Watch while listening

[knowitall]

Been playing around with audio end point 2 and not having the success I'm wanting. 

Wondering how you all retain control of the watch function while listening to a different audio source. 

Scenario: kitchen with house audio and a tv. Dedicated cable box hooked into matrix amp. Want to retain control of cable box with SR250 while listening to native audio stream. 

Currently I program a "kitchen tv" and "kitchen audio" room since C4 devices always follow last command. 

Is there a better way to do this? 

Hopefully im asking this correctly. 

[sonic30101]

I would try adding a fake room to the system that has the same cable box and a tv on ir that you can select from the sr250.

[knowitall]

That's what I do, and it's not a fake room. I just have a tv room where all end points are the TV and one for audio where end points are amp SR stays in "TV" room and use the app/to select in the "audio" room. 

Just wondering if there is a better way

[knowitall]

And curious how the end point 2's are actually used 

[sonic30101]

Sounds like you are really close, this is very dependent on how it is all connected and if there is a local controller for navigator along with other unknowns

 

Room1 Kitchen- make all audio and video connections (cablebox to tv and amp as well as audio and video endpoints)

 

Room2 Kitchen TV- make a second tv, same model number on the same IR port and connect the cable box to the same input that the real kitchen tv is using

 

This will allow you to select cable in the kitchen and audio comes out of the speakers, when listening to music switch rooms and select cable in Kitchen TV room and that tv will turn on switch to cable box and leave the audio path the same giving you control of cable box

[knowitall]

Thanks that's essentiallly what I'm doing but the other way around for the audio room. 

 

Thanks tho

 

Im trying to make it 1 room and be able to retain control of cable box while having separate audio playing. I know not possible just wondering if anyone had different approach

[Cyknight]

On 6/7/2017 at 6:11 AM, knowitall said:

. I know not possible just wondering if anyone had different approach

You're right, that is not really possible. Well.... Not possible without a large amount of custom programming with all sorts of pitfalls. No matter your setup, Control4 will move transport controls over to the last selected source, be it audio or video.

 

What you CAN do is program on all room commands, if audio is playing and if TV is ON to sned code xyz to the video source, which also means you have to create variables to track the last selected video device....though you'd have to lose some commands like transport play/pause and skip etc as an audio source will have them as well.

Just doesn't end up pretty with too many ways for it to go wrong or create odd behaviour.

[Cyknight]

Mind you, what happens with the two-room setup is that you can switch back to the 'TV' room, control the cable box etc and retain volume control over audio (though not transport control) because it's using the same volume endpoints.

[VINCELdUB]

 

Using Control4's native algorithms will work. But require a lot of fiddling around.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Automating!!

My recommendation, if I understand correctly, would be to create the room like normal with all of the normal end points. And then program a custom button like GREEN for example. And have GREEN switch the audio amplifier or matrix to the dedicated music cable box. And the blue button to return it.

 

This way, while switching between sources for the watch functionality, once you land on the source you would like to watch simply press the green button and the audio will switch to the dedicated music box. Because this does not change the rooms source, Control4 will continue to operate like normal with the watch functionality and it would have no idea that you've changed the audio source.

If you would like me to write up an example, I can do that and post some pictures if needed.

[Matt Lowe]

if its an ir controlled box, you could simply create an extra cable box for the kitchen that has the video bindings of the box you want to control and the audio of the box that you want to listen to. Then this will give you three choice to control video and audio of the box you are watching, video of the box you want to watch and the audio of the box you want to listen to and the video and audio of the music box.

agreed control4 does not make this easy to do but they also do want to make the controls confusing either. so doing two rooms would be correct.

[eddy.trochez]

I do what the OP wants to do and it works great. As mentioned, it requires a lot of programming.
I have two video Sources: Roku, Tivo.
I created a string variable named Last source selected.
Every time the source is selected it changes the variable to either Tivo or Roku.
I select a watch activity and then change to audio.
In programming at room level:

When X is pressed
If Room X is in a Session
--If variable last source selected is Tivo
----Send Tivo X command to Room X
--If variable last source selected is Roku
----Send Roku X command to Room X

I only program common buttons such as numbers, channels up, channel down, etc.

It works like a charm.

[knowitall]

Thanks everyone! Just gonna stick to a TV room and an Audio room. Makes the program busy but works like I want it to

Now if c4 would allow you to "hide" rooms on specific navigators…