Filed under: computers and internet, electronics

If you have a personal computer running Windows XP Media Center Edition and have all your TV shows sitting on your PC’s tough drive (assuming you have a tuner card), wouldn’t it be nice to have a isolated control to that PC — particularly whether it is hooked up to a living room television where you do most of your viewing?

Newer Media Center desktop and laptop PCs come with a standard isolated control, but whether yours did not and you’re running Windows XP Media Center Edition of Windows Vista Home Premium, how about making an infrared receiver

yourself and using any universal isolated control to send commands to that PC?

For those of us who built our own PCs or who just don’t have a isolated control to our systems, that is the reply. You’ll need a working understanding of basic electronics plus computer communication protocols (specifically, RS-232), but all in all that is a pretty easy hack. Check it out here. And, don’t distress — that can work with that newer PC without a working serial port with a USB-to-Serial converter.

 

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Original post by Brian White