3 ms·

Was HDMI-CEC not an option here? Particularly considering a Raspberry Pi is involved.

m463 5y ago
I wonder if it would have worked. My personal experience with cec-utils is that device support is hit or miss. I tried controlling a TV a while back, and I think I could get it to turn on, but not standby or off. Worth a shot though. (I do think his project is pretty cool, and it shows people that they can regain control of their dysfunctional iot devices)
- lloeki 5y ago
  > hit or miss What a polite way to say it. CEC and DDC-CI, are these two things that should be absolutely nailed given in terms of low level commands how simple they really are and how long they've been around, yet are thoroughly broken through and through in so many subtle ways, from broken payloads to timing issues. And even when the low level protocol is correctly implemented you can be sure that the high level behaviour of the devices is not doing what you'd want it to, with no workaround possible. e.g one device turns -all- devices on/off no questions asked, another would not allow separate configuration of being controlled vs controlling, and/or power on vs power off, a third one would disable CEC the moment you select headset audio output because it goes in the way of their MegaMagicSync+ feature (which is just CEC with a bunch of useless proprietary stuff to talk to other devices of the same brand, coz gotta "add value" and "differentiate")...
  - kingosticks 5y ago
    I agree with everything you've said here (especially "MegaMagicSync+"). But why is it such a mess? Was it added to the spec late? Or maybe because manufacturers implement it as an afterthought and don't bother testing it. They seem to get the regular part of HDMI mostly right. Although now that I say that I remember having problems with HDMI switches in the past... It's probably too late for HDMI-CEC, there are too many crappy pieces of hardware out there. I'm just wondering what stops this from happening next time. It's a great system when it works and so much better than trying to reverse engineer other protocols. Just a shame that it's so bad it doesn't even get a mention in a post like this where it should have been the perfect solution.
nl 5y ago
HDMI-CEC might have replaced the remote control protocol, but it would have taken the (single) HDMI input, and the author wanted that for the TV. The TOSLINK input was unused.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  Couldn't they plug it in to the TV? My AppleTV can control my soundbar volume and it's plugged into the TV and not the soundbar.
- kingosticks 5y ago
  I did have a quick look before posting and I thought I saw that bar had a hdmi input (for the pi) and then an output with ARC for the TV. I thought that would work but I admit it's been a while since I tinkered with CEC. But as others have said, it is flakey. I was subscribed to the libcec issue tracker for a while and it was relentless with per-device issues. I had a mostly good experience with a Sony TV but it seems to be pot luck. Relatedly, does a £300 soundbar in 2020 still only come with one HDMI input!?
linsomniac 5y ago
The YAS-207 CEC is is pretty flaky I'm afraid.
crooked-v 5y ago
CEC is always an incredible pain even with devices that supposedly have first-party support for it.

m463 5y ago

I wonder if it would have worked. My personal experience with cec-utils is that device support is hit or miss. I tried controlling a TV a while back, and I think I could get it to turn on, but not standby or off. Worth a shot though. (I do think his project is pretty cool, and it shows people that they can regain control of their dysfunctional iot devices)

lloeki 5y ago
> hit or miss What a polite way to say it. CEC and DDC-CI, are these two things that should be absolutely nailed given in terms of low level commands how simple they really are and how long they've been around, yet are thoroughly broken through and through in so many subtle ways, from broken payloads to timing issues. And even when the low level protocol is correctly implemented you can be sure that the high level behaviour of the devices is not doing what you'd want it to, with no workaround possible. e.g one device turns -all- devices on/off no questions asked, another would not allow separate configuration of being controlled vs controlling, and/or power on vs power off, a third one would disable CEC the moment you select headset audio output because it goes in the way of their MegaMagicSync+ feature (which is just CEC with a bunch of useless proprietary stuff to talk to other devices of the same brand, coz gotta "add value" and "differentiate")...
- kingosticks 5y ago
  I agree with everything you've said here (especially "MegaMagicSync+"). But why is it such a mess? Was it added to the spec late? Or maybe because manufacturers implement it as an afterthought and don't bother testing it. They seem to get the regular part of HDMI mostly right. Although now that I say that I remember having problems with HDMI switches in the past... It's probably too late for HDMI-CEC, there are too many crappy pieces of hardware out there. I'm just wondering what stops this from happening next time. It's a great system when it works and so much better than trying to reverse engineer other protocols. Just a shame that it's so bad it doesn't even get a mention in a post like this where it should have been the perfect solution.

nl 5y ago

HDMI-CEC might have replaced the remote control protocol, but it would have taken the (single) HDMI input, and the author wanted that for the TV. The TOSLINK input was unused.

kalleboo 5y ago
Couldn't they plug it in to the TV? My AppleTV can control my soundbar volume and it's plugged into the TV and not the soundbar.
kingosticks 5y ago
I did have a quick look before posting and I thought I saw that bar had a hdmi input (for the pi) and then an output with ARC for the TV. I thought that would work but I admit it's been a while since I tinkered with CEC. But as others have said, it is flakey. I was subscribed to the libcec issue tracker for a while and it was relentless with per-device issues. I had a mostly good experience with a Sony TV but it seems to be pot luck. Relatedly, does a £300 soundbar in 2020 still only come with one HDMI input!?

linsomniac 5y ago

The YAS-207 CEC is is pretty flaky I'm afraid.

crooked-v 5y ago

CEC is always an incredible pain even with devices that supposedly have first-party support for it.