Setting Up A Universal Remote For Your Xbox Media Center (XBMC)

Lifehacker had a post about how to ‘Transform Your Classic Xbox into a Killer Media Center‘. It is a great read and anyone who has an old Xbox lying around should definitely try it out. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt to buy a used one for really cheap to have an amazing Media Center, instead of building your own from scratch. Once you’ve got that set up, one of the most useful things that you can do is get your universal remote to work with the Xbox Media Center. This is fairly easy to do, just follow these steps:

Getting The Infrared Receiver

First, you’ll need the Infrared Receiver Dongle which comes with the Xbox DVD-Remote. Once you connect that to the Xbox, you can use any universal remote control. You can easily find these dongles on eBay for very cheap - around $10-15. Just search for the Xbox Remote Control Playback Kit.

Setting The Code

Once you connect that to the Xbox, you need to set your universal remote control VCR or DVD code to an RCA code. This is the protocol that the dongle receives. Your remotes manual should have a list which includes many different types of DVD’s or VCR’s; choose a code that is for RCA. Once you see that some of the buttons work - like up, down, menu - you’re done setting the code.

Personalizing The Remote Buttons

This is the most important step - making the remote behave exactly as you want it to. Fortunately, XBMC makes it incredibly easy to find each button that your unique remote sends the receiver, so that you can change its settings.

This is done by changing the <displayremotecodes> to true in the AdvancedSettings.xml file. Sounds confusing? It’s really not. All you have to do is locate the UserData folder in XBMC and open the AdvancedSettings.xml file. (If it doesn’t exist - create it). In it, type this code:

<displayremotecodes>true</displayremotecodes>

Now restart XBMC and you should notice that every time you press a button with the remote, a code displays on the screen. This is the code that you will use to change individual buttons. Take note of each button code which you want to change the default function of.

Next, open up the file Keymap.xml - which is also in the UserData folder. It will have this structure:

<keymap>
<global>
<remote>
…

Before the <remote> tag, add this:

<universalremote>
<obc##>[Command]</obc##>
<obc##>[Command2]</obc##>
…
</universalremote>

Where ## is, you replace it with the code that you previously wrote down. Of course, it should be replaced with the same number in the same line. Where [command] is, replace it with the different commands that XBMC knows - found in this list. You can add as many commands as you want for each button code. For example, if XBMC tells you that the ‘Stop’ button is code 24, ‘Pause’ is 32 and ‘Rewind’ is 49, you should add this line of code:

<universalremote>
<obc24>Stop</obc24>
<obc32>Pause</obc32>
<obc49>Rewind</obc49>
</universalremote>

Once you are done, restart XBMC and all the buttons should be set exactly as you want them to be. Finally, you should edit AdvancedSettings.xml and add ‘false’ instead of true, so the codes will not bother you every time you press on a button.

That’s it! Enjoy your ultimate media center.