Windows Media Center plugin

[das1969]

I've found the following project development for a TCP/IP Windows Media Center (WMC) controller.

http://vmccontroller.codeplex.com/

This installs as a plugin in WMC, that when installed provides an interface whereby the user can control WMC ie. play/pause/ff/rw etc. via HTTP commands and also telnet.

The user can request media data such as currently playing title, author, album, duration, play state, length.
Parts of the plugin that are not currently working include epg information for live tv.

Is there not some way that a plugin for LCDSmartie that could be developed to use this interface?
Perhaps the prospect of LCDSmarties development might put some impetus into the wmccontroller project, as this development seems to have slowed down.

[cpunto]

I am also waiting anxiously for a free WMC plugin. I vote for this try

[dperrow]

Hi,
I've created a plugin that uses the TCPIPController interface to provide some Media Center info to the display (Photo name, artist/track, video name etc.). It's pretty rough at the moment but am happy to share the source /dll with anyone. It's written in C and built wint Dev-C++ and runing on win 7 x64.

Interested? let me know.

Dave

[dperrow]

I've published the first beta release of a dll for LCDSmartie which when used with TcpIpController will provide Windows Media Center status info.
The source and dll can be found on codeplex at: http://mcedll.codeplex.com/releases/view/67258.
The whole thing is only 58k.

Please try this and let me know how it goes.

Dave

[das1969]

HI Dave,

thanks very much for doing this.
I'm testing the plugin now, there's lot's of good stuff to look at.

First thing I've noticed, could we possibly have TrackTime formatted as hours, minutes and seconds, as opposed to total seconds?

Plus also, could there be some kind of configuration table, whereby instead of returning the channel number, we get the channel name instead?

1 - Channel One
2 - Channel Two

I'll get back to you in a couple of days after I've done some more testing.

[dperrow]

das1969,
i've put some updates on the site to provide this kinda functionality. the .doc file gives details.

Function 5 converts the given number of seconds to hh:mm:ss format e.g. $dll(MCE_dll.dll,5,$dll(MCE_dll.dll,4,TrackTime,),)
Function 6 converts the given channel number to a channel name. It looks up the content of MCE_dll.ini (which should be in the plugin directory)
// MCE_dll ini file contains tv channel info in the form
// channel_number Channel_name
// blank lines and lines starting with / are ignored
//
// Freeview EPG - Scottish Freeview Channel List
// Channel Number​Freeview Channel Name
1​BBC One
2​BBC Two
3​ITV1
4​Channel 4
The supplied file contains the channel list for Freeview in the UK (Scotland).
Example use would be: $dll(MCE_dll.dll,6,$dll(MCE_dll.dll,4,TrackNumber,),) which would return the current channel name.
 

[MariuCh]

Welcome to the forum,
and I would like to ask the question why there is no native support for WMC?

Regards,
MariuCh

[dperrow]

Could you explain a bit more? I'm not sure I understand the question.

Dave