Pandora 10-foot experience

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mcewinter

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#41

Post by mcewinter » Mon Jun 30, 2014 2:37 pm

barnabas1969 wrote:
mcewinter wrote:HDMI-CEC is great if you have the equipment to support it. When I replace my TV and AVR I will definitely go that route but both components are in perfect working order at the moment. Honestly, I'm still able to use MC for most everything. For the most part, outside the living room is where I have adopted other solutions.
The best way I've found to use Pandora is via an Internet-enabled AVR. My Yamaha RX-A2010 comes with a free app for your smartphone/tablet which allows you to control the AVR. This works great with Pandora and several other Internet music sources. No need to even turn on the TV when listening to music.
Bluetooth FTW. Chromecast works great as well without a TV, for music ;)

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#42

Post by barnabas1969 » Mon Jun 30, 2014 4:32 pm

Yeah, bluetooth would work as long as you're close enough to the receiver. WiFi has a longer range, so I am able to control my AVR with the Yamaha app from a much greater distance (out in the back yard). I also have it port forwarded through my router... so I can even control the AVR on 3G or 4G.

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mcewinter

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#43

Post by mcewinter » Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:02 pm

barnabas1969 wrote:Yeah, bluetooth would work as long as you're close enough to the receiver. WiFi has a longer range, so I am able to control my AVR with the Yamaha app from a much greater distance (out in the back yard). I also have it port forwarded through my router... so I can even control the AVR on 3G or 4G.
I have several receivers. Instead of buying new ones for each location, it was easier and cheaper to equip each location with Bluetooth and/or Chromecast. I love that we have this many options these days.

Fusion

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#44

Post by Fusion » Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:01 am

@Chuggy: I tried the link from the digitalmediazone site, no dice. It works exactly the same whether I use the link with all the query string data or or just tv.pandora.com. I also tried changing some of the parameters in the string around, nothing helped. It still "works" in IE with the useragent string altered to the Xbox's useragent string, but... my remote doesn't work except to pause and play a song. I tried my wireless Xbox controller through my htpc, as well, no dice. None of the buttons do anything on the Pandora site.

The only work around that I can think of, and it's not a good option, is programming autohotkey to mouse click a particular location on the screen, and then assign that mouse click to a button on my remote. I wouldn't set every Pandora option, but enough to get it so that I could skip a song and change to another existing channel.

Chuggy

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#45

Post by Chuggy » Wed Jul 02, 2014 1:41 pm

Hmmm. I tried to use your registry mod but my browser gives me a blank page. What version of windows/IE are you using? Not sure if that could be my issue or not. This whole deal is a real bummer; for the last 6 months I have had a problem free, wife friendly, htpc. She used Pandora more than anything.

Edit- what about any other keyboard buttons? Do they do anything? I have intelliremote set up maybe the keystrokes could be mapped.

nathagt

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#46

Post by nathagt » Fri Jul 04, 2014 2:40 am

I just installed the native pandora plugin that larsf developed for MCE and honestly its great, not sure why I didn't just do this before. For me using relaunch/chrome was always a little kluge. His app allows you to choose your playlists, like/dislike songs, show artist info, artwork, and the pause, play, and skip buttons all work. I copied the link from another post and put it below:

http://sdrv.ms/1cvccxZ

Fusion

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#47

Post by Fusion » Fri Jul 04, 2014 3:13 am

I'm using Windows 8 and ie11 on my htpc, but I would think that those registry settings would work with ie 10 or 11 and windows 7 or 8. But there's nothing else special that I did. Just the registry settings and then going to tv.pandora.com "works". It auto-reroutes tv.pandora.com to tv.pandora.com/xbox. I tried every other keyboard key and none of them do anything on the site for me unfortunately, but it brings up the site and starts playing the last station I was on right away and sounds good. :)

I'm going to give McPandora a shot. I had downloaded it a while back but never used it since tv.pandora.com worked so well for me.

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Doctor Feelgood

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#48

Post by Doctor Feelgood » Fri Jul 04, 2014 4:09 pm

I had been using McPandora for the last week plus - but not really liking it. I like it much more today now that I accidentally discovered that Channel Up is skip forward, and Channel Down is skip back on my remote... Not sure any other app lets you skip back to the previous song, so that is pretty cool. Now if only Love and Hate did something, and were called Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down.

nathagt

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#49

Post by nathagt » Fri Jul 04, 2014 5:31 pm

all my songs have started skipping to next track after about one minute. I emailed the developer to see if he would mind taking a look at it. I think it has the potential to be great, just need some work.

eeprom

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#50

Post by eeprom » Sat Jul 05, 2014 8:38 pm

nathagt wrote:all my songs have started skipping to next track after about one minute. I emailed the developer to see if he would mind taking a look at it. I think it has the potential to be great, just need some work.
I think you just found out why people were preferring the browser based solution over the plug-in.

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#51

Post by nathagt » Sat Jul 05, 2014 11:56 pm

probably... but the browser doesn't work anymore so I've moved on. The developer has already emailed me back and seems interested in making it better. He just didn't know if anyone was using it.

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newfiend

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#52

Post by newfiend » Wed Jul 09, 2014 12:10 am

Ok People .. If you like using Pandora in WMC.. GET INVOLVED! http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2014/07/ ... eater-pcs/
I sent a couple Tweet's myself.. the more response they get the better..
newfiend~

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Doctor Feelgood

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#53

Post by Doctor Feelgood » Wed Jul 09, 2014 2:34 pm

Well - I retweeted it. Would be nice if it got some attention.

I am now experiencing the odd behavior others report with the more native plugin... It had worked fine until I decided to see if Love/Hate did anything. I loaded up the usual Pandora web interface on another PC while using the MCE plugin on an HTPC... I clicked love and hate on a couple songs, and was surprised to see them listed on the other PC, since you get no feedback in MCE. Anyway, I then deleted those songs from the lists on that other PC, and that is when the wheels fell off the bus in the MCE plugin. Started skipping song after song after 10 seconds of play, or just going silent despite indicating it was playing.

Chuggy

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#54

Post by Chuggy » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:19 pm

I have emailed back and forth with customer service and have received basic canned responses like:"The interface is not designed for htpc." It seems odd that they couldn't just provide a working link. They have obviously specifically decided that they do not want other platforms to have access. Frustrating!

eeprom

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#55

Post by eeprom » Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:21 pm

Bump

webminster

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#56

Post by webminster » Mon Sep 22, 2014 6:30 pm

Sorry, there's nothing to bump. Pandora changed things to where this no longer works, won't help define a new solution. No one (yet) has figured out a workaround. I miss it, but I've moved on to using either my Roku or the Pandora app in my Denon receiver to listen to Pandora. Don't count on it working again, unless we get lucky.
-Alan

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#57

Post by burkasaurusrex » Tue Nov 04, 2014 6:27 am

Fusion wrote:If you use IE instead of Chrome, and force Internet Explorer to use the User Agent string from an Xbox(Pandora's site thinks an Xbox is hitting their site), it works again... except the buttons on my remote won't work with it so it's VERY crippled for me. You won't need a special URL that way, just tv.pandora.com. But it seems that no keyboard keys at all work for me with it that way. I tried forcing the User Agent string in Chrome but it still won't come up there.

Registry settings to change the IE User Agent:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
@="Mozilla/5.0"
"Compatible"="compatible"
"Platform"="Windows NT 6.2; Trident/6.0; Xbox; Xbox One"
"Version"="MSIE 10.0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
@="Mozilla/5.0"
"Compatible"="compatible"
"Platform"="Windows NT 6.2; Trident/6.0; Xbox; Xbox One"
"Version"="MSIE 10.0"
(Paste that into a text file, name it XboxUserAgent.reg. Then run it.)
Just building off of Fusion's solution, I got it to work with the following registry edits:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
@="Mozilla/5.0"
"Compatible"="compatible"
"Platform"="Windows NT 6.2; Trident/6.0; Xbox; Xbox One"
"Version"="MSIE 10.0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
@="Mozilla/5.0"
"Compatible"="compatible"
"Platform"="Windows NT 6.2; Trident/6.0; Xbox; Xbox One"
"Version"="MSIE 10.0"	

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION]
"iexplore.exe"=dword:00002711

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION]
"iexplore.exe"=dword:00002711

I've had more success running IE in -extoff mode as well. Just create a shortcut with the target being:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -extoff http://tv.pandora.com
Or optionally in kiosk mode:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -extoff -k http://tv.pandora.com
The basic premise is that the code needs to execute using IE's Document Mode 10. The remote still doesn't work though, mainly because the browser is detecting somewhere in there that the dPad functionality should be disabled. I still need to dig through the javascript to see if there is a way to fix this...

teebs

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#58

Post by teebs » Thu Nov 13, 2014 5:19 pm

So burkasaurusrex, I used your solution and combed through the javascript. I found the following within the page header:

configuration['_data'] = {"mn":["smil","inputtypes[time]","touch","cssreflections"],"model":"xboxone","mp":["fontface"],"audio":true,"allow":true,"vendor":"microsoft","mouseEnabled":"true","castenv":"","type":"console","rc":null,"version":"4","v":"","visual":"","showConsole":"false","casting":"","modelYear":"2013","dPadEnabled":"false","delay":"true","redirectUrl":"https://tv.pandora.com"};

I see 2 relevant configuration items:
  • "mouseEnabled":"true"
  • "dPadEnabled":"false"
I think if we could flip "dPadEnabled" to true, we'd have a solution.

Unfortunately I have no idea how to edit a javascript variable configuration on the fly, but maybe someone here has an idea.

teebs

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#59

Post by teebs » Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:31 pm

Alternatively, if we can simply fake a browser other than Xbox 360 or Xbox One, and use a browser that natively has the keyboard enabled, I believe that would also give us a solution. Perhaps the Nintendo Wii U or Playstation browsers allow d-pad use?

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#60

Post by GnatGoSplat » Thu May 14, 2015 3:14 pm

nathagt wrote:all my songs have started skipping to next track after about one minute. I emailed the developer to see if he would mind taking a look at it. I think it has the potential to be great, just need some work.
I installed McPandora from the link you posted earlier. I don't have the skipping problem (yet). How long before it starts doing that? It does seem the program is quite buggy overall. I had trouble getting the Love/Hate buttons to register at all, and one time I stopped the song and couldn't get it restarted. Also going to Now Playing took me to a regular music playing screen instead of the Pandora interface (though oddly, music playback seemed more reliable in that screen).

Did the developer reply? I'm curious if he would be willing to share his source if he's no longer working on it. I feel like it could use many improvements. I have no idea how to code a WMC plugin, but I'm a programmer by trade and willing to learn.

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