Pulse-Eight USB CEC Adapter Review
by Ganesh T S on January 24, 2012 7:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- HDMI
- Pulse-Eight
- CEC
The Pulse-Eight USB CEC adapter comes in a spartan package with just three components:
- USB - CEC Adapter
- 15cm USB to mini-USB Cable
- 10cm HDMI Cable
The adapter is pretty much self-explanatory in terms of getting the wiring right, but Pulse-Eight does provide a video demonstration of how to integrate the adapter into the setup
I had to use a different mini-USB cable since the one supplied in my review unit was damaged in transit.
For testing purposes, I used the ASRock Vision 3D 252B, running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. The HTPC is a compact 2.5L box with a mini-ITX motherboard housing a Core i5-2520M CPU and a NVIDIA GT540M GPU. The HDMI output was routed to HDMI1 input of a Pioneer Elite VSX-32 A/V receiver, and its output was connected to HDMI1 of a Sony KDL46EX720 television.
On connecting the adapter as shown in the picture above, the Windows Device Manager initially reported an Unknown Device. Manually installing the INF driver through the Device Manager was straightforward (though I had to put up with the unsigned driver warning) as shown in the gallery below.
In the first pass, I installed XBMC Eden Beta 1 downloaded from the official website. XBMC Eden has built-in support for the Pulse-Eight USB CEC adapter. Unfortunately, CEC wouldn't work except when the HDMI output from the adapter was connected directly to the television. A quick exchange with Pulse-Eight revealed that support for CEC through AVRs was only available in Pulse-Eight's custom Eden builds. Since the custom builds are built periodically and are functionally no different from the standard Eden build except for the CEC improvements, there should be no issue with users installing Pulse-Eight's version.
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ganeshts - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
You need to get the wire out and also get the logic to read stuff on the wire / write onto it (this is where the Atmel microcontroller in the box comes into the picture). What is read and written is transferred through the USB port and controlled by libCEC / XBMC Eden built-in code.Malard - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
You are correct you could use our Internal Adapter (when it's released) and tap the CEC wire straight onto it, but the internal adapter relies on 3.3v constant power, which those mainboards supply, again, with enough soldiering you can rig any board to support CEC with the internal adapter, but its time vs reward, and you would be faster to just use the external adapterzilexa - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
Wich case is being used in this setup? I can only see the back in the picture. I am looking for a new case for my new HTPC and this one seems interesting. I am looking for a small one but they have a limited power supply (60-75 watt).ganeshts - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
zilexa, Please look up the specs of the Vision 3D 252B. It is ASRock's custom case and doesn't come with inbuilt PSU (there is a laptop power adapter sized unit delivering the power). Also, the case is pretty small, and I won't advise putting in CPUs of more than 45W TDP in there.Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
I would love to be able to remote control my receiver. But there aint no way I'm paying those kinds of prices. lol. What is wrong with a simple RS232 serial port? It only costs a few bucks for USB to RS232 converter so you are covered even if your pc has no serial port. It is ubiquitous and pretty easy to program.ganeshts - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
That is a DIY solution :) and good luck getting it integrated all into XBMC. This is a OOTB answer to the home theater control issue.Monkeysweat - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
I got a question you might be able to answer,, at home I have a LG TV and a Samsung HTIB that has no HDMI inputs,,,both units are CEC capable but don't work with each other as missmatched brands,, however I can only plug my PC into the TV and the TV is connected to the HTIB by HDMI (receiver output to TV) and by optical cable (output from TV to receiver) - I have anything I play on my TV passthrough by optical output to the stereo as luck would have it, the TV allows DTS passthrough on HDMI
If i use the CEC adapter from the PC to TV,, would it be able to control the hometheater in a box connected on a different hdmi line?
Malard - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
Yes, they are a unified bus, so long as all the hdmi wires connect via some device or other, be in the receiver or the TV then you will be fine.There is also no restriction as to where in the chain you connect the CEC Adapter
Monkeysweat - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
sweeeeeeeeetwill this be made to work with raspberry pi as well? Kinda funny to buy an adapter that'll cost more than the device running it, but c'est la vie
Googer - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I suspect, It's not going to be long until nVIDIA and AMD both start implementing CEC in to their hardware and drivers. So devices like these may possibly become short lived.