Pandora 10-foot experience

[makryger]

Pandora just released a new interface that is made for TVs. Information can be found at tv.pandora.com. Unfortunately, at the moment, it's only available on the xbox and ps3... can someone figure out how to get this website on our HTPCs so we can use it too?


https://tv.pandora.com/

[staknhalo]

I saw this earlier today. They say they plan on rolling it out to more platforms in the future, so we'll have to wait and see.

[Doctor Feelgood]

That would be nice to have in MCE!

[werds]

Hmmmm... I might just purchase an Xbone now... as long as the Skype works on it and I can connect it directly to my HTPC to overlay on that, this might provide an easier way for me to access my Xfinity on Demand and now Pandora... it's already nice that I have Xbox360's as extenders but getting this on my main TV screen would be best (and I have no desire to hook up an Xbox 360 without Skype capability in the living room)

[staknhalo]

That would be nice to have in MCE!

Should be able to use it using ReLaunch once available.

[joshpollard]

You can get it working on Media Center. Check out our article for details on how to get it working

http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2013/06/ ... n-an-htpc/

[Doctor Feelgood]

That was being discussed over here: http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=9&t=5479

And I got pretty excited... But I have already given up. I have 3 MCE systems I wanted to run this on, and I have 3 different errors preventing it from working properly...

All systems are Windows 7 64-Bit, and all are configured very similarly and work well otherwise. All have Chrome installed and are connected to the same Google account.

1. One system won't let me select Chrome as a browser within Relaunch so it fails before I even get started.
2. One system created the MCE shortcut properly and launches Chrome to the proper page, but it is behind MCE and you can't interact with it even though you can hear it.
3. One system doesn't do a thing, despite Relaunch installing the shortcut properly in to MCE.

And - just as a big insult to my desire to have this in place... It works perfectly on my laptop. I just don't have a use for it on my laptop.

[EmirOfGroofunkistan]

I tried this out and got it working. I still prefer to use an older Boxee version with the Pandora app running there. Boxee has some nice visualizations and the experience launching from WMC is smoother IMO. Still, it's nice to see this.

[newfiend]

That was being discussed over here: http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=9&t=5479

And I got pretty excited... But I have already given up. I have 3 MCE systems I wanted to run this on, and I have 3 different errors preventing it from working properly...

All systems are Windows 7 64-Bit, and all are configured very similarly and work well otherwise. All have Chrome installed and are connected to the same Google account.

1. One system won't let me select Chrome as a browser within Relaunch so it fails before I even get started.
2. One system created the MCE shortcut properly and launches Chrome to the proper page, but it is behind MCE and you can't interact with it even though you can hear it.
3. One system doesn't do a thing, despite Relaunch installing the shortcut properly in to MCE.

And - just as a big insult to my desire to have this in place... It works perfectly on my laptop. I just don't have a use for it on my laptop.

Hey Dr. Feelgood =)
On System #1 Install the latest Chrome, Try Removing ReLaunch and Re-installing it (select Run as Administrator) when installing and Running ReLaunch. See if that helps.
On System #2 Open Media Center, Select Tasks/Settings, General, Start Up and Window Behavior, uncheck Always keep Media Center On Top. Also If you are using iMON software on your HTPC for the IR Open iMON Manager look for a box that says Use Exclusive Mode and Uncheck it. I had to do this on my HTPC otherwise it would play but behind WMC and I couldn't control the UI for Pandora with my remote control.
On System #3 Follow the instructions here: http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=9&t=5479 and make sure you run ReLaunch as Administrator.

I have this working very successfully on my HTPC and love it.
newfiend~

[00derek]

"Follow the instructions here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5479 and make sure you run ReLaunch as Administrator."

what instructions? That is just a link to page, which also contains just links to other pages. I've tried guessing at what I'm supposed to do with relaunch but can't get it to work.

Has anyone written a step-by-step?

[00derek]

OK, it's easier than I thought. so easy it doesn't really need a step-by-step, but if anyone else needs help let me know

[Doctor Feelgood]

Almost embarrassed to continue posting here, but nothing works still.

Does Relaunch actually have to be installed? I have not experienced an installer for Relaunch, which is one step I can't duplicate in newfiend's step-by-step. Thanks for the help, but despite trying the new advice I have the same problems.

[newfiend]

Almost embarrassed to continue posting here, but nothing works still.

Does Relaunch actually have to be installed? I have not experienced an installer for Relaunch, which is one step I can't duplicate in newfiend's step-by-step. Thanks for the help, but despite trying the new advice I have the same problems.

:what the heck:

Don't be embarrassed.. If you don't ask for help you can't get things working and that's what this site is supposed to be for, Help. We have all had questions or problems we couldn't figure out on our own. Mine included.

I guess you are correct that relaunch doesn't come as an installer. You just download it, Right click the download and Run as Administrator.
Do you have the .NET Framework 4.x Installed? If not you need that for ReLaunch to work.
ReLaunch here: http://code.google.com/p/relaunch/
.NET 4.5.1 is here: http://www.microsoft.com/net
I'll try and work up a step by step with screen shots in the near future and post it below asap.
newfiend~

[newfiend]

Ok I will most likely have to post this as two separate posts unless the Mods here want to grant me a nice wish and merge this step by step into one nice post.. Please and Thank You.?

I hope this helps anyone out that is having issues getting this working. I have tested this method on both my Windows 7 PC and Windows 8.1 PC as well and both work splendid.

Add Pandora to Windows Media Center Step by Step Guide.

Download and Install Chrome here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/
Install .NET Framework 4.x here: http://www.microsoft.com/net
Download ReLaunch here: https://code.google.com/p/relaunch/

Split post due to link limits..

[newfiend]

Find the ReLaunch program you downloaded, Right Click it and select Run as Administrator.
Once ReLaunch is open set App to Launch to Custom (should be set to this by default when you open Relaunch)
Set “With” to: Chrome
Set “Trigger” to: Green Button
Put a Check Mark in Full Screen.
In the URL box, Copy and Paste the entire updated URL at this link http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2013/06/ ... n-an-htpc/ into that box in Relaunch.
In the Name Box type: Pandora
You can set an image to use on the WMC menu I used this one below. There are others available online if you don’t like this one, as well as some others provided on TGB from Makryger they are available here: http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=9&t=6174
Find an Icon you like for Pandora and save it to your HDD/SSD I found that a .png file works best. If you find a .jpg that you like you can always open it in MS Paint and then save it as a .png.
Click Browse and find the icon you like and add it to Relaunch.
Now that you added an Image you should see it on the right of the Relaunch window.
Now on the Left click Add, to add it to the Current Tiles.
Now under Current Tiles it should have Pandora listed there.
Screen Shot Below, Your Relaunch window should look like this. Except for the Image Directory (that will depend on where you imported your image from).

Relaunch Screenshot

My Pandora Icon

icon2.png (53.97 KiB) Viewed 4720 times

Now Close Relaunch, Click the X to close the window.
Now open Windows Explorer and navigate to %LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
Find the Preferences file, Right click it and select properties. Under Attributes check mark the box Read-only, click Apply, then OK.
Open Chrome from the Desktop.
In the address bar type About:Flags hit the enter key.
Scroll down to: Disable Better Session Restore and set it to Disabled (Clicking on Enabled changes it to Disabled). Close Chrome.
Open WMC , Navigate to Extras Library and open it. In there will be your Pandora Icon. You can right click it and click Add to Start Menu if you like.
Or if you use Media Center Studio you can add it to the Music Section of the WMC main Menu.
This is what I did and it works perfectly for me on both WMC (Windows 7 and Windows 8.1)
NOTE: to Exit Pandora using a WMC Remote you must use the “Green Button” to exit Pandora and return to the WMC Main Menu.
Hope this guide helps out.
newfiend~

[Doctor Feelgood]

Thanks again... Some systems did not have .net 4.5 (I guess 4 is the latest that Windows Update pushes). I fixed that and still had problems... Then I thought about the comment to not keep Windows Media Center on top. I tried that, but nothing happened. What fixed it for me was taking WMC out of Media Only mode. I have all of my systems boot into WMC with the Media Mode flag set. Exiting Media Mode fixed it. I guess that makes sense, but hadn't seen that mentioned. Can others run it with Media Mode enabled?

[newfiend]

No problem, I'm very happy you figured out what was hanging it up. At least with the guide above you knew you had everything done correctly and needed to look elsewhere as to why it wasn't working. I don't have my media center set to media only mode, but I did have it set to boot directly into media center. There is an option in Tasks/Settings that will allow it to boot straight into media center. Very happy this is working for you now at least. =)

[Doctor Feelgood]

Yup - just took a little extra thinking. lol

I don't use WMC's button to start it automatically because it won't use all the flags I have set, so I add a shortcut to Startup in the Windows Start Menu.

Basically - a bunch of these strung together: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/11614/

So that I don't see the start up animation, it loads in to the TV guide, Media Only mode, etc...

I only had Media Mode so it wouldn't get minimized inadvertantly by my kids, but I think with just a remote they can't do that anyway and I will remove it to make Relaunch work!

[Doctor Feelgood]

Just this weekend I noticed that Pandora through Relaunch had a feature I thought it needed from day one - and I am wondering if it actually did. Was the screensaver mode always there and I missed it somehow? That is a welcome touch to keep the screen from showing that static page all the time.

[offroad]

if you just open up the page with any browser it goes directly to a page that mentions you need a Playstation or xbox360 to use this. this will immediately confuse you.

it does work if you do the modifications to the chrome browser as mentioned. do not try to avoid this, as the browser will jump you to a non working page

But the problem is RELAUNCH does not recognize that chrome is installed no matter what I do to try and make it.