How to get status (play/pause/stop) from MCE

[Tieske8]

Hi

I'm trying to achieve the following and would appreciate any help with it;

My MCE 2005 setup uses an external amplifier connected through SPDIF, I used the info here to control the volume of the amplifier (using the USB-UIRT). But as my amplifier is in another room I would like to add to this a setup that will also automatically switch on/off the amplifier based upon the state of MCE. So whenever the state changes to;
- Play: Amplifier will be switched on
- Pause/Stop: a timer will be set to 10 minutes, when the timer expires, the amplifier will be switched off

The IR actions for switching on/off have been created and work (when testing from Girder). Big question; how do I get the state of MCE (or even better state-changes).

(I suppose it's a dumb question seeing all the advanced stuff in the forums, but some how I can't figure it out...)

Any help is appreciated! Thx!

PS. in case its important; Windows Media Player 11 is installed on the system

[cjean]

Fairly simple my friend!

I you already have your remote mapped, just create an USB-UIRT action with a learned ON code. To trigger you action with Play under the Predefined Events into the Event Window.

For OFF its almost same just create a macro this time. Under this Macro Create a Simple Timer Action (found under Miscellaneous), then an USB-UIRT OFF action. Now to trigger your simple Timer, create 1 Pause and 1 Stop event. Then open your Simple timer and define your timer parameter, click on ON TIMER then point to OFF USBUIRT Action.

You should be done.

I would suggest to prevent many ON/OFF cycle, to turn ON your receiver on Girder Open and OFF when you are leaving Girder. I did that and working great.

Happy automation

Charles

[Tieske8]

Thx Charles I see what you mean, but....

If a playlist or song just ends the amplifier will remain powered on in your scenario. Only when I manually push the stop or pause button the timer will be set.

My MCE server is an always on server and therefore I also can't use the girder start/exit events (they only run when m$ windows crashes ).

So I (think I) really need to get the current state or state changes of MCE. Any alternatives?

Thijs

[cjean]

OK now I see what you want to do. I've never cross that situation and I'll need a bit of thinkng....

Charles

[Tieske8]

Yesterday I was browsing for a fix for this when I ran into DVDspy. I tried it on my laptop but doesn't seem to work...

What I did;

• Installed DVD spy (2.1), required files, readme and windows media player option
• Readme listed: manually register WMPspy.dll using regsrv32, did that.
• Check plugin options in WMP and made sure the plugin DVDspy was enabled
• started Girder, enabled DVDspy plugin and DVDspy on the Logger tab
• started WMP and fooled around stopping & starting songs

But the Girder log doesn't show any events generated by DVDspy? any ideas on this?

btw; Tested it on my Laptop, no MCE, but WMP11 and Girder 4.0

[cjean]

I tested many things to help you but didn't find a way to make it work the way you want. I think the best way is to have an MCE plugin were you can read the status of MCE when you want to display it on a VFD/LCD. Personaly I have not did that in the past and can't tell you how to do it. Maybe somebody in this forum managed to make it work.

Sorry

Charles

[Tieske8]

So here we are again, I managed to get DVD spy to work (dunno what I did, but it suddenly popped events in Girder).

But.... DVD spy hooks into the underlying WMP session, which doesn't show everything, for example TV shows don't show up in DVD spy.

Well brushed up my programming skills and developed my own "MCE-spy" application (unfortunately I'm unable to make it a plugin, that's beyond my programming skills).

All events generated by MCE (the MSAS com object) will be forwarded to Girder, states, media info, sessions start/end, volume, etc. etc. (actually I was pretty impressed by its power myself, just wondering whether I overlooked something as it wasn't that hard to program it, so why hasn't someone else made it....). Be sure to carefully read the installation instructions, as it requires some fiddling.

Attached the files, with instructions and complete sources (visual basic). Works for me, but let me know your experiences, if any...

Edit: removed the attachment, moved it to the download section

[cjean]

So here we are again, I managed to get DVD spy to work (dunno what I did, but it suddenly popped events in Girder).

But.... DVD spy hooks into the underlying WMP session, which doesn't show everything, for example TV shows don't show up in DVD spy.

Well brushed up my programming skills and developed my own "MCE-spy" application (unfortunately I'm unable to make it a plugin, that's beyond my programming skills).

All events generated by MCE (the MSAS com object) will be forwarded to Girder, states, media info, sessions start/end, volume, etc. etc. (actually I was pretty impressed by its power myself, just wondering whether I overlooked something as it wasn't that hard to program it, so why hasn't someone else made it....). Be sure to carefully read the installation instructions, as it requires some fiddling.

Attached the files, with instructions and complete sources (visual basic). Works for me, but let me know your experiences, if any...

Hey man this is really cool!

I was looking for a way to tell my A/V receiver to switch surround mode upon if I was listening TV or music automatically.

I'm also curious to see that nobody here claimed this feature with Girder in the past. I see this feature as fundamental tool to operate Media Center efficiently. For me, Girder is the brain of my HTPC and I don't see how I could use MCE without Girder, it made my life and wife's too a lot simpler.

Rob, Ron & Mike

Can you give us a “lua” example on how we can integrate this feature within Girder without requiring an external app? I'm pretty sure that Girder is smart enough to be able to capture the MSAS com objects so we can manipulate them inside Girder? I'm not asking you to do the whole thing but if you can give us a good start, Tieske8 I & will do the rest.

Thank you,

Charles

[cjean]

So here we are again, I managed to get DVD spy to work (dunno what I did, but it suddenly popped events in Girder).

But.... DVD spy hooks into the underlying WMP session, which doesn't show everything, for example TV shows don't show up in DVD spy.

Well brushed up my programming skills and developed my own "MCE-spy" application (unfortunately I'm unable to make it a plugin, that's beyond my programming skills).

All events generated by MCE (the MSAS com object) will be forwarded to Girder, states, media info, sessions start/end, volume, etc. etc. (actually I was pretty impressed by its power myself, just wondering whether I overlooked something as it wasn't that hard to program it, so why hasn't someone else made it....). Be sure to carefully read the installation instructions, as it requires some fiddling.

Attached the files, with instructions and complete sources (visual basic). Works for me, but let me know your experiences, if any...

Hi Tieske8 again,

I think we should post this into the Developpement forum. I will start a thread overthere!

Please push with me.

Regards,

[Tieske8]

for the record: the development thread