More brainstorming on a video "server" and control

General HouseBot discussion. Any issues that don't fit into any of the other topics belong here.
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MichaelK
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More brainstorming on a video "server" and control

Post by MichaelK »

So ya understand the setup, go here : http://www.housebot.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=166



So, the control of winamp is rather sticky. However, I happen to have a wireless (RF) multimedia keyboard.......anyone know of a RF Transmitter / receiver (much like the USB-UIRT) that I could use to learn those commands, and then housebot could emulate those commands (possible, Scott?)



The way it is working now is a replicated device is on the winamp machine, however, I have to always have housebot running on that PC in order for it to work....and the video has to be set for fullscreen playback, etc, but this is still jerky and I dont have complete control. Perhaps the new Active X control could be used to control winamp via the Browseamp plug in..i.e. emulate or reproduce the commands browseamp is using within the HB GUI?



Fleeting thoughts, thanks all!
ScottBot
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Post by ScottBot »

Michael,



If there were such a device that could learn and replay the RF signals, a hardware interface could be written for HouseBot to do this. It sounds pretty cool, but I don't know of any such device.



Just curious as to why the playback is jerky? HouseBot generally doesn't consume much CPU, so I'm not sure if eliminating it will solve this.



Scott
MichaelK
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Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2003 8:38 pm
Location: Chicago, Illinois
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Post by MichaelK »

When I say Jerky, I meant that the control isnt that good or relaible. Winamp isnt the best video playback application anyway, and I find with large movie files, which consume a lot of RAM, Winamp's response to commands over a network from HB tend to be slow or sometimes not even work. I also need to set the video to be fullscreen beforehand, etc., so it requires a lot of variables to be set or prepped beforehand to make the control seamless, which defeats the purpose of control via a touchpanel. And not having the ability to FWD or RWD, makes it less than an easy solution.



Hence the reason I was looking for a way to control a video player via commandline, that way I could send commands to a true 'video' player, instead of winamp. But having that ability thru HB is the issue. Ass I've said before, Winamp can be controlled via a web browser, but that defeats the purpose of having a HB GUI.....and if I did find a way to control another player via commandline, there is no way to associate this file with another player (besides winamp) on the other system, and control it. Although, I heard ATI has a new version of the multimedia center which allows video control over a network, provided both computers have ATI cards. Since both of my comps have it, im looking into it.



I'm rambling.



I hope you had a good holiday.....keep up the good work!



~Michael
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