As you all know, one of the major disappointment with the Intel Broadwell NUCs was that Intel made it much harder than is should have been to leverage the HTPC’s HDMI CEC header. So when the Intel NUC6i5SYK (Skylake NUC) review unit arrived, one of the first things I did was crack the case to see if Intel had […]
Read moreHDMI CEC is great, when it works. Some of this comes down to HDMI 1.x’s lack of clear definition around how it should work, and most of the rest belongs to OEM’s just making it work for their kit. It looks like the version of CEC for HDMI 2.x devices should address this – certainly goes a long way, when […]
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I was vaguely aware that Pulse-Eight (yep, the PC HDMI-CEC gurus) had moved into the custom installer (CI) market, but must admit to not really following it that closely. Having looked at what their new neo:4 HDMI matrix switch can do, I’m quite impressed. 4K, HDCP 2.2, and four HDBaseT ports + intelligent HDMI CEC control – yum! New neo:4 […]
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Haswell D54250WYB based Intel NUCs included a HDMI-CEC exposing Custom Solutions Header (aka HTPC Header) on board, but there were two pretty major issues with the implementation. The first, and most important, is that there just isn’t space in the chassis to put the adapter that was available. The second is that the 3.3V pin droops when current is drawn. […]
Read moreI was really excited when I found out Intel had placed the HDMI-CEC enabling Custom Solutions Header (CSH) on the D54250WYK NUC. It was exactly the kind of feature that belongs on this near-perfect mini-HTPC. Unfortunately, as we can see in the gallery, something isn’t right with its ability to maintain 3.3V under load. What this means in practice […]
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In an HDMI A/V environment, Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) is the glue that ties components together into a cohesive unit–able to be controlled by a single remote without the hassle, or expense, of a normal universal as well as removing infrared’s (IR) line-of-site requirement for playback devices. Where there can be problems with the protocol, most often the root cause […]
Read moreLinux XBMC users of Pulse-Eight’s HDMI CEC adapter have enjoyed an advantage over their Windows counterparts, in that it offered better support for waking the PC. Fortunately with the just released spin of libCEC (now on 1.8) and associated firmware this slight should be righted – I’ll let you know as soon as I can test it out :). While […]
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Not long ago it was easy to lean primarily on a traditional remote control – universal, of course — relegating the keyboard and mouse to the audio & video (A/V) cabinet, closet, or other locale of last resort –dragging it out just for occasional maintenance or troubleshooting. However, as over-the-top (OTT) content providers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and […]
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It has been about a year since Pulse-Eight announced that they would be selling the Motorola NYXboard Hybrid remote control. It was a pretty exciting announcement if only because we so rarely see a company so unabashedly targeting the HTPC market. The NYXboard is an interesting universal remote control for HTPC users for a number of reasons. For one thing, […]
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