Pair Television set's remote with HTPC?

I tried to find a manual for a viera TV online but didn't see one on the Panasonic site. Is the remote control that came with the TV a universal? Many include a setting for Media Center so all you would need is an IR receiver for the computer. You can also get something like a Harmony remote and use it to control the TV and PC. Without more info on your setup it hard to give you detailed advice.

If you can set your remote to control a DVD, VCR, Receiver or other devices then it's a universal. There would be buttons labeled as such or a menu system if it's a LCD remote. WMC requires special IR codes just for itself so you would need a Universal remote that includes those codes. It may be possible to add limited functionality by using a program like Eventghost to intercept the IR and feed commands to WMC via a plugin.

In this case IF and only IF Event ghost sees your DVD transport as individual commands it could be used to control Media Center. The problem with the WMC IR receiver is that, depending on what device is programmed, might only show one IR code such a R1834 no matter which button you press on your remote.

just thought i'd throw this out there, the xbox remote will control media center and has the ability to control one other device.

Yes, but if he has to buy a new remote he might as well get a universal that includes MCE codes which most, if not all, Philips and Harmony do....even my Vizio universal remote has a MCE codeset.

Check out http://www.pcremotecontrol.com/ for some info. And also search for LIRC, Girder.

The problem with LIRC is it is quite old and it requires a serial port (RS-232) based IR receiver. I am not sure if there are USB based receiver support. I have personally used Girder and it requires a bit of programming.

It is much easier if you use a programmable remote like a JP1 or Harmony and pair it with a MCE IR receiver. As a bonus, you can also use your remote to control other devices like BR player or Hi-Fi.

Also lookup USB-UIRT and Streamzap. The former is a universal IR transceiver and the latter is a remote + receiver. Both are supported by Grider (possibly others) to read regular remotes.

If you are even more tech savvy, you may be able to hack the IR receiver with the bundled HVR-1250 (digital tuner + receiver for less than $50) to use with regular remote. Google is your friend.