HouseBot

HAI has released a Windows Media Centre Edition plug-in to control X10 home automation components.



Details here.



Michael

It sounds like they've started to panic after the Meedio HouseBot announcement.

Well HAI didn't Panic, They are postioning the product ahead of the Media Center Craze, and MS sales push in October. I have talked to HAI's director of Technical Services about creating a module for Meedio. Due to the demand for other products it will not be done in the foreseeable future.



I am considering playing with the Meedio SDK to create a Meedio Module for HAI's award winning line of controllers, but I need some time, and support, and interest in the forum. This would be much more involved than Housebot X10 support. HAI is a whole home automation controller, capable of controlling everything from light switches and thermostats, to anything you can imagine in a home. The module would be communicating with the controller every 10-15 seconds for updates. The module needs to be configurable, since HAI can support 64 thermostats, 256 light switches, 176 zones of security, and the list goes on.



HAI is much more than a X10 controller. It would be like saying a golf cart is the same thing as a Mercedes Benz.



Any questions or responces, may be directed to me,



Brett Griffin

HAI, Atlantic North Sales Manager

[email protected]

Hey Brett and welcome to the world of Meedio.



Earlier in the year I started looking into HA (alas, plans to build a new home are currently on hold) So I did the usual looking around. I must admit that I was giving serious consideration to HAI, but only if the right PC access/control software existed. So I started looking at HomeSeer, and must confess that anti-application developer quotes like this from Rick T. scare me off.



http://ubb.homeseer.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc ... =536101617



Also it "seems" to a HS newb like my self (don't actually own the S/W) that there is a lot of discussion about the required work arounds due to HAI's inconsistent logging of events for status updating, which again "seems" to make life a bit more difficult for less technically savy HomeSeer users. (me)



With HAI being a hardware solution, there is no try before you buy and there is no easy/cheap turning back if things don't turn out as expected, as with software, so comments like these are a serious concern to a prospective buyer.



Will they ever be addressed by HAI? Is is to protect HAI's software? I dunno, but possible.



I know this is only one side of the story in that developement resources are always limited and there are technical issues that I don't understand, but the buck gets passed on to HAI on these 2 issues, IMO.



I also realize that I may not be your typical HAI customer, (most are probably hardware only) but it really is the PC access/control/user interface that will win me over.



In the end, I'm just trying to give you one prospective customer's first impressions. no decisions yet, but a kicka$$ Meedio plugin would be a good sales pitch to me



PS: Might want to do a Poll via thread to see how many current/prospective HAI users visit these forums.

osetivo wrote:Anyone here integrating TiVo Hacks (streaming/extraction) into Meedio?

I hate to kill Ideas, but this could pose a legal hazard to meedio, not to mention those who develop any potential plugin. I don't know about the standard TIVOs but with DTV TIVOS the RAW stream is recorded in its unencrypted state. when you play it out on the tivo it sends the stream through the decryption process. So thanks to the DMCA, you cannot legally extract and attempt to decode the stream, except by sending the video out the outputs and using a capture card to record into the PC. If this issue does not exist on standard Tivos, Good luck :)

Well, I obviously don't want to harm Meedio or cause any unwanted attention by TiVo/DTV so I'll edit my sig. Yes I have S1 DTiVos. I was really just curious, as I've never really sensed much overlap in the TiVo(modding :))/myHTPC-Meedio groups



Back OT

There do not seem to be any legal issues as streaming media from Tivos...

This has been done, and widely known about, for several years.



Tivo has done nothing to stop it. And they actually give away the ability to stream it from Tivo to Tivo now.



The decryption of DTV signals is done within the Tivo hardware, not a 3rd party app.

Since the "receiving" software (i.e. Meedio plug-in) would not be doing any decrypting it cannot be illegal to write or use.



It would be great if someone would write a plug-in to send video from Meedio to the Tivo... this would enable the Meedio interface to displayed using the Tivo and no need to a TV connection to the Meedio PC.



Now that would be sweet!

Affini wrote: It would be great if someone would write a plug-in to send video from Meedio to the Tivo... this would enable the Meedio interface to displayed using the Tivo and no need to a TV connection to the Meedio PC.

Now that would be sweet!

How would sending video data from Meedio to Tivo allow you to navigate Meedio on the Tivo? If you ran a really long composite cable, you could pipe the video/audio from Meedio into Tivo, but you'd still need to setup Tivo to display the A/V from composite and then you'd still have navigation problems that would require something like an RF keyboard/remote to allow navigation on the remote system. I just don't see how that would be helpful.



Shawn