2-way TCP control of SageTV from CQC, anyone?

[IVB]

Check it out. Obviously still got major UI issues to deal with, but I can now bidirectionally control SageTV from within CQC! Won't be able to actually select which TV shows from within CQC for a while yet, but a major major step forward! The big difference between this and using the SageTV Webserver is that I can use a single custom-painted UI to turn on the zone speakers, setting up the right inputs, starting up sageTV, adjusting volume. I can have a single screen to display what all the sources are playing, so I can subscribe to whatever stream I want from a given TV. This means that I don't actually need a seperate extender for each TV - i can just have 1 HTPC per concurrent video stream and control that. Given that we don't ever watch more than 2 different video streams, I only need 2 HTPC's running to serve the house.

I also still have to figure out how to display the time correctly, that too shall come.

Thanks to Beelzerob, the developer behind this driver.

FIRST REVISION, TO MOVE TO A "SOURCE-SPECIFIC" TYPE VIEW.

[tarrant_ino]

This is looking really good...


I have just bought a tablet PC but am just using Dameware mini remote control to remote to my HTPC (haven't had time to research much since it arrived)

This is much more the sort of thing I am looking for .. KEEP IT UP !

[danward79]

Is the tcp stuff CQC specific?

Would you be able to spare some more details on it?

[IVB]

The protocol is not CQC specific at all - It's heavily based on nielm's webserver, plus all CQC drivers are opensource, so anyone can have at them. However, it may only make sense for the CQC users, as CQC has a rich command language that you can write drivers in, and it's been tailored to that. You could expand to other packages, presuming they've got an open enough architecture to allow you to do such things. I don't actually know of any other packages with that level of robustness, but you could certainly roll-your-own easily enough.

The developer [beelzerob] has an ID here, also on htpcnews.com and obviously cqc. You should PM him directly, i'm sure he'd be more than happy to share the code. He was going to sourceforge it at some point as soon as he was confident about it's stability.

BTW, I just updated the screenshot above - again, still not entirely done, and it'll be much nicer once CQC 2.0 comes out in a few weeks as I can do more stuff then. However, I decided to switch to a "source-specific" view, and allow folks to pick an HTPC and kick off whatever they want. This way I can truly send a given PC's output to whatever TV I want.

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by IVB

...I decided to switch to a "source-specific" view, and allow folks to pick an HTPC and kick off whatever they want. This way I can truly send a given PC's output to whatever TV I want.

So, do you have the video outputs of each HTPC going into some kind of video switch that is then connected to the TV's? In other words, can you send the output of a PC to the TV of your choice?

[IVB]

Yes and no.

I've currently got a ZPR68 analog audio/composite video switcher. I've got a component switcher coming soon.

The HD-HTPC is only hooked up via component, and the office PC is only hooked up via composite. I can send anything to anything as long as I stay within the same signal type.