The Media Center Blog

MCE LoveFilm updated–2.1.1

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:37:00 +0000

My new favourite Windows Media Center add-in MCE LoveFilm has been updated to version 2.1.1

What’s new since version 2.0 ?

Added "New Releases" and "Just Added"
Added the ability to save favourites.
Online favourites for licensed customers.
Improved streaming capabilities.

New Releases and Just Added are now available under genres, this should make finding new content a little easier.

Favourites - you can now add titles in to a favourites list, I think this is a handy feature for when you are browsing around looking for titles of interest, you can now mark them for later viewing and find them in the new favourites menu item.

Online favourites for licensed customers. You can now set a pin code in the settings on each HTPC that you have MCE LoveFilm installed on. The idea is that your favourites are stored in the “cloud” and you can access the same set of favourite titles from multiple HTPC’s running MCE LoveFilm.

You can now also install a web browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, which enables you to browse the LoveFilm website and then click a button to add the current title to your MCE LoveFilm favourites. Full details are here.

Still on my wish list are watched icons and for the TV Series / Episodes to be grouped like they are in TunerFree MCE.

Forget Netflix! MCE LoveFilm 2.0 is here!!

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:48:00 +0000

You may have read my recent post here about MCE LoveFilm and the lack of a Netflix Windows Media Center add-in here in the UK. Well Martin Millmore of Milliesoft has been hard at work lately coding version 2.0 of his MCE LoveFilm add-in. I have been lucky enough to do all his beta testing so this version is pretty polished. There are new features and I think it works really well, version 2.0 is certainly a great improvement over previous releases and its the first version I have installed on to all my HTPC’s for everyday use!

I recently switched my LoveFilm package to the new unlimited streaming package which costs £4.99. Previously my package had no online streaming and was for discs in the post only.

MCE LoveFilm Setup:

Download and install the add-in from here. Once installed open Windows Media Center and launch the MCE LoveFilm add-in

The first time you launch MCE LoveFilm you will see this screen, click on Set LoveFilm Username.

A browser window will then open the LoveFilm website so you may need to minimize Media Center to see it.

Click the Link My Account button.

It will then say: Link To Account – Approved.

Now return to Windows Media Center and click the Click after authorizing button.

You will then see a Success dialogue click OK.

Your LoveFilm rental list should then be shown.

Now we need to login to the LoveFilm website via the MCE LoveFilm browser window. There are two ways to do this, you can navigate to the Settings on the pivot menu and select the LoveFilm Home Page button.

Note:- mine says “Thank you for purchasing MCE LoveFilm” as this is a purchased copy. I will talk about this more later.

When you click the LoveFilm Home Page button the MCE LoveFilm browser window will be launched outside of Media Center.

You only need to do this the first time, grab your mouse and select Sign In

Or the first time you select to play a video you can press L on the keyboard and it will take you to the sign in screen.

Once you are logged in OK hit the backspace button on the keyboard to exit from the MCE LoveFilm browser window.

That’s it your setup of MCE LoveFilm is now complete and we can now look at the MCE add-in in more detail.

My Rental Lists

If you’re an existing LoveFilm user and you receive discs in the post then you will probably have some titles already listed in the My Rental Lists section. These are the titles you have selected to “Rent”.

I can see which title(s) I have at home and other titles shown in “Stuart’s List” are titles I was waiting to get the discs for.

If you press OK on a title you will see the titles overlay details page. I can select to remove the title from my rental list if I decide I don’t want the disc after all.

When browsing the genres for new titles I can choose to rent any title that is available on disc, by simply clicking the rent button, this will add that title to your rental list.

Once you have selected a title to be rented, you can set the priority of that rental. To do this go to actions on the menu and then you can select if this rental should be High Med or Low priority.

Genres

By selecting genres from the pivot menu we can select titles by genre. For example if I select action/adventure then I will see all the titles in that genre.

You can see there are some new pivot menu options, we can now in version 2.0, filter the titles by Blu-ray / DVD / Watch Online. This is a critical new feature and makes finding titles by format for rent much easier, and it also allows us to view titles that are available to watch online.

Note:- Pay Per View and Free watch online titles are not currently visible in MCE LoveFilm, only titles that you can watch with your package are displayed. This may change in later versions of MCE LoveFilm.

If we select a title, in this example I have selected Inception from the Blu-ray section, I can either play trailer or rent this disc. The front cover and the synopsis can also been seen. Unfortunately you cannot read the full synopsis, Martin tells me LoveFilm limit their synopsis text to 200 characters and there’s nothing he can do about it. We can also see the star rating as from the LoveFilm website.

We can also push up and navigate to the cast + crew menu. Here we can select directors and actors.

If I select an actor then all Blu-ray titles that this particular actor stars in will be displayed. If I navigate to the DVD or Watch Online sections it will also list titles for that actor under those sections as well.

Action/Adventure genre DVD’s

Action/Adventure genre Watch Online

You can see in the above screen shots that only 50 titles are displayed at a time (Paid for version of MCE LoveFilm) You can scroll right to the end of the titles and then select the big arrow to bring up the next 50 titles

In the free version of MCE LoveFilm I believe you can only see 25 titles, which means you will need to probably purchase the add-in if you want the full functionality, the price is currently £9.99 per PC. Personally I think version 2.0 is now worth buying. Perhaps Milliesoft can introduce some multi PC prices ? You can compare the free and premium features here.

All of the functions of MCE LoveFilm within Windows Media Center work with the remote control. However in this new version Martin is using a custom made browser window to display and play the Silverlight video from the LoveFilm website, this is external of Windows Media Center. The videos should auto play without your interaction.

In the screen shot below I have selected a title from the Watch Online section, you can see I now have an additional play button as well as play trailer and rent buttons. If I select play WMC will be auto minimized and the MCE LoveFilm browser window will be opened.

Note:- Due to limitations with the lack of information made available to MCE LoveFilm from the LoveFilm website, Martin is unable to accurately tell if a trailer is actually available for a title or not? So therefore the play trailer button is always there in Media Center, but you may find for some titles once the video page is displayed no trailer is actually available.

Once you click on Play or Play Trailer as shown on the above screen shot, the MCE LoveFilm browser window launches externally outside of Windows Media Center and displays the LoveFilm website zoomed in to the video playback area of that page. Depending on which button you selected in Media Center, auto mouse movements will select to play the trailer or watch now with package.

Video playback

Don’t under any circumstances use your mouse and click the Full Screen button in the top left hand corner. You don’t need to press or use this button. If you do you will end up with a blank black screen and no picture and you won’t easily be able to exit out. Martin says the reason for this is “Because the full screen Silverlight control blocks all key inputs to the application”. So just don’t press that button!

You can however use the volume control and other transport controls as shown below. You can press the 0 button on your remote control to pause and play the videos.

Pressing the BACK button on the remote control however will close the MCE LoveFilm browser window and return you nicely back to MCE LoveFilm in Media Center.

Due to LoveFilm not consistently placing the video playback area in the same position on each webpage on their website, we have to occasionally adjust the screens position. Don’t panic, we can easily do this using the up down / left right directional arrows on the remote control.

In this screen shot you can see the video is not quite fitting the screen correctly. To correct this I just have to press down arrow on my remote a few times till the video image fills the screen nicely.

Video playback after using the directional arrows to move its position.

These issues sound a lot worse than they actually are, I would suggest you install the MCE LoveFilm add-in for yourself and try it out . Over time I expect Milliesoft will improve things further and make things more seamless.

Search – There is also a search button at the top right.

Summary

Overall this is a solid release of MCE LoveFilm allot of the kinks have been ironed out now and I will certainly be using this add-in for the first time on my TV screens and my youngest daughter is now happily watching Thomas the Tank Engine. As you are probably aware there is no official LoveFilm Windows Media Center add-in but we are able to use this great 3rd party add-in thanks to Martin at Milliesoft

Netflix for Windows Media Center

With regards to the official Netflix Windows Media Center add-in and that it is still only available to users in the US. It is my opinion that it is fairly unlikely that UK users will be given access to the add-in. I can’t say for sure obviously and I might be wrong but users in Canada and Brazil never got it either. And I can’t see that any of the threads on the Netflix forums have received an answer either.

If Netflix / Microsoft are unwilling to give UK Windows Media Center users what they want, I would suggest said UK Windows Media Center users vote with their wallets. Stick to LoveFilm and use MCE LoveFilm for your Windows Media Center PC!

My latest Shark 007 codec setup (x64) with LAV Filters–Black Magic!

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:51:00 +0000

UPDATE 1: There appears to be a problem playing back some MKV movies using the LAV filter in version 3.3.9 of the Shark Codec Pack, I have started a thread here. This was not the case in the last version of the Shark Codec Pack I was using which was version 3.1.6. In this guide I recommend you use Haali Splitter on the MKV tab instead of using LAV for now. You can see my working version 3.1.6 LAV setup here.

For connection from your Windows Media Center PC to an Audio Visual Receiver (AVR) 5.1 surround sound pass-through. Either using a HDMI or Optical S/PDIF cable for audio.

This guide is based on Shark Codec Pack version 3.3.9. For x64 Windows 7 OS, ensure you download and install the 32bit version first and then download and install the 64bit components. What’s new since last time I wrote one of these Shark 007 guides is that we are now moving away from FFDSHOW and using the newer LAV Filters for most things. For reference I am using an Intel DH67CFB3 ITX motherboard with the on-chip Intel CPU/GPU. You may need to change some settings specific to your video card manufacturer ATI / Nvidia etc in their driver / graphics properties?

Download both setup files, to install them right click and Run as Administrator (It is recommended you leave Windows UAC turned on)

Run through the setup wizard, unselect Weatherbug if you don’t want to install that as well. Select the Complete installation option.

Once the installation is finished you need to do the same and install the x64 bit components (If your using Windows 64 bit OS). Run through the setup wizard.

When you install Shark 007 it installs a couple of things without asking you, so now go to control panel. Add/Remove programs and remove if you don’t want them the Bing and Ask toolbars. (Please don’t discuss this in my comments below, go do that elsewhere).

You should now have two new entries on your Windows start menu. “Settings Application x64” is used to configure codec settings for 64bit players such as Windows Media Center. “Settings Application” is used to configure codec settings for 32bit players such as Windows Media Player 12.

You should ALWAYS right click these shortcuts from the start menu and select Run as Administrator.

As this guide is for Windows Media Center I will be covering the 64bit settings, however the 32bit settings can be configured virtually the same way.

CONFIG Tab:

By default on 64 bit Windows 7, the default Windows Media Player is the 32 bit version, there is also a 64 bit version of WMP12, Shark recommends sticking with the 32bit version of WMP12 and not changing the default to be the 64 bit version. The Windows Media Center by default is 64 bit ! The x86 version of the shark codec pack is used to configure 32 bit players such as the default WMP12. And you use the x64 bit version of the shark codec pack for configuring 64 bit players such as Windows Media Center.

I normally change Subtitle Control to “No Subtitles” as I don’t have many files with subs, however if you require subtitles then leave it on the default setting of DirectVobSub. (Note this does not affect subtitles in DVD and Blu-ray discs only for video files).

I am going to make a slight variation in the FFDShow audio settings, I have some .MOV files which were originally downloaded from the Apple iTunes store. They were then DRM stripped, these files contain AAC audio tracks and the only way I could get them to play in Windows Media Center was to change the following setting in the FFDShow Audio Decoder configuration, you probably won’t need to do this.

I am changing the audio decoder for AAC audio from libavcodec to libfaad2

AUDIO Tab:

On the screen shot below you can see the default settings for the Audio tab which we will use. Now if you have followed any of my previous guides on Shark 007 setup you will know that I normally select use pass-through (Digital Audio) here for FFDShow S/PDIF pass-through. However in this version we are going to do something different and leave FFDShow pass-through turned off. Instead we are going to use the newer LAV audio.

Click the setup LAV Audio button above and then you will see the dialog below.

Note:- You don’t need to do this if you are not connecting your Media Center PC to an AVR and if you are just using the analogue audio 3.5mm jack output on the back of the PC to a stereo amplifier.

For setup with your AVR and to have the AVR do the audio decoding rather than the PC doing it, so the PC just passes through the audio to the AVR to decode the audio signals then check the following boxes.

AVI Tab:

The default is now back to use the Microsoft splitter. I was using Shark 007 codec pack version 3.1.6 previously and in that version the default option was set to use the LAV Splitter. I have only just upgraded from version 3.1.6 to version 3.3.9 for the purposes of this guide.

I didn’t have any issues playing AVI files in Windows Media Center with the LAV splitter so I am going to change this setting to use the LAV’s splitter again.

H.264 Tab:

I am going to stick with the default settings on the H.264 tab.

MKV Tab:

Again in this version 3.3.9 the default setting for MKV has reverted back to using the Haali Splitter. In version 3.1.6 the default was to use the new LAV splitter and MKV’s played well with LAV. I’ve just tested it and there seems to be a problem using the LAV splitter with MKV files in this version 3.3.9. So for now I suggest you leave it set to use the Haali splitter. Something must have changed from version 3.1.6 to break this.

I am also going to uncheck Disable DIVX Media Foundation splitter, as I have an XBOX 360 Media Center Extender and the DIVX Media Foundation is required to playback MKV files on the XBOX 360 Media Center Extender. If you don’t have an XBOX 360 Media Center Extender you can leave Disable DIVX Media Foundation checked.

MOV / OGG Tab:

Below you can see the default settings for the MOV / OGG tab.

Because I have a specific requirement to play these Apple iTunes DRM stripped MOV files I have, I am going to change a setting here. You can probably stick with the default settings shown above.

MPG / MP4 Tab:

Below you can see the default settings for the MPG / MP4 tab. I am going to stick with these default settings.

SWAP Tab:

Below you can see the default settings on the SWAP tab.

Because I have some AVI files with 5.1 audio sound tracks in them, I am going to change one setting on the SWAP tab. I am going to tick Disable Windows DMO video codec. I find if I do not disable this setting when I play AVI files in Windows Media Center that have 5.1 audio they don’t play properly, the audio becomes out of sync and the video can get stuck for a moment and then speed up to catch up.

If I disable Windows DMO video codec all these problems go away and the AVI files with 5.1 audio play well in Windows Media Center. There is one drawback however, if you check this setting you will break online trailer playback in the My Movies Trailer Library. The trailers will not play at all and you will see a video error in Media Center. I’ve never been able to figure that out.

My configuration is now completed for the 64 bit Settings Application. I would recommend you now go back over each tab again and double check the settings are still correct as sometimes the application can change settings in the background without you knowing, once 100% happy go to the Misc tab and click the button to Save all settings.

32 bit Settings Application

Once I have finished my configuration in the 64 Settings Application, I then open the 32 bit Settings Application (Run as Administrator) and I set the same settings again in the 32 bit version.

Uninstalling Shark 007

We were always told by Shark to use the UNINSTALL button on the Help tab to remove his codec pack and not to use Add/Remove programs in Control Panel.

However I see in the codec pack change log which you can read here, that the later versions of the codec pack now support removal from Control Panel. I would probably still advise you use the UNISTALL button on the Help tab to be on the safe side. You should always remove the 64 bit Components first and then the 32 bit version. You must fully uninstall before you attempt to install any newer version of the codec pack.

When installing always install the 32 bit then the 64 bit version.

Testing your Configuration

To do this I have a collection of sample video files in various file formats and containers. I also have about 5 or 6 movies in different formats which I always use to test with. So basically I have a set of known video files that I know exactly how they should behave. I don’t currently have a new AVR that supports HDMI or the new Blu-ray HD audio formats. Dolby Digital True-HD and DTS-HD Master Audio, however trust me they will work. If anyone wants to donate to me a new AVR then please feel free!

Windows Media Center Speaker Setup

You should always first ensure you have run through the Windows Media Center speaker setup and selected 5.1. To do this go to the Tasks menu strip in WMC select Settings and then select General –> Windows Media Center Setup –> Setup your Speakers

Select your connection type probably HDMI or in my case TOSLINK

Select 5.1 Surround Sound and run through the rest of the wizard and finish.

Obviously if you are not configuring your Media Center PC for 5.1 and are just using a stereo amp and the analogue audio output of the PC then select 2 speakers.

DVD Playback with the Windows Media Center Player

First test some DVD movies with Dolby Digital and DTS audio. For this I use Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (Dolby Digital) and Carlitos Way (DTS) but you have to select DTS from the Languages option on the DVD menu. If LAV audio pass-through is working then the AVR should decode the audio signal. This means on the front of the AVR it should light up with Dolby Digital or DTS and should not say PCM.

Blu-ray Playback with the Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 WMC add-in

There are a few settings you need to check out first in the Arcsoft TMT5 WMC add-in settings.

Under Audio

Speaker Output: Should be either HDMI or in my case S/PDIF

Mixing Mode: Should be set to Using original primary audio

Test playback of two Blu-ray discs one that has Dolby Digital TrueHD and one that has DTS-HD Master Audio sound tracks. If you’ve got it right you should see the AVR light up as shown below.

Dolby Digital TrueHD on AVR display

DTS-HD on AVR display

Video File Playback

Now obviously that is a massive amount of different video file format types and containers out there. I setup my systems primarily to be able to play AVI and MKV’s within Windows Media Center. However I am able to play other formats as well, these are the video types I have tested.

DIVX-HD (AVI)
DIVX (AVI)
DVR-MS (Windows Vista Recorded TV)
FLV (Flash)
MKV (Use Haali Splitter not LAV in V3.3.9)
MOV
MPEG2
M2TS (I’ve got two M2TS sample clips one plays one doesn’t)
VOB (DVD)
WMV
WMV-HD
WTV (Windows 7 Recorded TV)
XVID (AVI)
M4V
MP4

You can use Shark 007 to examine in more detail a particular video file. To do this go to the Misc tab and click the Analyse a media file button.

Browse to the video file and click Open, you will see the information for the video file in Notepad.

Below I used the Analyse media file feature on one of my .MOV movie files.

General
Complete name : \9 (2009).mov
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : QuickTime
Codec ID : qt
File size : 932 MiB
Duration : 1h 19mn
Overall bit rate : 1 644 Kbps
Movie name : 9 (2009)
Performer : Shane Acker
Genre : Kids & Family
Recorded date : UTC 2009-12-29 08:00:00
Encoded date : UTC 2011-01-21 11:56:05
Tagged date : UTC 2011-01-21 12:21:37
Writing library : Apple QuickTime
Copyright : © 2009 Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.
Cover : Yes
desc : From visionary filmmakers Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas) and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) and Academy Award-nominated director Shane Acker comes this visually stunning and original epic adventure. In the final days of humanity, a dedicated scie
stik : 9

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=2, N=24
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 19mn
Duration_LastFrame : -8ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 511 Kbps
Width : 640 pixels
Height : 460 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.855
Original display aspect ratio : 1.391
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.214
Stream size : 857 MiB (92%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2011-01-21 11:56:05
Tagged date : UTC 2011-01-21 12:21:37
Color primaries : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Duration : 1h 19mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 126 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 71.6 MiB (8%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2011-01-21 11:56:05
Tagged date : UTC 2011-01-21 12:21:37

We can also use a utility called GraphEdit to see how the video file is being rendered by the system and what decoders are being used?

Open Graph Edit and select Render Media File

Looking at the same .MOV movie file I can see that the LAV Decoder is being used for both Video and Audio.

More tools can be found here.

Note:- I think GraphEdit is 32 bit so its the settings in the Shark 007 32 bit Settings Application that are reflected.

Well I think I’ve covered all the basics now and hopefully you have found this guide helpful. Codec as you probably know is a bit of a black art at the best of times and there is no right and wrong way to get all your video files playing, its just a case of having a little knowledge and being able to choose a solution that works well for you.

The Shark 007 user forums can be found here there is a Wiki here and also please do not forget to DONATE to Shark 007 if you find his codec pack useful.

www.phaze1digital.com

How to use an E.ON TV PowerDown plug with a Logitech Harmony Remote Control

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:16:00 +0000

If you want to kill the standby power consumption of the TV’s in your home then using an E.ON TV PowerDown plug is one way to do it.

They are free to E.ON Energy customers and you can purchase them from their online shop for only 3 quid each. They are very easy to setup with your TV’s original remote control and the setup instructions can be found here, they are however not so easy to setup for use in conjunction with a Logitech Harmony universal remote control.

Some blurb from their website:

“Eliminating standby use in our homes is not always easy. That little red light on your television and home entertainment additions such as surround sound amplifiers, DVD Players and games consoles are needlessly costing you money every hour.
Our TV PowerDown automatically switches these TV peripherals on and off when you turn your TV on and off. It learns to recognise the signal from your television remote control. This enables it to activate your television automatically into standby mode whenever you are ready to use it. And when you have finished using your television you switch it off in the normal way using your remote control and the TV PowerDown does the rest!”

Basically you plug in your TV in to the master socket on the E.ON TV PowerDown plug and then use the slave socket to plug in any peripherals such as a DVD player or what ever, I am not using the peripheral socket however as my HDTV’s are wall mounted so just plugging in the TV to the master socket. When your TV goes in to standby mode the E.ON TV PowerDown plug detects this and then totally kills the power to the TV and peripherals if you have any connected so you have now eliminated standby power consumption. I recommend you don’t use this with DVR’s like Windows Media Center , Sky + and Virgin Media boxes they need to be left in standby so they can wake up and record stuff!

Now the first time I tried to set one of these up with my Harmony I couldn’t get it working and eventually gave up. However I had another go yesterday and I now have it working! What I did was to add the E.ON TV PowerDown plug in to the Logitech Harmony database as a new device. Ideally to follow this guide you will need two Harmony remotes capable of learning IR commands (If you only have one remote don’t panic) and also you will need an old remote control you are not using for anything or another remote control from another room in the house.

1. The first thing you need to do is obviously plug your TV in to the master socket on the E.ON TV PowerDown plug and then plug the E.ON plug in to the mains socket on the wall and position the IR sensor thingy.

2. The next thing you need to do is program the E.ON plug with a remote control command which will turn it on and therefore TV standby will be resumed from the totally off power state. This is where you need your old remote control from any device that you are not using or grab a remote control that is from a different room in the house. I was setting up this E.ON plug for the TV in my lounge, I couldn’t find an old unused remote so I used the remote from my Cambridge Audio amp in the bedroom. You can pick any button off the remote to teach to the E.ON plug I used the eject button on my Cambridge amp remote, but it could be any button. Follow the instructions here to teach the E.ON plug the remote control button command. Once you have done this and when pressing the button you chose on the remote turns on the E.ON plug OK then you can move to the next step.

3. Login to your Logitech Harmony software, go to the device tab and click the Add Device button

From the drop down list select Home Automation –> Home Appliance

Now I could not see a manufacturer called E.ON in the list so I just selected Not Listed

Enter E.ON in to the text box and click Save

For the model enter TVA106EON then click the Next button

Click Next again

Select No you do not have a remote and click Next

It will then say it can’t find your device in the database, click Next.

For now just select There are no power buttons…….

On this page select Done

Our new device is then listed with the others as Home Appliance, click the Settings button

Select rename this device and click the Next button

Rename the device E.ON TV PowerDown and click the Save button.

4. Now we need to teach the E.ON TV PowerDown device / your Harmony remote control the button command from your other remote you used in step 2.

Select Learn IR Commands then click the Next button.

Scroll down and tick PowerOn then click the Learn button.

Connect the Harmony remote for the room to your PC via the USB cable, grab your other remote that use used to teach the E.ON plug in step 2 and press the same button again and teach the Harmony that particular button command. In my case it was the eject button on my Cambridge amp remote.

It should then say Key Detected and return you to the page with all the IR commands listed on it, click the Done button.

5. Now select Adjust power settings and click the Next button

Select I want to turn off this device when it’s not in use

Select One button on the remote for turning it both On and Off

Select I don’t have the original remote, but I know the command that is used:

Select PowerOn and then click the Next button and then Done button

6. If your Harmony has an LCD screen you may want to make sure a custom button will be shown. Select Customize Buttons and click Next.

For some reason it set the Channel Up hard button to the PowerOn command? Just blank this out

Click the Additional Buttons tab, on page 1 slot 1 type the name PowerOn and select the PowerOn command from the drop down menu, then click the Done button.

Update your Harmony remote now to add the new E.ON device to the remote control.

Now at this point as a test I added the E.ON TV PowerDown device in to my Watch TV activity. However I found that when I started the activity the command to turn on the E.ON plug was sent OK but my TV was not being powered on. So this meant the TV went back in to standby mode from the totally powered off state but then did not come out of standby mode and actually turn on. I couldn’t figure out why this was happening so to get round this problem I needed to teach the E.ON TV PowerDown device in the Harmony software the actual PowerOn command of my TV. So it would sent two commands one to turn on the E.ON plug and one to then turn on the TV out of standby.

Now you could use your TV’s original remote control to do this but its likely that you only have a Power Toggle button on that remote (One button that turns on and off the TV). So if you have two Logitech Harmony remotes that can learn IR it is probably better to do what I did, so I could learn the discrete PowerOn command for the TV. If you don’t have two Harmony’s you will just have to use the PowerToggle button on your TV’s original remote control.

Harmony remote control #1 is the remote we have just been programming for the lounge.

Harmony remote control #2 is another Harmony from my bedroom.

As I don’t have the same TV in each room what I did was temporarily add the TV in my lounge an LG 42LE4500 to the Harmony #2 controller from the bedroom and updated the remote.

I could then teach the Harmony #1 / E.ON device with the discrete PowerOn command of the TV in the lounge, from the Harmony #2 remote. Confused?

7. Teach the E.ON TV PowerDown device the discrete PowerOn command of your TV.

Select Learn IR on the E.ON TV PowerDown device scroll down to the bottom of the page and enter “TV PowerOn” in the Learn a New Command section.

Click the Learn New Command button

Ensure you connect the Harmony #1 remote to your PC via USB.

Then using the Harmony #2 remote with the temporarily added TV2 device press the PowerOn button from the LCD screen to teach the Harmony #1 remote the command.

Click the Done button.

On the Devices tab, click the Settings button on the E.ON TV PowerDown device

Select Customize Buttons and click Next

Click the Additional Buttons tab, you can see I now have two buttons / commands on the E.ON TV PowerDown device. PowerOn to power on the E.ON plug and TV PowerOn to power on the TV from standby. Click Done.

If you update the Harmony #1 remote again now you will be able to manually test if both of these commands work? Ensure your TV is currently in the totally powered off state i.e. the standby light is out. Then on the Harmony remote click the devices button, select the E.ON TV PowerDown device, press the PowerOn button from the LCD screen and the TV should go in to standby. Then press the TV PowerOn button and the TV should then turn on.

8. Adding the E.ON TV PowerDown device in to your activities.

Now we have added the E.ON TV PowerDown device to our remote and both our power on commands are working you just need to add in the E.ON TV PowerDown device to your activities that use the TV.

Go to the Activities tab and select Settings on your first activity that requires the TV.

Select Review the settings for this activity

Select Yes, but I want to add more control of options and devices for this activity

Now Add the E.ON TV PowerDown device in to the activity, then click Save.

Run through the rest of the wizard clicking next and leaving the settings as you had them. On the page shown below you need to insert an extra TV PowerOn command for the E.ON TV PowerDown device.

Select – Send this IR command: TV PowerOn

This is a pretty basic Watch TV activity, however if you have lots of commands going on in your activity you should use the up arrows to move the E.ON TV PowerDown – TV PowerOn command to the top of the list.

Click Save at the end and then select Yes these settings are correct, click Next and Done.

Select Review the order in which devices are powered on, click Next.

Select the E.ON TV PowerDown device and click the up arrow to move it to the first device to be powered on.

Click Done

Repeat this process for all your activities that require the TV. Update your Harmony remote again. Then test each of your activities and that everything is working as normal and the TV is turning on from the totally powered off state.

Finally don’t forget to remove the temporarily added TV2 on your other Harmony remote and update that one.

You may sleep a little easier now you know your TV’s are totally powered off during the night and when not in use and your doing your little bit to save the planet. Now if only I could do something about that power sucking Windows Home Server beast that lives under the stairs.

www.phaze1digital.com

No Netflix in Media Center? Depressed? Try MCE LoveFilm instead!

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:45:00 +0000

The big news this week was that Netflix have finally launched an online streaming service here in the UK. I have been waiting for this for a long time and naively assumed because Netflix in is Windows Media Center for users in the US that we would also get access to the official Microsoft/Netflix add-in. However I discovered this week that Netflix users in Canada and Brazil never got the Netflix add-in for Windows Media Center. So I am now not holding out much hope we will ever see it.

I will only cancel my LoveFilm subscription and change to Netflix if I can use it in Windows Media Center. There might be a way to fool the system and change the locale of the PC to US and get the Netflix add-in but then the problem is how to change the locale back to UK for Live TV and guide data etc but retain the Netflix add-in? I did previously have Netflix working in Media Center when I lived in Thailand and used a VPN connection but I didn’t have Live TV configured in Media Center then so it didn’t matter if the PC’s locale remained set as US. There is a thread on The Green Button here about Netflix in Media Center and possible UK usage.

I’ve emailed the WECH MVP email group at Microsoft and asked the question and also posted on the Netflix forums here but so far no response and I am not holding my breath.

So now I am depressed and thinking of options, I could use the Netflix app on the Nintendo Wii that is sat in the living room. I could use the Netflix app on the XBOX 360 but I would have to purchase an XBOX Live Gold subscription and as I don’t play games online I haven’t got one. LoveFilm is also available on the XBOX 360 and requires Gold. I don’t have a Sony Playstation 3. Roku are launching UK boxes with Netflix but that’s another box, I’d rather just do it all on the HTPC. Obviously I could add an icon in to Windows Media Center to launch Netflix externally in a web browser but its not ideal.

Or maybe I can stick with LoveFilm and not give Netflix my money! My current LoveFilm subscription is for discs only and I’ve been getting Blu-rays in the post, they have countered Netflix’s UK launch and now have a new £4.99 package for unlimited online streaming only no discs but I am thinking of switching to this package.

I’ve contacted LoveFilm a few times in the past and they have no plans of doing an official Windows Media Center add-in either, shame on you Love Film! But Milliesoft have written a 3rd party LoveFilm add-in for Media Center called MCE LoveFilm.

It looks the part the UI is beautiful but there are some draw backs. As LoveFilm is flash based its the old webpage embedded in to Media Center affair which can be tricky if the auto mouse moves don’t start and full screen the video you are trying to play. Also due to some limitation developers have working with the LoveFilm SDK/API there is no easy way of telling which movies are available for online streaming? You have to click in to each movie individually and get to its details page to see if there is a Play button present of not. So you end up clicking in to loads of movies that you then find are simply not available to Play and only available to rent (Disc in the post) which is frustrating to say the least.

Maybe Milliesoft could add some sort of overlay icon on the movie covers if a Play button is available for that title? That would help improve things somewhat. Ideally I’d like to be able to filter on all titles that are available for streaming in to one view and any titles that can only be rented are excluded from the view.

I believe Martin Millmore is currently working on a fix as it seems LoveFilm have recently changed the layouts of their pages and when I tried it the other day I was unable to get any videos to play.

Also the free version of MCE LoveFilm is limited to only display 25 titles You can compare the free and premium features here. The full version is £9.99 per HTPC which if it works I think I would buy it. I will let you know as soon as Martin has a new version available and the issue is fixed so please wait until I update this post before you install it.

Fanless Sandybridge iTX HTPC

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:04:00 +0000

I built a new iTX HTPC a while ago now but I thought I’d share my build on the blog. The HTPC is based around the Tranquil PC bare bones ixLS chassis and motherboard.

Components List:

Tranquil PC bare bones ixLS chassis
Intel DH67CF(B3) iTX motherboard
4GB DDR3 RAM chip
Intel i3 2125 CPU
Sony BC-5600S Blu-ray Slim slot drive
Corsair Force Series 3 60GB Sata3 6Gbs Solid State Drive (Operating System)
Western Digital WD20EARX 2TB Caviar Green SATA3 6Gbs 3.5” Hard Drive (Data)
120Watt 12Volt 10Amp External Power Supply brick

Software List:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
My Movies 4.02
Arcsoft Total Media Theatre 5
Slysoft AnyDVD HD
Shark 007 Codec Pack V3.1.6

Product Description

Bringing beauty, power, efficiency and reliability to your desktop. Designed from the ground up, to provide a reliable and fan less cooling system for the power user, the ixLS Power PC can process any application with ease.

The ixLS PC, often used as the basis of the ultimate media centre, or an exclusive desktop PC - build yours to your own specification with this bare bones kit.

High definition video, complex 3D rendering, or just writing a letter - just do it. Fit your choice of 2nd Generation Intel Core Processor - any version delivers stunning performance.

Initially I had big problems with Windows 7 blue screening allot and there was no real indication as to why? There were no memory dump files being created by Windows and the error message on the actual blue screen wasn’t helping. I first thought it was a heat problem? This being my first totally passively cooled rig I naturally thought it was heat related, but after contacting Tranquil PC support and going over the heat temps shown in the Bios and in the Intel hardware monitor program, it seemed it was not over heating at all.

I then eventually figured out that the problem was with the Corsair Solid State drive and I found on their forums many other users having the same problems. I found a firmware update for the SSD and since I updated the drive it has not blue screened ever again.

The Tranquil PC chassis is beautifully made and my HTPC is totally silent which is a big improvement over my old Micro ATX ATI/AMD based HTPC which had several fans in side of it. Silence really is bliss.

The system is very fast it boots from shutdown and launches Windows Media Center in less than 10 seconds and it resumes from S3 Sleep mode instantly. The Solid State drive really does make everything feel much snappier. Its not the cheapest HTPC you can build but the quality does really shine through. I just wish I had one in every room in my home! Blu-ray’s play seamlessly in Windows Media Center / Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre. The Blu-ray optical drive is the only thing that makes any noise if I play a disc, however with the Blu-ray discs ripped to the Home Server and streamed over the local network the Blu-ray optical drive is not used and so silent.

One thing I don’t like is Tranquil PC do not supply in the price of the barebones package an internal IR receiver. As this was a demo unit Tranquil were good enough to throw in a free IR receiver. However they do not use the proper CIR Receivers for these Intel Media motherboards. But instead the supplied IR receiver connects to an internal USB header and not to the dedicated CIR (Consumer Infrared Receiver) header.

I do have one problem with the IR receiver that is installed at the moment and that is the Windows Media Center discrete Power On/Off commands in the Logitech Harmony software do not seem to work 100% with the HTPC. I think I will buy one of these CIR’s off eBay and see if that works better?

Overall I am happy with my new HTPC, its certainly the nicest one I have personally owned in my own home! Although I have built many nice top end HTPC’s for clients.

www.phaze1digital.com

How to install & fix Macrotube for MCE

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:49:00 +0000

A quick write up on Macrotube which adds YouTube, YouTube HD, Daily Motion and MSN Soapbox videos and more into Windows Media Center.

Go to this page download either the 32bit or 64bit installer file, run it and install the add-in.

Now YouTube will NOT work out of the box and we want to add YouTube HD content as well. You need to update and replace a couple of XML files to get it to work.

Example of Youtube not working:

Go to this page and download the two XML files to a temp folder. Now renamed the files as shown below:

YouTubeHD_20110830.xml –> YouTubeHD.xml

YouTube _20110827.xml –> YouTube.xml

Now move your renamed XML files in to the following folder:

C:\ProgramData\Jasmio\MacroTube\Providers

When you open Macrotube again you see now that YouTube HD has also been added

The YouTube videos will now play as expected.

Tip: I find that selecting Relevance rather than Date on the pivot menu will yield better search results.

Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre version 5.2.1.119 released

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:50:00 +0000

If you are an Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre user, there is a new version that has been released yesterday. Version 5.2.1.119 adds some new features and bug fixes:

NEW FEATURES
01. Automatic Refresh Rate Switching
02. Intel IvyBridge Support
03. AVCHD 3D content support
04. New authentication system (allows converting trial downloads into full version.)

BUG FIXES
01. Fix pixelation issue with recent Fox Blu-ray discs (Star Wars, X-Men First Class, etc)
02. Fix YouTube
03. Fix OpenCL for SimHD on AMD hardware
04. Fix playback issue with Grindhouse Blu-ray
05. Fix stutter issue on AMD 5xxx series cards
06. Fix AV sync over time issue with some Blu-ray 3D discs (Pirates 4, etc)

KNOWN ISSUES
01. Apocolypse Now disc playback fails pre-menu.

There is also a new authentication engine and new Activation Code to convert it from a Trial version to a Full version.

Full details can be seen here

Another look at TunerFree MCE

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:57:00 +0000

TunerFree MCE is a great Windows Media Center add-in for UK and US IP TV. Native Media Center is sorely lacking IP TV Content and TunerFree MCE has long been one of the best ways of adding online TV like BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Channel 5 content, plus Hulu for US users. An updated version of the TunerFree MCE user interface has been out for a while now, but I wanted to take another look and perhaps if your not currently using this free add-in you might want to check it out. Of course donations are welcome and once a donation has been made you will receive a license to remove the start-up messages.

The new TunerFree MCE user interface is very slick and much like Media Center itself with the up / down left / right pivot menus.

BBC

ITV

Channel 4

Channel 5

Favourites – Will automatically track and add in the TV Shows you have been watching the most. Online favourites are produced by all users of Tuner Free and what people are watching the most.

Search – You can easily search for the TV Show you are looking for.

Search for top gear

Settings – There are various settings you can configure I wont cover them now, the Update now option allows you to manually force an update which will update TV Show content, however TunerFree MCE should automatically update itself periodically in the background as well.

Help displays the remote control functions.

You can play the Live TV Channels which are all Flash based as well as all the catch-up TV shows. In the case of the BBC channels allot of the catch-up programs are WMV streams which means the video plays natively in Media Center and Media Center Extenders, with all the regular transport controls etc.

Some of the BBC shows are Flash based however for example BBC HD. How TunerFree MCE handles content that is Flash based is to launch the TV Show on the Channels webpage. The webpage is embedded within Media Center

BBC One Live (Flash) – If your HTPC has regular screen resolutions like 720p and 1080p the TunerFree MCE program has some auto mouse moves that will start the flash video playing and then make it go full screen. This works most of the time, but some times I need to use a mouse if things don’t quite work as expected. The Logitech TouchMouse iOS app is quite handy for controlling the mouse on the HTPC via my iPOD Touch.

BBC Two Programs

If you select a TV show you then see a nicely designed page with the TV show background image and each episode is listed for playback. Each episode has its own image and short synopsis.

BBC Radio is also available for streaming

My children like watching the CBBC and Cbeebies channels on their Linksys DMA extender and small wall mounted HDTV in their bedroom.

Overall I really like the new user interface and its a good improvement over previous versions of TunerFree MCE. With Microsoft neglecting Media Center development and media content in favour of the XBOX 360 dashboard, its great that Milliesoft are able to give use an excellent add-in for Windows Media Center and IP TV.

You can download TunerFree MCE here and please don’t forget to make a donation if you find the software useful.

Netflix is now available in the UK!

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:55:00 +0000

I just got an email from Netflix announcing their service is now available in the UK and inviting users to sign up for a one months free trial. The starting price is 5.99 per month for online streaming only. No discs in the post service yet.

I am pretty tempted to cancel my Love Film subscription and switch to Netflix, but only if I can get Netflix in Windows Media Center?

I actually called Netflix, the person I spoke to said I can use the browser and Silverlight but he was not sure about the WMC add-in. I would assume for UK users to get the Netflix add-in in WMC they will have to change their locale to the US. I will try and contact Microsoft to find out more.

How to use command line with mControl and Amulet / Harmony remotes

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:17:00 +0000

Background:

I am currently using mControl version 2.1.3818 installed on my WHS V1 server for use with my Z-WAVE lights. I have a few Z-Wave plug-in lamp modules and use the Aeon Labs Z-Stick USB dongle which is plugged in to the WHS box. mControl have an nice MCML add-in for Windows Media Center and there are also mControl HTML webpages including a mobile version which I use on my iPod touch device. The other user interface which I tend to use on my laptop is the mPanel software that was ported to work on regular Windows PCs and not just their mPanel embedded Windows CE device which is now discontinued anyways. All this means I can control my lights from various user interfaces on different devices.

mControl version 3 beta has a native iOS app for the iPhone but currently installing mControl beta 3 on WHS V1 or WHS 2011 is not supported which is why I haven’t upgraded as yet.

mControl User Interfaces:

mControl in Windows Media Center 7

mControl – mPanel software

mControl HTML webpage in Internet Explorer

mControl mobile.aspx webpage

The idea:

My idea started when I was thinking about my Amulet MCE voice remote control, I knew it was possible to create your own custom voice commands to run external programs. My idea was simple wouldn’t it be kinda cool if I could pick up the Amulet voice remote and say “Lights On” and for the side lamps in my living room to turn on!

Being able to send commands from my Windows 7 x64 HTPC to the mControl Web Service on my WHS has also enabled me to turn a regular IR Logitech Harmony remote control in to a remote that can also turn on and off my Z-Wave lamps, not only that I can now create buttons on my Harmony remote to run any mControl automation macros or send on/off commands to devices. So if you haven’t got an Amulet remote but do have a Harmony remote and your an mControl user, you might want to read on…

Obviously being able to control anything via command line opens up a whole wealth of possible things you can do and automate.

The discovery:

So I started digging around a little in the mControl documentation and I found a possible solution, I found this link http://myWHS/mcontrol/mServer.asmx which when you open it on your mControl install it will bring up a page called mControl Web Service and looks like the screen shot below: (Change myWHS to the hostname of your mControl server).

Scrolling down the list I saw two items of interest to me which were:

RunMacro
Send a macro run request to mServer

SendCommand
Sends automation command to a device

Clicking on to these two items revealed some sample code for SOAP, now I am no programmer but I knew I was on the right lines and this might just be possible. I then raised the subject with Eddy Carroll at Amulet Devices and asked him what he thought about it and if it might be possible to have Amulet send these commands to mControl. Eddy who is a programmer unlike myself was able to assist me and as a result we have come up with a working solution which I will demonstrate.

Below are the samples from the mControl Web Service webpage:

RunMacro

Send a macro run request to mServer

SOAP 1.1

The following is a sample SOAP 1.1 request and response. The placeholders shown need to be replaced with actual values.

POST /mcontrol/mServer.asmx HTTP/1.1

Host: whs01

Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: length

SOAPAction: "http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl/RunMacro"



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

<soap:Body>

 <RunMacro xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <macroId>int</macroId>

 </RunMacro>

</soap:Body>

</soap:Envelope>

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: length



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

<soap:Body>

 <RunMacroResponse xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <RunMacroResult>boolean</RunMacroResult>

 </RunMacroResponse>

</soap:Body>

</soap:Envelope>

SOAP 1.2

The following is a sample SOAP 1.2 request and response. The placeholders shown need to be replaced with actual values.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: length



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

<soap:Body>

 <RunMacroResponse xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <RunMacroResult>boolean</RunMacroResult>

 </RunMacroResponse>

</soap:Body>

</soap:Envelope>

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: length



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap12:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap12="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">

<soap12:Body>

 <RunMacroResponse xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <RunMacroResult>boolean</RunMacroResult>

 </RunMacroResponse>

</soap12:Body>

</soap12:Envelope>

SendCommand

Sends automation command to a device

SOAP 1.1

The following is a sample SOAP 1.1 request and response. The placeholders shown need to be replaced with actual values.

POST /mcontrol/mServer.asmx HTTP/1.1

Host: whs01

Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: length

SOAPAction: "http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl/SendCommand"



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

<soap:Body>

 <SendCommand xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <devId>int</devId>

   <command>string</command>

 </SendCommand>

</soap:Body>

</soap:Envelope>

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: length



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

<soap:Body>

 <SendCommandResponse xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl" />

</soap:Body>

</soap:Envelope>

SOAP 1.2

The following is a sample SOAP 1.2 request and response. The placeholders shown need to be replaced with actual values.

POST /mcontrol/mServer.asmx HTTP/1.1

Host: whs01

Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: length



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap12:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap12="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">

<soap12:Body>

 <SendCommand xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <devId>int</devId>

   <command>string</command>

 </SendCommand>

</soap12:Body>

</soap12:Envelope>

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: length



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap12:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap12="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">

<soap12:Body>

 <SendCommandResponse xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl" />

</soap12:Body>

</soap12:Envelope>

The plan:

Eddy suggested we might be able to use wGet using the --post-file=filename option, to send the SOAP commands in xml files to the mControl Web Service.

Getting started:

wGet

I installed wGet on to my Windows 7 HTPC, I also had to add the path of where wget.exe is located which on my x64 PC was C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin in to the Windows Environment Variables PATH. To do this right click Computer from the start menu and select properties, then select Advanced System Settings and the Environment Variables button, under system variables scroll down to PATH click Edit and add in the path to wget.exe be sure to separate with ;

Creating mControl .cmd and .xml files

Send ON Command to Device

Next we need to create our first .cmd and .xml file, in this first example we will be creating a Send ON Command to a device.

I created a new folder on my Windows Media Center PC called C:\Lights

I then created a .cmd file called Lounge-On-Left.cmd, to do this just use notepad and create a new file change the .txt extension with .cmd

I have two Z-Wave enabled lamps in my living room left and right.

Below is the contents of the C:\Lights\Lounge-On-Left.cmd file - note you need to change whs01 to the hostname of your own WHS or PC running mControl server. Also you can see the file that wGet is going to post to the mControl Web Service in this case the file is called Lounge-On-Left.xml

wget -Onul --post-file="C:\Lights\Lounge-On-Left.xml" --header="Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8" --header="SOAPAction: http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl/SendCommand" http://whs01/mcontrol/mServer.asmx

Next we need to create the Lounge-On-Left.xml file, again use notepad to create a file and change the .txt extension to .xml below is the contents of the Lounge-On-Left.xml file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap12:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap12="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">

<soap12:Body>

 <SendCommand xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <devId>3</devId>

   <command>on</command>

 </SendCommand>

</soap12:Body>

</soap12:Envelope>

Two things you need to look at in this xml file <devId> and <command> as we are creating a device ON xml file the command is on. <devId> is the device id of your device in mControl. To find out which of my Z-Wave modules had which devId? I simply opened mControl in Internet Explorer using the address http://whs01/mcontrol/ change the hostname obviously to your own. I then right clicked the page and selected View Source and scrolled down until I saw the device I was looking for in this case Lamp (Left) you can see I have circled the DevId which for this particular device is 3. So I used 3 in the <devID>3</devId> section of the xml file above.

OK so you have now created your first set of files one .cmd and one .xml to test simply double click on the .cmd file you will see the command window pop up and your ON command should be sent to your device in mControl.

Send OFF Command to Device

Next you would want to create two more files for an OFF command, so I created a file called Lounge-Off-Left.cmd and Lounge-Off-Left.xml in to my C:\Lights folder

Lounge-Off-Left.cmd contents:

wget -Onul --post-file="C:\Lights\Lounge-Off-Left.xml" --header="Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8" --header="SOAPAction: http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl/SendCommand" http://whs01/mcontrol/mServer.asmx

Lounge-Off-Left.xml contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap12:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap12="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">

<soap12:Body>

 <SendCommand xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <devId>3</devId>

   <command>off</command>

 </SendCommand>

</soap12:Body>

</soap12:Envelope>

To test double click the Lounge-Off-Left.cmd file and your device should now be turned off.

I repeated this process and created two more .cmd files and two more .xml files to turn my right lamp on and off. At this point I was able to manually run the .cmd files to turn on and off both lamps individually.

Run Macro Command

Next I wanted to create some Run Macro commands to turn both lamps on or off at the same time, I previously already created Macros in mControl to turn on or off both living room lamps together. On the below screen shot you can see these existing macros Lounge On and Lounge Off. I just needed to know what the MacroID was for each?

Again I simply opened the mControl webpage in Internet Explorer and Viewed the Source code. Scrolled down and found my marcos called Lounge On and Lounge Off you can see I have circled the MacroID’s.

With this information I was ready to create my first Run Macro .cmd file called Lounge-On.cmd

Lounge-On.cmd Contents:

wget -Onul --post-file=C:\Lights\Lounge-On.xml --header="Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8" --header="SOAPAction: http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl/RunMacro" http://whs01/mcontrol/mServer.asmx

I then need to create an associated .xml file with the SOAP command in it called Lounge-On.xml

Lounge-On.xml Contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<soap12:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap12="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">

<soap12:Body>

 <RunMacro xmlns="http://embeddedautomation.com/webservices/mControl">

   <macroId>8</macroId>

 </RunMacro>

</soap12:Body>

</soap12:Envelope>

I created another .cmd and another .xml called Lounge-Off.cmd and Lounge-Off.xml to be able to turn off the lamps, so now using these new Run Macro commands I could run either the Lounge On or Lounge Off macros in mControl to turn both lamps on and off.

The next problem I had to solve was I did not want to see the command prompt windows flashing up on the screen over the top of Media Center, whenever they where run via the Amulet voice remote or the Harmony remote. I wasn’t sure about this so I posted a thread on the Green Button and Richard1980 came to my aid with a suggestion to use a .vbs file to call the .cmd files.

The upshot of this is you can create a file in the C:\Lights folder called Run-CMD.vbs edit the .vbs file in notepad and paste into it the single line of code below, more about this later.

CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run """" & WScript.Arguments(0) & """", 0, False

So now what?

Ok so now we have created a set of .cmd files and associated .xml files to send SOAP requests to the mControl Web Service, but you don’t want to be manually double clicking the .cmd files to make things happen, so we need to get these .cmd files working with our remote control(s).

Custom Commands with Amulet voice remote control

First up is the Amulet MCE Voice remote control, it is pretty easy to add your own custom voice commands in to Amulet and then have it run a .cmd file or any external program for that matter. First you need to locate a file in the C:\ProgramData\Amulet Devices folder called CustomCommands.txt edit this file.

I simply added the following to the end of the file:

Command=Lights On

Response=Turning On Lounge Lights

Action=Run C:\Windows\System32\WScript.exe C:\Lights\Run-CMD.vbs C:\Lights\Lounge-On.cmd

Command=Lights Off

Response=Turning Off Lounge Lights

Action=Run C:\Windows\System32\WScript.exe C:\Lights\Run-CMD.vbs C:\Lights\Lounge-Off.cmd

Command=Left Lamp On

Response=Turning On Left Lamp

Action=Run C:\Windows\System32\WScript.exe C:\Lights\Run-CMD.vbs C:\Lights\Lounge-On-Left.cmd

Command=Left Lamp Off

Response=Turning Off Left Lamp

Action=Run C:\Windows\System32\WScript.exe C:\Lights\Run-CMD.vbs C:\Lights\Lounge-Off-Left.cmd

Command=Right Lamp On

Response=Turning On Right Lamp

Action=Run C:\Windows\System32\WScript.exe C:\Lights\Run-CMD.vbs C:\Lights\Lounge-On-Right.cmd

Command=Right Lamp Off

Response=Turning Off Right Lamp

Action=Run C:\Windows\System32\WScript.exe C:\Lights\Run-CMD.vbs C:\Lights\Lounge-Off-Right.cmd

Let me explain a little:

Command=Lights On (You say “Lights On”)
Response=Turning On Lounge Lights (Amulet then says back to you “Turning On Lounge Lights”)
Action=Run C:\Windows\System32\WScript.exe C:\Lights\Run-CMD.vbs C:\Lights\Lounge-On.cmd (Here you specify the .cmd file Amulet should run)

Save the Custom Commands.txt file restart Media Center - that’s it, its as easy as that to get Amulet working with your new mControl commands.

Logitech Harmony remote control

Getting your new mControl .cmd files working with your Harmony remote is more tricky. I imagine there are various ways you can do this, I am using AutoHotKey so that is what I will be recommending. Go to this page and download the Installer for AutoHotkey_L Install AutoHotKey on to your Media Center PC and when you launch it for the first time it asks you if you want to create a sample script file in the Documents folder say yes. I would also recommend you add a shortcut to AutoHotKey in your Windows Startup folder so it starts at every boot.

AutoHotKey will sit in the system tray and is a green icon with a H on it. If you right click this you can select Edit This Script and it will open in notepad.

Below you can see my AutoHotKey script:

Note: I am using a .vbs file called Run-CMD.vbs which calls the .cmd files as an argument and thus suppresses and totally hides the command windows from being visible on screen see here for more details.

Now I am not an AutoHotKey expert but what we want to do here is assign a keyboard shortcut such as Ctrl+Alt+A and when that keyboard shortcut is used we want it to run one of our mControl .cmd files. Don’t ask me why but ^ = Ctrl and ! = Alt so ^!A = Ctrl+Alt+A

Save and close your AutoHotKey script right click the H icon again in the system tray and select Reload This Script - To test press Ctrl+Alt+A using a keyboard connected to your Media Center PC this should run the mControl .cmd file and the device turn on or off or what ever the .cmd file is set to do.

Now I used my MCE IR Keyboard like this one to teach my harmony remote the keyboard shortcuts i.e. Ctrl+Alt+A Ctrl+Alt+B and I then assigned those commands to a custom buttons on my Harmony’s LCD screen.

If your using the Windows Media Center SE device in the Harmony software you could probably use some of the existing keyboard shortcuts like Alt+1 Alt+2 etc so then you wouldn’t need the IR MCE keyboard.

On the below screen shot from the Logitech Harmony software you can see four keyboard shortcut commands I taught the remote

Here you can see against my Media Center PC device and I also did this on some of my Activities I assigned custom buttons.

Conclusion

I think if you are an mControl user you will see the potential of being able to send SOAP commands using wGet to the mControl Web Service. This enables us to use .cmd files with associated xml files to run macros that are in mControl or control devices within your home automation system, I’m sure the possibilities are endless with this and it could be used in a variety of ways.

For me personally I am now able to use my Amulet MCE voice remote and use custom voice commands to turn Z-Wave lamp devices on and off and also to run mControl macros. And yes it is pretty cool picking up the Amulet remote and saying “LIGHTS ON” and having the lamps in the room turn on! Would be even better with the Amulet software for XBOX Kinect you would just have to say the command out loud then.

As an added bonus my regular IR Logitech Harmony remote control can now also be used to send commands to the mControl Web Service via AutoHotKey.

Well I think I covered everything I did to set this all up, I wrote this so I wouldn’t forget how I did it later but hopefully someone else may find it of use, as always please leave your questions comments and feedback.

You can download a copy of my sample mControl .cmd and .xml files plus an example of an Autohotkey script and a sample Amulet CustomCommands.txt file from here

www.phaze1digital.com

My Movies for iPhone Pro & iPad Updated v1.60

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:53:00 +0000

You can read more about My Movies for iPhone here

- Adds Parental Controls

- Adds Twitter Integration

- Graphical Updates (Splash Screen, Icon, Welcome Page and more)

- Fixes Various Issues

Update: My Movies for iPad has also been updated:

- Adds Barcode Scanning on iPad 2.

- Adds Parental Controls.

- Adds Twitter Integration.

- Adds Dutch, Norwegian and Russian language.

- Graphical Updates (Splash Screen, Icon, Welcome Page and more)

- Fixes various issues.

You can read more about My Movies for iPad here

My Movies for MAC OS X Pre Release out now

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:59:00 +0000

Introduction

My Movies for Mac OS X allows you to catalog your entire movie collection from our high quality online data service containing data for more than 475,000 DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD titles from various countries. The application supports Mac OS X 10.6 and higher.

Notice! The application is currently in Pre Release, and is freely available to everyone during this Pre Release period. The Pre Release distributions contains a time bomb functionality, allowing to function typically for one month from the release date.

My Movies for Mac OS X requires you to create a user account, or log on to an existing My Movies account to be able to use the program. Your collection will follow your user account through our online servers, allowing you to switch between different clients without ever loosing your data. If you log in to an existing My Movies account, your current collection will automatically be synchronized to My Movies for Mac OS X. Users of My Movies for iPhone, iPad or Android will automatically have their collection synchronized between My Movies for Mac OS X and your movie devices.

Continued here

Screenshots of Media Center in Windows 8

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:40:00 +0000

I saw a post on The Green Button, showing some screenshots of Media Center in Windows 8 Build 7955 M3. This is the first time I have seen anything showing Media Center in Windows 8. There has been allot of discussion on the forums if Media Center would even be present at all?

Nothing looks to have changed with the UI yet, apart from the version number, but these pictures appear to confirm that at least Media Center is still present in this early Windows 8 build, which is good news.

If it will remain that way or if Media Center will gain any new features is yet unknown? Probably not until the first public beta release, likely to be available at the end of the year.

Stuart’s A/V install project–Part 6 The Final One?

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:32:00 +0000

Hello welcome to part 6 the final post on my A/V install project. Today I have some pictures of the finished Living Room and Children’s Bedroom.

I’ve still got a few odd jobs to finish, I need to install an additional network point behind my lazy boy chair for the laptop and get a new aerial installed on the roof and hooked up to Media Center.

Living Room:

Windows 7 HTPC + Sherwood AVR + Nintendo Wii

AMD / ATI based HTPC using an Antec Remote Micro Fusion case.

I didn’t have any money in my budget for an AVR and 5.1 surround sound speakers, I was going to use my Denon stereo amp and a pair of speakers in the living room and purchase an AVR + 5.1 speakers at a later date. However I saw a local advert on Gumtrree for a cheap old Sherwood RD-7106R AVR + Eltax 5.1 speaker set, so I bought them! The AVR only supports SPDIF Optical in so I am using that for audio pass-through from the HTPC and HDMI direct from the HTPC to the HDTV for video signal.

I’ve not got a sub woofer at the moment either but the sound is still decent enough when playing movies in DTS and Dolby Digital, no HD audio support obviously. I am using a Logitech remote control with RF extender as with the equipment in the cabinet and the position of it the IR does not work when sat in my chair. The Logitech RF works better than I expected.

Wiring behind the Alphason App1000-blk cabinet.

My chair with laptop table and a Logitech Harmony 895 which is an older remote but I have to say it is excellent. I had to install an additional power socket behind the chair so I could easily plug in the laptop and remote control charger base without having wires trailing across the room from else where.

Logitech Harmony 895 Universal Remote Control

Wall mounted rear surround speakers, due to the odd shape of my Living room this was the only place I could really mount the speakers, I am very happy with the way in which the speaker cable just appears out of the ceiling to connect to the speaker!

Rear of the Living room with the stairs

Front and centre speakers, I did have the front left / right speakers on Gale speaker stands but I haven’t really got the room, so I put them in the bay window instead to give us more floor space. The cables for the speakers come up from underneath the floor!

LG 42 inch LED HDTV – Yeah it was cheap and the picture on black / dark scenes bleeds white in areas, but for the money I spent I am happy with it. 1080P Blu-ray movies in Arcsoft Total Media Theatre 5 look awesome. I purchased this TV from http://www.1staudiovisual.co.uk as they had a good price and I know the owner of the company who lives in Thailand.

I am toying with the idea of a ceiling mounted projector and motorized projector screen to come down from the ceiling and cover the bay window, maybe later if I am feeling flush!

My Movies 4.01

My side lamps in the living room and also the lamps in the bedrooms are controlled with Z-Wave Home Automation plug-in modules and the excellent mControl Home Automation software from Embedded Automation. I can also recommend PowerController MCE for Z-Wave in Media Center

You may also notice an Amulet Voice activated Remote Control for Media Center from Amulet Devices.

Eltax Millennium 100 front speakers and a Eltax Silverstone Center speaker.

Windows 7 Music Library – Now Playing

mControl MCML Media Center add-in for controlling the Z-Wave lights (Two pictures down). I also use the mControl mobile webpage on my iPod Touch to control the lights.

I have also just purchased an Aeon Labs MiniMote which I have not received yet and its late in the post: take note http://zwave-products.co.uk/ so I can control the lights when the WHS and mControl are in S3 sleep mode.

Another cool feature I have just figured out how to setup is for the side lamps in the living room to auto dim down and brighten up when I start / stop and pause movie playback in Media Center / My Movies.

Children’s Bedroom:

Kind of happy with this room, I would like a larger TV and some better matching Denon speakers but the kids are more than happy with their new TV setup.

Linksys DMA 2100 Media Center Extender and a Denon UD-M31 stereo amp

My Movies TV Series Library – Blue’s Clues

TunerFree MCE add-in – Cbeebies

Well sadly that’s it for part 6, I hope you have enjoyed reading this series of blog posts, its certainly different as you don’t see many posts on this kind of installation topic. I was thinking about maybe doing a part 7 showing my Media Center User Interface and all the add-ins I am currently using? I might do it if there is some interest so leave your comments and feedback below.

Custom Design & Installation

Windows Experts Community or the new Green Button forum website???

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:35:00 +0000

I’ve been sitting on the fence with regards to what Microsoft have done to our beloved The Green Button forums. Initially before the upgrade happened I was up-beat and optimistic about the planned change, however now its happened and we now have the resulting Windows Experts Community site, my enthusiasm is dwindling some what. They haven’t even given us a Green Button banner or logo as a token of who and what this community was. Now we have yet another bland Microsoft forum site that is still difficult to navigate.

Well there maybe hope if you are feeling a little lost and home sick? A new forum site has been created by some of the members off the old TGB at www.thegreenbutton.tv if you go and take a look it’s pretty much just like the original TGB site as far as layout and feel is concerned.

I contacted the software developer of My Channel Logos regarding a separate matter and was invited to join the new www.thegreenbutton.tv site, others had also mentioned it to me as well. The contact at My Channel Logos turned out to be one of the creators of the new www.thegreenbutton.tv forum site, makryger. Also the other admins and moderators are names you will have probably noticed on the original Green Button site: holidayboy, stonethecrows and StumpyBloke.

Well I’ve signed up and joined, there are currently only 150 members but it does feel like the old Green Button already, if not a little quieter. I’m not sure if I will stick around or not? Not sure what to do to be honest.

I’d like to know your thoughts on the subject and how you feel about what Microsoft have done with the original www.thegreenbutton.com forums and if you might be tempted to join www.thegreenbutton.tv ?

Stuart’s A/V install project–Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 16:37:00 +0000

Hello and welcome to part 5 of my A/V install project, I’ve got some new photos to show today, of the finished master bedroom and the installation in the children’s bedroom. Also the install speakers in the kitchen and the Windows Home Server plus network kit in the cupboard.

Master Bedroom Completed

Cables and connectors behind the bedroom chest of drawers

View as you walk into the master bedroom

37 Inch Samsung LCD TV, Cambridge Audio Azur 350A Amp, XBOX 360 Slim.

XBOX 360 Media Center Extender – My Movies 4

Children’s Bedroom – Install

This room was really an after thought, I didn’t plan initially to do anything in this room, however I decided to wall mount the little 19” Samsung LCD TV I brought back with me from Bangkok and buy a Linksys DMA 2100 Media Center Extender for the children.

This meant I had to purchase additional AV wall plates for this room and a TV bracket. As the TV is so small I had to position the AV brush face plate, network points and electric socket closer together so they would all still be hidden behind the TV. At a later date when money allows I plan to put in a larger 26” TV in this room.

As there was going to be less cables in the wall channel in this room, I used smaller trunking, 50mm x 25mm in the other rooms I used wider 100mm trunking in the walls.

I had to lift the floorboards in order to run the CAT5e network cable in to the room from the cupboard under the stairs, I also ran one Coax cable from the back of the TV, down the channel, under the floor and up in to the loft via the airing cupboard that is in this room.

Wall plastering

Just four AV wall plates at the bottom of the wall: HDMI, Component, Composite and 2X CAT5e in a single face plate.

I broke and snapped the skirting boards taking them off, they were well mounted with lots of nails, I had to buy new skirting boards and fit them for the finish.

That’s me, at that point - thinking I’ve still got allot of work ahead!

Not sure about the Green but hey I didn’t pick it. It actually looks OK now the room is finished just the one wall in dark green and the other 3 in a much lighter green colour. Here you can see the wall plates connected and terminated etc.

Cheap TV bracket bought on impulse from Asda, its not great but does the job for a tenner.

TV mounted - as the TV is so small it didn’t look right at the height I was going to mount it at, about 1.5 metres up from the skirting board, so I pushed it up the wall higher still, but the bracket doesn’t tilt down as much as I wanted now all the connectors are connected at the back, I may change the bracket if we get a larger TV for the children’s room.

I bought this TV in Bangkok and it only supports analogue channels 1-5, it does not pickup digital Freeview which I thought it might have.

Don’t paint your walls to soon after plastering, I rushed one wall in my bedroom as the carpet fitters were coming the next day and bits of plaster were coming off in the paint roller. You need to wait a good 3 days to be on the safe side.

Cupboard under the stairs

Here you can see my home made 6TB Windows Home Server in the cupboard under the stairs. I need to tidy the cables up, as I just threw everything in to get the network up and running, I had a 37Mbps BT Infinity fibre Internet connection installed at the beginning of the week as well! The BT Home Hub3 and the new VDSL modem are now located in here but you can’t see them on these photos.

The BT engineer was very good, he fitted a new larger BT master socket in the living room where the telephone is located and even used my existing CAT5e network cable I had put in place, from the master socket that then went under the living room floor and into the cupboard under the stairs, to extend - so I could have the new VDSL modem in the cupboard with the rest of the network kit and not in the living room on display.

Currently I am just using a small 8 Port HP ProCurve Gigabit switch which you can see sat on the PC. The Linksys ADSL router you can see has been replaced with the new BT kit.

Cambridge Audio A1 MK3 Amp is also located in the same cupboard and drives the wall mounted speakers in the kitchen via the audio out of the WHS PC. I am using Squeezebox Server software installed on the WHS and the iPeng iOS app on my iPod Touch to select and play the music. I have also installed SqueezeSlave on my Windows 7 Media Center PC in the living room and use the SqueezePlay built in to iPeng on another iPod Touch in the masterbed room. This gives me a 3 zone audio setup that can play different music in each room or the same music in all rooms playing in sync. Although sometimes its not always exactly in sync I need to tweak the settings in Squeezebox Server. Ideally I’d like to purchase some hardware Squeezebox players.

Speaker binding posts positioned underneath the amp and connect to the kitchen speakers. BT data socket for VDSL modem located to the left and 24 port patch panel below.

Eon Intelliplug to turn on the Cambridge Audio amp when the WHS wakes from S3 sleep

New Cambridge Audio Pro NFM10 install speakers, I bought for my kitchen. I don’t think you can buy this particular model anymore, these were a pair of new old stock I bought cheap off eBay. These speakers sound totally amazing with the Cambridge Audio A1 MK3 Amplifier and fill the kitchen and outside patio / decking area in the back garden.

Kitchen

NFM10 speakers mounted above kitchen cabinets, this was much easier than trying to install ceiling speakers in here.

Well that’s it for part 5, I think part 6 will be the last one. I have some more photos of the children’s bedroom and living room that are now finished and completed.

Stuart’s A/V install project–Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:38:00 +0000

Hello welcome back to part 4 of my AV install project. As of today my system is mainly all installed tested and working. I have no Internet connection in our new house until the 15th of June which is a bit of a pain as I cannot re-program my Harmony remote controls until then, also another problem I have and I don’t understand why this is a limitation of Media Center on the XBOX 360? Is that I cannot play AVI files in My Movies, it comes up with an XBOX dashboard message saying I need to download a media codec to play the file. I’ve obviously already downloaded this and its just not working because I am not signed in to XBOX Live. Seems stupid to me. I am however able to play DVD rips in VIDEO_TS folders via My Movies with its in-built transcoder however.

I still need to buy a Linksys DMA extender for the kids bedroom and some Denon speakers to match the Denon amp I have for this room. I also have an issue with the Component video wiring in the living room, I get ghosted text in the XBOX UI. I don’t have this problem with the XBOX upstairs on Component so something is not quite right. Also I am not happy with the TV bracket for the kids small 19” Samsung TV and I might change it for another type. Other than that everything has gone well and worked out exactly as I’d planned.

Master Bedroom

I used the exact same wall mount bracket as downstairs. I have to say for the money about 37 pounds these are really good brackets and I am very happy with them.

Below you can see the AV wall plates in the master bedroom. The speaker one is a little close to the power socket but I had to squeeze it in between that and the channel in the wall to the left of it.

I was a little worried about the HDMI wall plates they were cheap ones from Farnell CPC and had no mention of HDMI 1.4. I put in the walls HDMI 1.4 cables also bought cheaply from CPC. I’ve now tested the HDMI wall plates and they all work with my XBOX 360 OK. I might have a problem in the future if I introduce HDMI 1.4 kit like a 3D TV etc but as I have no new equipment that will actually use HDMI 1.4 its not a problem currently.

There is 1x HDMI, 1X Composite, 1X Component, 1X TV RCA Audio Out, 1X iPod Dock RCA. The speaker binding posts – the left pair are for the two bedroom ceiling speakers and the right pair of binding posts will be for the single stereo speaker in the bathroom. You can also see a pair of network points and an old NTL cable socket. The ceiling speakers are better than I said in the last post, now I have the correct amp installed in the bedroom they sound much better and quite bassy if you want them.

AV cables exiting the brushed faceplate, I used that plastic cable tidy stuff to keep all the cables neatly together. Two more network points behind the TV for future use and one double power socket.

I had to solder on every single RCA connector which was allot of connectors overall. Not too difficult and I was even using a dodgy old soldering iron with a broken tip.

Here you can see the AV connectors which I labelled up so I don’t get them mixed up.

Back of the TV which is a 37” Samsung LCD.

TV flush to the wall, I wanted the TV mounted in the corner out of the way, as on this wall the door in to the bedroom is just to the right of this picture.

TV pulled out away from the wall.

XBOX 360 hooked up for the first time.

I’m yet to put in our chest of drawers which will sit under the TV and I will have the XBOX and amp sat on top, not sure if the wife will be happy about that, her gear will have to go in the bathroom, how’s that for WAF.

Cambridge Audio Azur 350A and XBOX 360 slim.

The Cambridge Audio Azur 350A is a lovely entry level amp but I should have bought an older Azur 540A. The 350A has a remote control but it has no standby mode so you cannot turn the amp on and off with the remote which is a major draw back. I will have to use one of those Inteli-Plugs I wrote about previously.

In the picture above you can see the two RCA cables from the wall, the back of these connect to another RCA wall plate at the opposite side of the room where my iPod dock sits next to the bed.

XBOX 360 4GB Slim, I put in the hard drive out of my old white XBOX which died so I have much more than 4GB storage now.

Video Games sound amazing via the ceiling speakers!

This is the opposite side of the bedroom to the amp, where my iPod dock will sit on the bedside table. That adapter plug thing you can see is a Z-Wave HomePro lamp module so I can control the bedside lamps via mControl and my iPod touch and also in the Media Center UI.

I’m using my trusty old Logitech Harmony 555 universal remote for this room.

In part 5 - I have some newer pictures of the living room, today I wired up the 5.1 surround sound speakers which sound great, the neighbours are gonna love me! I also have some pictures of the children’s bedroom and their TV install, see you then.

Stuart’s A/V install project–Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:28:00 +0000

Hello welcome to part 3 of my AV install project. I’ve got some more photos of upstairs to show today. In my bedroom I am wall mounting my old 37” Samsung LCD TV. This was an early model that cost me 800 quid at the time and its only 720P not 1080P. I managed to convince the wife we should have a new TV for the living room, she agreed but only if we could have one of the new ultra slim LED models, more about that later. I plan to put my XBOX 360 in the bedroom also as I like playing video games in there and the rest of the family can still watch TV in the living room. We will have the Nintendo WII in the living room as its more family orientated anyways.

I wanted ceiling speakers in the bedroom, I would have gone for Nile Audio or Quest ceiling speakers as I have used both previously on installs and can recommend them, but too much for my small budget. So I had to find something cheaper but still with “decent” specs. Another good choice would have been Polk or Kef speakers but again out of my budget. After some research online and on eBay I found some speakers by Adastra. I’d never heard of them before but they had quite low frequency response which cheap speakers don’t normally have. The ones I bought at trade price were model 952.534UK 6.25 inch diameter. The frequency response was lowish at 45Hz. Lower frequency response gives you a more bassy sound.

I’ve got the speakers installed and had a quick test, they sound reasonable for the money but not fantastic but I guess you get what you pay for, but for the price, which was cheap I am happy. I also plan to later add a single stereo ceiling speaker in the bathroom I’ve already cabled for it, the model is a 952.537UK and drive this speaker from the Speaker B option on the amp in the bedroom.

Master Bedroom Ceiling Speakers

I had a problem with the speaker cables I used a 5.1 speaker wall plate and just took out the center speaker binding posts, leaving me with two pairs of binding posts, this wall plate is at the bottom of the wall in the corner near the window. I had to get speaker cable from there up in to the loft some how. The wall the speaker plate is on is solid brick, instead I planned to go under the floor and to an adjacent stud partition wall and up inside this stud partition wall. I measured and drilled a hole in the loft down in to the stud wall and at the bottom I cut out a single gang socket hole, using the fishing reel I was unable to get the metal rod up or down the full length of the wall as there were wooden studs going horizontally as well as vertically. My plaster was in the room plastering the block wall as I was trying to route these cables, I said can you patch a small channel in this plasterboard? He said sure, I then got the axle grinder and put a small channel right the way up and chiselled out the horizontal wooden studs to get the cable past them. A bit drastic but it was the only easy way I could see of getting the cable up in loft and I wasn’t going to use surface trunking in the room!

Small channel in the stud partition wall for speaker cables going up in to the loft.

TV wall mount in the master bedroom

This is very similar to what I did downstairs, just no TOSLINK optical but an RCA audio wall plate instead for TV audio out. I also added an RCA wall plate (Red / White audio) at the other side of the room where my bedside cabinet will be, so the iPod dock there can connect to the amp at the other side of the room which will be under the wall mounted TV on a chest of drawers. I ran two Kelsey UNI-1 cables under the floorboards between to the two RCA wall plates at opposite sides of the room.

The photo below is back in the living room, the day I got our new LG 42inch LED TV. The model is 42LE4500 and its pretty much the cheapest 42 inch LED TV you can buy right now. Personally I would have gone for a fatter LCD with more features like Internet TV but my wife insisted we should have a ultra slim LED one and this was the only more in my budget range.

Ignore the amp you can see, that is a Cambridge Audio A1 MK3 amp that is going in the cupboard under the stairs to drive the kitchen speakers from the WHS audio out which will also live in the cupboard. The TV bench is a rather nice Alphason APP1000 unit I bought off eBay for about 75 pounds, my HTPC, AVR and Nintendo WII will live in there.

Well I think that’s it for part 3, more soon in part 4, please leave your comments if you have any questions.

Stuart’s A/V install project–Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:19:00 +0000

In part one here I wrote about a little Audio Visual install project I am currently doing at my own house in England. I am further on into the project than these new pictures suggest, but I’ll do a series of posts showing this project from start to finish, the final finish could be a few weeks away yet.

I am on a pretty tight budget so I have made some purchase decisions that reflect this, but hey that’s life. However most of the components needed I have purchased at trade prices which certainly helps, although some items were purchased via eBay like my HDTV wall mount brackets as they were the cheapest out there.

These pictures where taken on my iPod touch so you will have to excuse the pretty poor picture quality on some of them.

Ideally I would have wanted a small comms cabinet but there’s that budget thing again to think about, so I opted for a simple 1U wall mount bracket, these are manufactured by StarTech. I bought a 24 port patch panel off eBay, more than I will need in this house. I so far have 14 network cables terminated in to the back of it, I may add another 4 or so, two in the kitchen and another 2 ports behind my lazy boy chair in the lounge for when I am sick of the WIFI being crap and I can just use a LAN cable with the laptop.

1U Wall Bracket plus Patch Panel – Cupboard under the stairs.

To route the cables from this cupboard to the location in the living room where the Network wall plates are, I used a cable fish tape like this one to pull the cables under the floor space. Totally invaluable tool and I used this for most of the cable installations under the floors and through walls.

Living Room – Plastered

I was going to get my brother to do the plastering he’s pretty handy but not a professional plasterer. However as I was putting in new ceiling speakers upstairs I decided to have all the ceilings upstairs plastered smooth, so called in an expert and had him fill in the walls as well.

For the channel in the wall for the AV cables I used 100mm x 25mm trunking. I thought this would be plenty wide enough to be able to fish in cables at a later date. The new electric socket for behind the TV was just a spur from the socket below and I used capping in the wall to protect the mains cable.

The metal back boxes for the AV wall plates are 35mm deep, I did initially buy 47mm deep ones but these were far too deep for my block walls. The electrical socket back boxes are just a standard 25mm deep.

In this photo you can see the network and speakers cables going down under the floor space, the network cables all obviously go back to the patch panel and the speaker cables go to 5.1 positions in the living room.

Its very important to label up each end of each cable so you know which cable is which when numbering your network points up. I also bought a cheap network cable tester off eBay like this one, this was useful as it did detect a few pins on some cables I had either wired up incorrectly or not fully punched down into the patch panel / network wall plates.

On the picture below, I’ve got the wall bracket on the wall, my living room is an odd shape, I have a small porch - stud partition wall / internal door coming into it and the stairs are at the back of the living room, there’s only one place the 3 seater sofa can be positioned, so my only option is to have the TV in the corner near the bay window, so I could not have a flush to the wall type bracket, instead I’ve gone for a full motion pull out and swivel / tilt type bracket, which was about 40 pounds off eBay from a company called Intec Brackets

On this picture you can see the speaker wall plates in the living room, these have binding posts, I bought some banana plugs to easily connect the amps to them. There is 5.1 plus Sub and the other speaker socket next to it is for the speakers in the kitchen, I’ve not got a proper AVR yet but when I buy one, Zone two will connect to the kitchen speakers. The next wall plate is 4 network points.

These are the other AV wall plates in the Living room, top left is Composite video + audio, right of that is Component video RGB plus audio, bottom left is a TOSLINK optical point for digital audio directly out of the back of the TV, to the right of this is an HDMI wall plate.

On the left near the radiator you can notice an NTL cable socket. I’ve not decided yet if to go for Virgin Media cable Internet or try and get this new BT Infinity fibre optic Internet if its available in my area? I’ve routed both a coax cable from this NTL socket and a CAT5e cable from the back of the BT master phone socket into the cupboard under the stairs, so I can have either type of modem installed in there.

I’ve simply used one of those brush face plates for the AV cables exit at the top of the channel, I’ve also added two network points behind every TV. None of my HDTV’s are Internet ready or have LAN connections, so these are for future use.

The AV cables still need cutting to length and terminating with RCA connectors.

Well I think that’s about it for part 2, see you again in part 3 soon.

How to make big holes in your walls and floors and rewire your home!

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:23:00 +0000

I’ve not been online much as late or posted anything, I’ve been very busy for the last two months renovating and decorating our house in England. As the house was totally empty I took the opportunity to completely start from scratch as far as infrastructure and cabling was concerned, when I lived there previously I had cable running under carpets and round skirting boards and even had a CAT5 string connecting downstairs to upstairs running outside of the house, all this was messy and generally drove me mad.

My aims were to have a fully wired computer network with multiple network points around the house, centralised in the cupboard under the stairs with a network patch panel, my Windows Home Server and gigabit switch / router would also live in here out of sight.

I wanted to properly wall mount 3 HDTVs one in the living room, one in the master bedroom and one in the children’s bedroom. I didn’t want to have cables hanging down or use surface mounted trunking at it just looks bad. I wanted to bury the cables into the walls and have proper A/V faceplates. This meant some serious remodelling with an axle grinder and a big hammer and chisel. Not work for the faint of heart when cutting 30mm or so in to block walls.

I am using DVBLink’s TVSource with my WHS but sometimes I have issues with it and I get no signal messages in Media Center, so I always planned to be able to by-pass Media Center altogether for Live TV and be able to just use the in-built tuners in the HDTVs. Initially I will only be using a Freeview aerial on the roof, I may add a Satellite dish later for FreeSat. So I needed to run new Coax cable from behind each of the wall mounted TV’s up in to the loft to connect to a distribution amp which will then connect to the aerial. I used 100 metres of high quality Belden Webro WF100 Coax cable.

Another goal was to wire for speakers and lots of them. 5.1 speakers in the living room, wall mounted stereo speakers in the kitchen above the units, these would also service the outside deck area in the back garden, a pair of ceiling speakers in the master bedroom and a single stereo ceiling speaker in the bathroom, the speaker cable, all 100 metres of it! has been installed under floors and in walls so you cannot see it, none of this running it round the skirting boards malarkey. I’ve used proper speaker connection wall plates with binding posts for easy connections to the amps using banana plugs.

Using these AV wall plates meant making my own audio and video cables for connections like Component and Composite and RCA audio type connections. For the audio cables buried in the walls and under some floors I used 50 metres of Kelsey UNI-1. For the video cable I used URM70 Coaxial Copper Braid Coaxial Cable. The wall plates needed to be soldered on the backs and phono connectors soldered on at the TV end. I also buried in one 1.4 HDMI cable with HDMI wall plate on each TV installation, the downstairs TV also has one TOSLINK optical cable plus wall plate for Digital Audio out from the back of the TV.

I’ve taken some photos of the work and will write a few more blog posts with more details of my setup and hardware I will be using and showing the progress of my project, which is not currently finished or fully tested but is nearing completion.

Before I started I mapped out my plans in Visio, I have pretty much stuck to these plans and not allot actually changed from the concept I had in my head apart from I decided to also wall mount the little Samsung TV in the kids bedroom as well and a few sockets moved locations etc.

Lounge / Kitchen Plan

Click for a larger image here.

Master Bedroom / Bathroom Plan

Click for a larger image here.

Photos of the Living Room – Initial channelling of the wall.

To be continued…

Your SqueezeSlaves not playing in sync ?

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:57:00 +0000

Here’s a quick tip which might help if you are using the Squeezebox software emulator called SqueezeSlave on your HTPC’s and if you’re having problems playing them in sync? Check your network cards Jumbo Frames settings!

I updated the Intel GT Pro network card drivers on my WHS the other day and I must have changed the Jumbo Frame setting - Today I could not get my HTPC and WHS both of which have SqueezeSlave installed to play in sync, the Windows 7 HTPC was playing about 16 seconds behind the music in the other room playing from the WHS box.

Going round in circles playing around with the sync options and delays in the software settings with no joy, I then updated the version of the SqueezeSlave.exe on each machine to the latest version from the web and also updated the Logitech Squeezebox Server software on the WHS box to the latest nightly build, but the problem persisted.

Browsing the Squeezebox Server webpage on the Windows 7 HTPC in IE seemed very slow to load pages and after pressing play on a track I could see the counter counting but would hear no sound until it hit 16 seconds in. I then looked at my laptop which also has SqueezeSlave installed and that was syncing and playing fine with the WHS (No Jumbo Frame setting available on the WIFI NIC properties).

I then remembered I’d updated the NIC drivers on the WHS the week before, checked the Jumbo Frames settings and saw that the Jumbo Frame setting on the WHS was higher than the one set on the HTPC. I set them both the same at 9KB and hey presto the HTPC started playing the tracks immediately and browsing the Squeezebox Server webpage has speeded up no end.

Both the Windows 7 HTPC and the WHS are now playing in sync again with no issues. I thought I’d throw up a quick post about it as this may help someone in the future with a similar problem and also as a reminder for myself!

If you have PC’s around your home - using Squeezebox Server software and SqueezeSlave software, is a free way to have a whole home audio setup – you just need to add a local amplifier and speakers in each room. I use the iPeng iOS app to control it all.

My Movies for iPhone update released

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:46:00 +0000

A new update for My Movies for iPhone was published yesterday in the Apple app store, version 1.51 new features include:

Adds Personal data option, including categories, notes, tags, location, purchase information, value, personal ratings and personal title and sort title settings.

Adds Facebook integration

Add remote control for My Movies for Windows Media Center

Adds remote control for Dune Media Players

Adds option to download more actors

I’ve been looking forward to this upcoming update and can’t wait to try it out!

For more information about My Movies for iPhone see here.

PowerController MCE updates + My installation guide

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:15:00 +0000

I previously wrote about Martin Millmore’s PowerController MCE add-in for controlling your ByeBye Standby and Z-Wave Home Automation modules here. Martin is in the process of updating the WHS and Media Center components or PowerController and he has also updated the Android phone app to support the new Z-wave functionality. For iPad / iPhone and iTouch users there is a new Web UI that can be accessed via the Safari browser to control your devices.

Media Center add-in

Android Phone App

This guide will focus on Z-Wave modules as I don’t have any ByeBye Standby devices but I will cover as much as I can.

For the Z-Wave stuff to work you will need a Z-Wave USB Controller dongle, Martin and I are currently using the Aeon Labs Z-Stick “When attached to a host processor, it becomes a Z-Wave communication device, which exposes the Zensys API (SerialAPI) through integrated USB.” This basically allows the PC to be able to send commands and receive status updates from the Z-wave devices around your home.

I am using these HomePro Z-Wave lamp and appliance modules. We have also tested some in-wall dimmer switches.

If you have a WHS machine I would recommend you install the Z-Wave USB Controller dongle and driver software on the WHS, as then all your PowerController client Media Center PC’s will be able to send signal commands to the Z-Wave USB Controller, The PowerController add-in on the WHS will then send the commands to the actual Z-wave module devices. The benifit here is that your WHS is normally running 24/7.

However if you don’t have a WHS you can pick a main Media Center PC to install the USB dongle on and configure that as the “Server” other Media Center client PC’s will still be able to turn on / off and dim the Z-Wave modules etc but the main Media Center PC must be turned on for it to work.

WHS Installation

Download the PowerController MCE WHS add-in from here save the .msi file in to the Software\Add-ins folder on the WHS. Open the WHS Console and click on Settings and then select Add-ins from the left hand side. Select the Available tab and install the PowerController MCE add-in.

WHS Configuration

There’s not much to configure in the WHS add-in, if you use a ByeBye Standby Online Controller enter its IP address. Or if you are setting up Z-Wave like me select the Z-Wave USB Controller.

There is now a new Web Server option for the PowerController Webpage. Tick Enabled and enter a username and password.

You can see the URL is http://WHS-IP:53107

Below is the text from the Millisoft website about the Home Server add-in:

“If you are using Z-wave, install the Z-Wave USB controller software on your home server first. To install the server version of Power Controller, download it and put it in your Software/Add-Ins folder on your home server. Then go to settings on the home server and install the add in. The home server console will close after installation, so open it up again and go to settings and choose PowerController. Either enter the BBSB controller address or pick your Z-Wave device (or both). You are then ready to start pointing your media center installations at this server.”

Media Center Client Installation

Download and install the PowerController MCE component from here on to your Media Center PC’s. Once installed launch the add-in from the Media Center Extras menu.

Local Mode ? In a none WHS installation i.e. you have no WHS you can install the Z-Wave USB dongle on to your main Media Center PC, in this scenario you would leave the X in Local Mode and choose the Com Port of the locally install Z-Wave USB dongle.

WHS Install – Un-tick Local Mode and then enter the IP address of your WHS server.

Power Controller then continues to open and you see one New Device. Select Preferences in the top right hand corner.

Preferences

Click Zones and add your rooms and click Save

Click Devices and edit the first default device that already exists

Enter a name for the device
Choose an icon
Select which zone the device is in (It says scene should really say zone)
Select the Controller type – BBSB or Z-Wave
Enter Z-Wave Device Number of the Z-Wave module you want to control, under this device in PowerController MCE
Enter keyboard shortcuts (Optional) If you want to program your IR Universal Remote Control to be able to turn devices on and off and dim them up and down.

Add any additional Z-Wave or BBSB device you want to control

Add any Scenes

For example I can add a Watch Movie scene and assign a keyboard shortcut such as Ctrl+Alt+M I then added the two lamps in my Living Room, selected device on and brightness level at 50%

I could then teach my Logitech Harmony remote control the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+M and add this new IR command to the Media Center PC device in the Logitech Harmony software. I could then insert the newly learnt IR command in to my Watch Movies activity, so the lamps in the living room would auto dim to 50 % when I used the Watch Movie activity on the Harmony remote control.

Add Scheduled Events

I’ve not used this myself as yet but you can also add Scheduled Events for example to turn a light on at a certain time.

Once you have finished setting up your devices exit the preferences and PowerController MCE should now look something like the below screen shots.

Everything

Living Room (Zone)

Kids Bedroom (Zone)

Scenes

The PowerController MCE user interface also works on Media Center extenders such as the XBOX 360.

Note:- The keyboard shortcuts will only work on the Media Center PC however and do not work on Extenders.

A look at the new Power Controller Web UI

One thing that PowerController MCE was lacking previously was a web UI. If you have an Android smart phone you are covered with the Android application but I don’t own an Android phone and ideally I just wanted to use my Apple iPod Touch. Martin has now added a web UI which means I will now be able to access this webpage which is being hosted on my WHS, from my iPod Touch which is great news. Obviously you can access the web UI from pretty much any device that has a browser.

Previously you could only configure the Zones and Devices in the Media Center user interface as shown above, however now in the new web UI you can configure and setup Zones and Devices from there instead.

Final Thoughts

PowerController MCE is shaping up to be a great MCE and WHS add-in. If you have ByeBye Standby or Z-Wave devices and want a way to control these devices from within Media Center and from mobile devices, PowerController is certainly worth a look. Its relatively easy to setup when compared to some of the other Home Automation add-ins and if you are looking for something basic that works well or you are new to Home Automation like me, then PowerController MCE could be a good place to start.

Updated version of Virtual Clone Drive released

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Harrison) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:39:00 +0000

If your anything like me you probably installed Slysoft’s Virtual Clone Drive to be able to mount and play Blu-ray and DVD ISO images and then forgot all about it ever since. I had to install it again today on my laptop and noticed that a new version 5.4.5.0 had been released, it was actually released on 06/03/2011. The previous version 4..4.4.0 was released way back in December 2009!

5.4.5.0 Change Log:

- New: Improved DVD/HD-DVD/BD emulation
- New: Added help menu to notification icon
- New: Notification icon can be changed by the user
- New: Support for harddisks with very large physical sectors (> 2048 bytes)
- Some minor changes and improvements
- Updated languages

I use Virtual Clone Drive with the My Movies MCE add-in and Arcsoft TMT 3 to play my Blu-ray ISO images. You can download the latest version of Virtual Clone Drive from the Slysoft website here