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robl45
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| Posted: September 24 2009 at 10:42 | IP Logged
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I'm a newbee to all of this so bear with me here.
What exactly is powerhome used for? I understand it controls X10 and Insteon devices and such. Somehow it seems it will control hometheatre as well but I'm guessing only with usb uart or whatever it is? Does it integrate with windows media center or do anything with DVD's? I'd kinda like to have a little touch screen computer or iphone, ipod touch or whatever and be able to control all my lights and home theatre devices
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onhiatus
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| Posted: September 24 2009 at 17:36 | IP Logged
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There are several ways PowerHome can control things. It can send a signal via wire or RF to an X10 or Insteon device using a controller. It can connect to things via sockets, it can hit webpages, etc.
I use PH to control a vista media center box - take a look at the opensource Vista Media Center TCP/IP Controller project. It implements a socket and http interface which pretty much allows you to completely control Media Center. Note that it does not work with XP, and some functionality does not work with Win7.
I use PH to serve the web pages, report statuses, and run schedules. For VMC control I have the web pages directly talk to the VMC TCP/IP Controller via http - that way there is no lag.
For my touch screens I use the Nokia 770, though I've been planying with an iPod touch and I'm thinking I'll start coding towards it.
Interesting links:
- Here's a simple remote web app for an iPod Touch or iPhone that talks to a VMC controller to simpulate a Windows Media remote: http://www.onhiatus.com/ha/remote.html
- Here's a previous post showing what my controller pages looked like a few iterations ago (not Safari or Chrome friendly, so doesn't work right from an iPhone): Topic: My wall screen interface
Have fun! Tony
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robl45
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| Posted: September 24 2009 at 18:13 | IP Logged
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I went over the links, the remote thing looks cool, although seems to be pretty big for a ipod. the media center thing is nice, but if it doesn't work for windows 7, its not that much use. are there any other ways to get media center to work? I guess you could use a usb-uirt and another ir receiver to feed back into the machine but since the powerhome can only use one usb-uirt, that doesn't seem to be feasible.
how do you code the touch screens? is it just simply normal webpages optimized for certain browsers or something? I assume powerhome has the template functions to code the things?
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robl45
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| Posted: September 25 2009 at 11:30 | IP Logged
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would something like the below help?
http://www.niveusmedia.com/products/softlabs.html
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robl45
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| Posted: September 25 2009 at 11:54 | IP Logged
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windows media center has keyboard commands, can powerhome put out keyboard commands or something.
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onhiatus
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| Posted: September 28 2009 at 13:43 | IP Logged
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FYI - There will be a Win7 compatible release for the VMC TCP/ IP remote plugin soon (next day or two). Only problem is that the EPG stuff will be disabled (that's the compatability issue right now).
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robl45
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| Posted: September 28 2009 at 14:46 | IP Logged
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not sure what epg stuff is. I read the manual for powerhome and it says it can put out keyboard commands, wouldn't the simplest way be to control media center with keyboard commands?
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onhiatus
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| Posted: September 29 2009 at 14:09 | IP Logged
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EPG == TV Guide (Electronic Program Guide) - the stuff needed for Tivo like functionality
If powerhome is running on the same machine then keyboard commands can do some of the control (pause / play / etc). Keyboard commands are not good for navigation (since you probably do not know where youa re starting) or searching or playing a specific album, etc.
Are you planning on running Powerhome on the same box as media center?
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robl45
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| Posted: September 29 2009 at 19:21 | IP Logged
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I was thinking I would probably run it on the same box, is that a bad idea? as I understand, there should be a keyboard shortcut for everything. The win7 TCP/IP plugin may be a better solution. I'm pretty new to all of this stuff as you can tell.
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onhiatus
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| Posted: October 01 2009 at 18:35 | IP Logged
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I guess if it's a capable enough machine it should be ok.
I run Power Home on a fairly lightweight machine in the attic - it runs the machine pretty near capacity, but like I said, it's not much of a machine.
I believe VMC can also be pretty hard on resources and assume that Win7 MC will be similar. So you may have perf issues.
Ignoring that, then yes, you should be able to use powerhome to send keystrokes to pause, play, FF, etc. Again it will be difficult when you want to play a specific song, or go look at photos or any of that.
Have fun! Tony
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dhoward
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| Posted: October 06 2009 at 14:53 | IP Logged
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It sounds like the DCC (Distributed Control Client) for PowerBuilder may be what you're looking for. With it running on a remote machine (in this case the media center PC), PowerHome could send keystrokes or Windows messages to the currently running apps. I currently use the DCC on my SageTV machine to control it from PowerHome with Windows messages.
Dave.
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Topic: general questions about Powerhome
