevention. Meanwhile, a $200 mini-PC running VLC, connected via DisplayPort to a monitor and 3.5mm to powered speakers, plays anything in any format at any bitrate with zero handshake failures. One "remote": a wireless keyboard. This solution has existed since before some commenters here were born. What you're all debugging isn't technology. It's compliance.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#109

Post by literallywho »

ryandrake wrote: post #98
jimmaswell wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the "ugly" perception. At worst some might look boring to me, but at best some of them are absolutely beautiful. For example, my favorite in my collection appearance-wise has a 70s-style wooden finish on all but the front plate with a polished silver look on the front plate: https://imgur.com/a/DAUeJJW

This is going to sound kind of sexist, but I have never met a woman who was OK interior design-wise with 18 inch stereo equipment in the living room. I mean look at the OP article: He's got all this stuff hidden away in a closet. This seems to be the only viable way to keep an "A/V stack" full of black boxes and a marriage. I've got a great sounding 5.1 system with a receiver and a game console and everything set up.…

Is it really love if it hinges on the presence of high quality stereo equipment? Also, I have a friend who has similar stuff out in the open and is happily married.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#110

Post by db48x »

ryandrake wrote: post #98
jimmaswell wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the "ugly" perception. At worst some might look boring to me, but at best some of them are absolutely beautiful. For example, my favorite in my collection appearance-wise has a 70s-style wooden finish on all but the front plate with a polished silver look on the front plate: https://imgur.com/a/DAUeJJW

This is going to sound kind of sexist, but I have never met a woman who was OK interior design-wise with 18 inch stereo equipment in the living room. I mean look at the OP article: He's got all this stuff hidden away in a closet. This seems to be the only viable way to keep an "A/V stack" full of black boxes and a marriage. I've got a great sounding 5.1 system with a receiver and a game console and everything set up.…

You’ve either been meeting the wrong women or you need more rooms. One room where people can sit and talk to each other and a completely different room where people can sit and listen to music or watch a screen. Ideally if you want music in that first room you would put a piano in there, because playing the piano (and singing along) is a social activity that people can actually do together. Neither of these activities should be relegated to a garage.
Post reply on HN