C4 driver for nVidia Shield

[christophers]

1 minute ago, videostorm said:

I wouldn't recommend the tear down apps after exit.  That could have strange consequences since it that type of behavior is contrary to the standard Android app life cycle.

I do understand disabling CEC, since the Shield will otherwise send ON whenever it wakes and OFF when it sleeps.  If you TV is already controlled by another method or has other sources this isn't a good thing.

Disabling sleep (if CEC is off) shouldn't be needed in general.  Most key commands (nav commands) via IRUSB will wake the shield.  C4 doesn't really know when the shield sleeps though, which is why when you select the device/apps you still need to press a key to wake it up.  We could add something to the app to detect if the device is asleep and wake it without the extra key command if people find it necessary?

If you run into any other issue please let us know so we can get it fixed.  Thanks!

good info on the app teardown, i'm just testing it at my home office to see how it handles before rolling it out to my house. 

i have some pretty big issues with my setups and the device going to sleep (even though sleep is set to never). in order to wake it up, i need to instruct people to "press the cncl button a few times" in order to wake it, and it always goes back to the main shield launcher instead of the app the user launched into. 

i'm happy to work with y'all to figure out how to fix these. the way i could/would program it would be: launch mini app  from c4 > press cncl 4x > wait 3 sec > use qlaunch command > enjoy

[videostorm]

Thanks, I'll take a look at it.

[videostorm]

Ok, we have an update to both the IRUSB Android App and the Control4 driver.

Changes are:

1. Added checks in the app to automatically wake your device if we receive a QLAUNCH command and the device is currently asleep
2. Added a new QWAKE command that will automatically wake your device if asleep.  The new C4 driver will send this when "powering on" the source.
3. Added a new option to Sleep the device on room off
4. Added a new property with the current PLAY state of the device
5. Added events for device starts and stops playing media

REMEMBER that when the IRUSB app updates you may need to unplug and replug the IRUSB device to restart it.  We try to limit app updates to as few as possible to avoid inconveniencing people who have their devices set to auto update apps.

[elee532]

Thanks for the update! Will the Control4 driver update automatically, or will I need to have a dealer update the driver?


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[videostorm]

No, our driver doesn't auto update.

[christophers]

On 2/21/2018 at 6:48 PM, videostorm said:

Ok, we have an update to both the IRUSB Android App and the Control4 driver.

Changes are:

1. Added checks in the app to automatically wake your device if we receive a QLAUNCH command and the device is currently asleep
2. Added a new QWAKE command that will automatically wake your device if asleep.  The new C4 driver will send this when "powering on" the source.
3. Added a new option to Sleep the device on room off
4. Added a new property with the current PLAY state of the device
5. Added events for device starts and stops playing media

REMEMBER that when the IRUSB app updates you may need to unplug and replug the IRUSB device to restart it.  We try to limit app updates to as few as possible to avoid inconveniencing people who have their devices set to auto update apps.

hey VS, mine updated and both of my machines needed an unplug/replug as you stated. however, one of my IRUSB on the shield didn't come back. the app version is 1.5, at the bottom i'm "Online IrUSB firmware ... v223" but i can't control, nor do i see a device ID at the top. i've uninstalled/reinstalled the app, restarted the shield a few times, unplugged/replugged the device, etc. in composer the driver shows the stopped/playing state properly as well. 

any ideas? 

[christophers]

7 minutes ago, Christopher Spitler said:

hey VS, mine updated and both of my machines needed an unplug/replug as you stated. however, one of my IRUSB on the shield didn't come back. the app version is 1.5, at the bottom i'm "Online IrUSB firmware ... v223" but i can't control, nor do i see a device ID at the top. i've uninstalled/reinstalled the app, restarted the shield a few times, unplugged/replugged the device, etc. in composer the driver shows the stopped/playing state properly as well. 

any ideas? 

meh, disregard. i had a USB stick in there that must have been interfering with it. i removed it (was using it to sideload NBC app for olympics) and the IRUSB works fine now. weird, though, b/c that USB stick has been in there for a few weeks. 

[drmark12pa]

I'm stumped on getting this going....

I've installed the app on my NVIDIA shield, dealer installed the driver, the driver has the IP address identical to the Shield, it's showing as ONLINE, and when I hit buttons my SR250 remote, I hear a bleep bleep noise but not movement of the cursor at all. However, when I go back into Kodi (which I've always been able to control with C4 since I had previous XBMC box) it appears that cursor has moved around.  So I am moving the Kodi cursor while on the main Android screen in the background apparently.   I can still use my original Shield remote to navigate .

Is there a setting in the Google App that I need to set?  I see there are 4 Enable options, I have not checked any of the boxes.

The FW is upgrated to 223.  The TX count says 1, the RX count says 0.

What am I missing here?

[dcovach]

What's the port number in the driver and in the shield?

[Eric Stiff]

Ok, got mine in and setup. I have one question and one initial impression.
Question: Is it made to only work in USB port 2 (closest to HDMI?) I initially plugged it into 1 but the Shield would never recognize it there.

Video Storm driver initial impression: I've only been working with it for a little bit as I was sidetracked trying to sideload Slacker radio. Snappy and nice. Perfect response time navigating the Shield itself. Navigating ES File Explorer is another story. Scrolling through folder contents is almost impossible as it keeps wanting to jump back over to the "tree" pane. I guess this is because the driver is faster than the Shield can update the folder contents. The search function in ES doesn't work either because as soon as a letter is selected it changes input keyboards and letter selection is not possible at that point. That said, the amount of users that would use ES File Explore would likely be so negligible that I doubt it's worth addressing.

Ok, another question after all. I finally got Slacker Radio sideloaded but can't for the life of me get the app url so I can assign it to a Custom App line. Could someone help me that bit of info please?

Thank you,

Eric

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[videostorm]

3 hours ago, drmark12pa said:

I'm stumped on getting this going....

I've installed the app on my NVIDIA shield, dealer installed the driver, the driver has the IP address identical to the Shield, it's showing as ONLINE, and when I hit buttons my SR250 remote, I hear a bleep bleep noise but not movement of the cursor at all. However, when I go back into Kodi (which I've always been able to control with C4 since I had previous XBMC box) it appears that cursor has moved around.  So I am moving the Kodi cursor while on the main Android screen in the background apparently.   I can still use my original Shield remote to navigate .

Is there a setting in the Google App that I need to set?  I see there are 4 Enable options, I have not checked any of the boxes.

The FW is upgrated to 223.  The TX count says 1, the RX count says 0.

What am I missing here?

Which driver are you using?

[videostorm]

1 hour ago, icefloe01 said:

Ok, got mine in and setup. I have one question and one initial impression.
Question: Is it made to only work in USB port 2 (closest to HDMI?) I initially plugged it into 1 but the Shield would never recognize it there.

Video Storm driver initial impression: I've only been working with it for a little bit as I was sidetracked trying to sideload Slacker radio. Snappy and nice. Perfect response time navigating the Shield itself. Navigating ES File Explorer is another story. Scrolling through folder contents is almost impossible as it keeps wanting to jump back over to the "tree" pane. I guess this is because the driver is faster than the Shield can update the folder contents. The search function in ES doesn't work either because as soon as a letter is selected it changes input keyboards and letter selection is not possible at that point. That said, the amount of users that would use ES File Explore would likely be so negligible that I doubt it's worth addressing.

Ok, another question after all. I finally got Slacker Radio sideloaded but can't for the life of me get the app url so I can assign it to a Custom App line. Could someone help me that bit of info please?

Thank you,

Eric

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 

If you have developer mode usb debugging on, then USB 1 is taken over for debugging.

 

[Eric Stiff]

If you have developer mode usb debugging on, then USB 1 is taken over for debugging.
 

Ok thank you. I had it on to try get the info for Slacker Radio but I didn't have the right cable to connect to my computer. So I just copied the app URL for Netflix and swapped out com.netflix.ninja for com.slacker.radio but it wouldn't work. I wonder if part of the problem is the way I installed it? It's not available directly in the app store for the Shield so I download the apk from December, ran it, but it would not install. Ran it again, and this time clicked the market link where it actually installed and runs fine. I just have no idea of the app URL at this point to assign it to a button.

Thank you,
Eric

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[videostorm]

You need both the package name (com.slacker.radio) and the component name you are calling (inside the app).  The best way to get that is from the adb logcat (either usb or network).  I think their is an example earlier in this thread.

[drmark12pa]

49 minutes ago, videostorm said:

Which driver are you using?

I've included a screenshot of the Properties page. In Composer, it shows as Android Universal IrUSB driver

CHANGELOG

1.0 Nov 2017
Initial release

[videostorm]

looks correct.  Are you selecting this driver as your source with the "watch" menu/key?

[drmark12pa]

10 hours ago, videostorm said:

looks correct.  Are you selecting this driver as your source with the "watch" menu/key?

Ok, progress made... I had to change the HDMI input on my matrix so it's using the right HDMI(ooops! ).  Now I can control navigation with the IRUSB.  However, I don't appear to be able to FForward or Rewind.  This is probably one of the biggest things I had hoped for better response as noted in my post above with the extremely slow response time of the KODI driver alone.  Now I don't have any FForward or Rewind capability with Kodi, Youtube,etc?

[videostorm]

1 hour ago, drmark12pa said:

Ok, progress made... I had to change the HDMI input on my matrix so it's using the right HDMI(ooops! ).  Now I can control navigation with the IRUSB.  However, I don't appear to be able to FForward or Rewind.  This is probably one of the biggest things I had hoped for better response as noted in my post above with the extremely slow response time of the KODI driver alone.  Now I don't have any FForward or Rewind capability with Kodi, Youtube,etc?

Looks like there was a typo in the driver in the key mapping table for those two keys.  Fixed now in version 1.6 online at our web site.

[drmark12pa]

As an end user am I able to update the driver or would my dealer have to do that?

[msgreenf]

8 minutes ago, drmark12pa said:

As an end user am I able to update the driver or would my dealer have to do that?

your dealer will have to

[Eric Stiff]

You need both the package name (com.slacker.radio) and the component name you are calling (inside the app).  The best way to get that is from the adb logcat (either usb or network).  I think their is an example earlier in this thread.

I wonder if the problem I'm having with it is because I couldn't download it directly from Play but had to put it on a USB drive, find it with ES file explorer, and install it that way. It does not show up in the app row on the home screen; I have to use an app called "TV Launcher" in order to run it. The logcat isn't helping me much.

Eric

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[videostorm]

4 minutes ago, icefloe01 said:

I wonder if the problem I'm having with it is because I couldn't download it directly from Play but had to put it on a USB drive, find it with ES file explorer, and install it that way. It does not show up in the app row on the home screen; I have to use an app called "TV Launcher" in order to run it. The logcat isn't helping me much.

Eric

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 

As long as you can run it you can get the URL/URI info.  You are looking for the intent which launches the app in the logcat (grep on the package name).

[christophers]

i suspect you are using a separate app to launch it since it will not show on the shield homescreen due to it being sideloaded. if that's the case, then the URL/URI is all you need as @videostorm mentioned. there's some tutorials online if you're not familiar with what VS is mentioning re: the intent, i picked it up pretty quick when i wanted to directly launch the NBC Sports app for the olympics

[Eric Stiff]

i suspect you are using a separate app to launch it since it will not show on the shield homescreen due to it being sideloaded. if that's the case, then the URL/URI is all you need as [mention=124055]videostorm[/mention] mentioned. there's some tutorials online if you're not familiar with what VS is mentioning re: the intent, i picked it up pretty quick when i wanted to directly launch the NBC Sports app for the olympics

I understand and I'll go to digging deeper through the logcat later today. I was looking at how Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon launch and comparing it to Slacker's sequence and Slacker is the one throwing some different lines in there. It'll just take some more experimentation.

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[christophers]

yeah, there's some weird ones. i think netflix/hulu/amazon have more standard approaches since those are all packaged with the shield by default, they are more consistent.