Finally rebuilding my mediaPC.

Zalman HD135 case (integrated VFD/IR with M.Play Home software/driver). P5W DH Deluxe.
Win XP SP3
XBMC (xbmc.org)

So here is where I am at. I have XBMC conifugred how I like it. I have been doing everything for config through keyboard/mouse. Now that it is almost ready, I decided to try getting the remote working.

The remote is configured through the M.Play home software. There is a default remote config that is global, and application-specific remote config. I defined a remote profile for xbmc.exe with the buttons configured the way I want.

I launch XBMC and most of the remote buttons do what I want, except for Left, Right, Up, Down.

These buttons are pretty important, if you didn't realize it. The keyboard commands XBMC is looking for are just the arrow keys, which is what I defined it as. The Left, Right, Up & Down arrow keys work in XBMC, just not the remote control mapped as those.

I have tried
*Changing buttons 2,4,6,8 to Up, left, right down with no luck
*Changing keymap.xml for XBMC to use H,U,J,K instead of Left/right/etc with no luck (woudln't even respond to keyboard presses
*Installing IRTrans driver instead of M.Play driver, which I was unable to get installed properly (never used IRTrans before). If I can get this installed then I can use IR2Keyboard and try remapping it that way

That is pretty much where I am at. If I can't get this remote working then I have to use a normal MCE remote with a separate IR receiver outside the case.

Anyone have any ideas? There is little googling that yielded useful results....

Out of curiosity have you tried the XBMC iphone app? The version I really like is called "XBMC Remote" by "collect3", all the other ones I tried are essentially garbage, but this one is nice.

I haven't. I was wondering if there was anything. I was happy enough when I pulled up the webserver on my iphone and queued up a video to play. Will definitely check out the apps.

Probably going to Fry's tomorrow and getting an IRTrans compatible receiver...

I am planning to do something similar. However, I don't have an iPhone. Does anyone have remote suggestions. I'd prefer something RF. I was thinking about getting a firefly:

http://www.snapstream.com/Products/Firefly/

but i don't know if this overkill or not, or if its a good choice for xbmc

http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=41889

Here's what I've tried so far

1) Remote w/ default M.Play software in XBMC
2) Remote w/ IRTrans/WinLIRC
3) Remote with IRServer/WinLIRC
4) Remote being seen with WinLIRC (fail, ldo)
5) Intelliremote

All these failed... went to fry's and bought the only sub$100 remote they had, a Siig Vista MCE remote

Epic fail there too... drivers don't exist for XP, so I put Win7 on it. The closest I got was the remote repeating the **** out of buttonpresses, like infinitely and stacking on one another.

Also trying to figure out if I can use my fancy Harmony 880 in this setup in any way. I don't believe it's even talking to the Siig receiver at all... i can't get it to recognize any keypresses in Intelliremote. I set up the Microsoft MCE keyboard as a device on it and plan on using it to send direct keystrokes to the PC.

Tomorrow gonna steal back my Microsoft MCE receiver which will hopefully fix all my problems. My friend can suck it. Also trying out the Gyro mouse I bought for him at fry's today to see how I like that.

May also try using Xbox 360 wireless controller w/ xpadder and see how that goes. Seems like it may be a nearly perfect interface since you can do both keystroke & mouse emulation from one device.

Anyways, 2.5 days of horrible frustration...

Final attempt is going to be to turn this into a Hackintosh, use the microsoft receiver & a program called Remote Buddy which I believe is compatible to emulate Apple remotes (6-buttons) w/ the harmony 880 and manually program in codes for every button...

FML

so how come you didnt just get a firefly or firefly mini?

i hate you

lol... i was actually wondering if you had some reason.

well i had a fancy case w/ integrated IR, and I had a $150 harmony remote... i didn't really want to go spend $80-100 on another remote (or however much they were)