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Windows Media Center Intergration Questions


club411

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New to this myself but I don't believe Windows Media Center will interface with C4. If you want to use media off your PC you will need to install XBMC for PC and the driver that will allow XMBC to interface with C4. Your dealer should be able to set you up with the driver. XMBC can be downloaded for free and it is a very slick interface. This is the route I'm going my with my C4 system that will be installed over the next few weeks.

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Yes, WMC is only IR control at this time. XBMC gives the best functionality as mentioned by Jayace.

I am really confused on all of this as I have heard different things. Can I just plug in my drives to the hc300 and pull the movie media straight from that without having any sort of HTPC?

I just want the ability to have the DVD cover info display?

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Yes' date=' WMC is only IR control at this time. XBMC gives the best functionality as mentioned by Jayace.[/quote']

I am really confused on all of this as I have heard different things. Can I just plug in my drives to the hc300 and pull the movie media straight from that without having any sort of HTPC?

No, Control4's controllers do not have the ability to play back any video. You have to use a third party box, or Control4's upcoming media player.

I just want the ability to have the DVD cover info display?

Then you need to have your movies stored on a network drive somewhere, and play them back using a Netgear 9150, machine running XBMC, or Zatabit. In the future you can use Control4's media player or AppleTV when the driver launches.

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As far as Windows Media Center integration, there is a free app that works with windows 7 here: http://vmccontroller.codeplex.com/Thread/List.aspx that will make WMC capable of being controlled through TCP/IP. There is even a http server that will allow two-way communication. WMC users just need a driver created for this.

Interesting. Who's up for creating a driver?

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As far as Windows Media Center integration' date=' there is a free app that works with windows 7 here: [url']http://vmccontroller.codeplex.com/Thread/List.aspx that will make WMC capable of being controlled through TCP/IP. There is even a http server that will allow two-way communication. WMC users just need a driver created for this.

Interesting. Who's up for creating a driver?

The trick would be getting metadata information. I could care less if I could control something, but if you tell me I can browse TV channels or recordings on windows media center through Control4... sold!

Hmm................

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As far as Windows Media Center integration' date=' there is a free app that works with windows 7 here: [url']http://vmccontroller.codeplex.com/Thread/List.aspx that will make WMC capable of being controlled through TCP/IP. There is even a http server that will allow two-way communication. WMC users just need a driver created for this.

Interesting. Who's up for creating a driver?

The trick would be getting metadata information. I could care less if I could control something, but if you tell me I can browse TV channels or recordings on windows media center through Control4... sold!

Hmm................

Well, this has me thinking. My new Windows 7 PC has an HDMI out that isn't currently in use, and I could connect that to my system using JAP, then it would provide me with another high def media player to support and supplement my two EVA9150's.

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Interesting. Who's up for creating a driver?

The trick would be getting metadata information. I could care less if I could control something' date=' but if you tell me I can browse TV channels or recordings on windows media center through Control4... sold!

Hmm................[/quote']

Well, this has me thinking. My new Windows 7 PC has an HDMI out that isn't currently in use, and I could connect that to my system using JAP, then it would provide me with another high def media player to support and supplement my two EVA9150's.

I'm already ahead of you. Have something coming to the lab next week :)

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  • 4 weeks later...

No one's stopping you from writing a driver Zaphod. I would welcome it. I have a Dell Zino HD on the way and I'll be controlling it IR until someone catches the vision and writes a driver. For me I'm a C and LabView programmer, but I haven't tried to dive in to Control4's Driver Works stuff. I may get impatient myself.

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No one's stopping you from writing a driver Zaphod. I would welcome it. I have a Dell Zino HD on the way and I'll be controlling it IR until someone catches the vision and writes a driver. For me I'm a C and LabView programmer, but I haven't tried to dive in to Control4's Driver Works stuff. I may get impatient myself.

How does one go about getting the info - can I download a C4 SDK somewhere? I would love to be able to pass information back and forth between my HC-300 and my PCs. Certianly MCE integration would be part of what I would like to see but there would be all sorts of other info. I have switched from Windows Media Center to SageTV so I would really like to integrate my C4 with Sage.

It might be nice to have my system wake me up if the Japanese stock market falls by more than 5% during the night, for example.

Other exmpales of what I would like to do?

- I have a CardAccess device in my wine storage cabinet that records temperature. It would be nice to be able to log the temp on an hourly basis to a text file.

- Have some of your 6 button LEDs flash red if there is a severe weather warning in effect.

- Have C4 notifications sent to your PC, other than the basic email that is pretty expensive since it forces you to subscribe to 4sight.

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It might be nice to have my system wake me up if the Japanese stock market falls by more than 5% during the night, for example.

There is a stock ticker driver, though I'm not sure it's event programming capabilites. This might be better available in 2.0 - not sure.

Have C4 notifications sent to your PC, other than the basic email that is pretty expensive since it forces you to subscribe to 4sight.

Your dealer can setup the twitter driver. Although limited to 10 notifications, it requires no subsciption service that I'm aware of. Again, with 2.0, there's no telling what we might see since it will be running flash (and flash runs on computers too).

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