This is a new thread to replace the old slightly mis-titled thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=419953&perpage=20&pagenumber=1).

I have written a Windows program that links J River's Media Center (JRMC) MP3 player software to Russound's CAV6.6 6-zone multi-room audio controller. This software allows you to see artist and track name on the CAV's keypads and use the keypad buttons to play, stop, pause, switch to next/prev track/artist, etc. Each zone number defined in MC11 maps to the same source number in the CAV.

The software requires the latest CAV6.6 controller and keypad firmware, which should come standard on all new CAV6.6 orders, but you may have to upgrade it if you bought a CAV6.6 2004 or earlier.

You can download JRMC from here (http://www.jriver.com/download.html) but note that it is not free software. Many users (including myself) have had problems getting MC11's multi-zone support to work with non-ASIO soundcards. As such, if you are considering buying a new soundcard for use with multi-zone, I would recommend a card that supports ASIO. Many people have reported that the M-Audio Delta cards work well.

You can download the link software from here (http://www.objective.se/cav66.exe). This is free software - I wrote it for myself. If you like it and it suits your needs, great. If it doesn't meet your needs, don't use it. Suggestions are welcome but the software comes with no warranty or support.

hyslopc, I have to thank you for your efforts, and particularly your willingness to share your work with the community! (esp. since you're giving the s/w away FREE!)

As a custom installer, I'm very interested in this s/w ... I hope to be able to demo the app with the CAV in my own home in the next few months, once our remodel's complete and I have the a/v setup completed. If it works, we may consider offering it to our clients as a (potentially cheaper) alternative to the SMS3. However, if we chose to pursue this I wouldn't do so without a) your express permission, and b) some form of payment (call it a licensing fee ;)) to you!

Thanks again!

Anyone is free to provide this software to others free of charge, or even to charge for setting it up. If the software was sold, then I would definitely appreciate a paypal donation or whatever. If you have clients that are looking for specific additional functionality and are willing to pay for it then let me know and I will consider it, although unfortunately I am very busy at work right now. My CAV6.6 project happened to come up while work was very quiet, which was perfect, since it took a lot longer to write the software than I had expected.

Will this also work with Russounds new CAM controller? I believe the CAM and the CAV use the same keypad interface.

Thanks.

It almost certainly will, but I haven't tested it, and don't have any way to test it, since I don't have a CAM. The RNet protocol should be the same for both units, so I would think it should just work without modification. If anyone has a CAM and has tried it, it would be great it they could post about it so we know, since this has come up before.

Odd behavior from the keypads that I have been struggling with for about a week or more.

As I understand it the keypads SHOULD function like this:
next/prev buttons on the keypad jump to the next/prev track in the playlist, and use the +/- keypad buttons to go to the next/prev artist in the playlist.

However for me the next/prev button jump to a random place in the play list and start scrolling the text by the song name. the +/- keys will jump to the same songs as next/prev but start text scrolling with the Artist.

I had keypad firmware v2.00.2 but did the update to V3.00.01 but the problem remains. My CAV has firmware v2.00.01 which appears to be the latest. Shuffle mode is off in MC11, and my playlist is shorted by artist.

HELP...:confused:

I just sent you a PM, randy.

** I originally posted this over in the Home Integration Forum **

Hi

Trying to get this interface going.. I am so close.....but its not quite going.

I have upgraded my keypads and controller, ran the serial cable, and installed Media Center 11. My problem is when I try and run cav66.exe - I get the error message "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix the problem."
Unzipping and running again gets the same result. I am running from com2, so I am running the command line as "c:\russound\cav66.exe /port=com2".

Just to confirm - the serial cable that is used between the CAV66 and the pc is a straight through cable using pins 2, 3 and 5?

Any ideas where I may be tripping up here? I am eager to see this in action!

Cheers

Al

I am running version 11.0.248, just d/l'd yesterday. I see the .250 is now available , I will try that and let you know. BTW, I did run the CAV66 on my work PC and it came up with a box listing all the CAV 6.6 zones, even tho I was not connected to anything - I fear there may be something wrong with my home PC (running XP Pro)

Al

Update: Same issue with v.250.

Same result with a freshly installed version of Windows XP Pro - it must not like my hardware :(

I did a google on this error message, and found an article that could be relevant at http://www.arstdesign.com/BBS/BulletinBoard.php?qs_id=2765. To sum it up, if you have a file called cav66.exe.config in the same directory as cav66.exe, then that could be causing the problem.

Hi all,
Count me in as a another successful user of this little app. Great work hyslopc! And more importantly thanks for sharing your work with the community!

I do have a question for you:
In the last thread you said:
"The plug-in is designed to automatically stop each MC zone if no keypads are turned on within that zone. That is, if the music isn't playing anywhere in the house, it will be automatically turned off. This is so that you can just turn a keypad off in the room you are in without having to worry about whether the source is shared or not.

If the plug-in didn't do this, then the music would keep on playing if you didn't press stop before turning off the last keypad. In addition to generating unnecesary PC heat, noise, and hard disk wear, this would mess up MC's statistics (since it would show songs as "played" that have not actually been heard)."

I am wondering if this functionality is tied to the power management funtionality in the CAV6? My hope is that by turning off the Power Management off for Source 1 then it won't shut down my MediaCenter? THe reason I ask this is because I am using the loop-back ports on input number one to send uncontrolled audio signal to the amplifier in my living room which acts independantly from the keypads. Until all the keypads are off - then my music gets shut down as well even tho I want to still play it via the loop back outputs.. My installer is coming back this week to do some other programming and hopefully I will get him to disable the Power management for the 2 MC zones. Can you confirm if this is how your app works? Am I making any sense?
Cheers!

I've been half-expecting this to come up eventually, since I can imagine that your setup isn't that uncommon. I am using external amplification, too, but I always have a keypad, even when the amp is external.

The current functionality is only based on the keypad status. As soon as no keypads are powered on and listening to a given source, that source is stopped. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "turning off power management" - is there a page in the manual that talks about this? If so let me know the page number and I can have a look at it.

It would be simple enough to add a switch to say "Don't automatically stop sources that aren't selected", if that would help. Would it?

A switch/checkbox would be perfect, and preferred to using the power management option (see page55) as it leaves me in control of this thing and not at the mercy of getting the installer in to change the setting later should I want to change the configuration.

Oh.. and one more thing... Ths is one awesome little app you made! Can I make a donation to the cause?

Cheers!

OK I'll check that out. Donations are always welcome :). My paypal email address is paypal at objective.se.

Now I've read page 55, but I'm still not sure how best to handle this. I ran a quick test here, and it seems like the CAV6.6 doesn't send out anything on the RS-232 port when the Home Theater 12V trigger in is activated. I tested it by just connecting my 12V doorbell to it and pressing the doorbell. Let me know if that wasn't a valid test.

As such, we don't know whether that 12V trigger in is on or off at any given time. If we knew this, then of course it would be very simple to base decisions on it. However I think there is another solution.

According to page 56, the CAV6.6 lets you define a "power off" macro that it will automatically send out when the 12V HT trigger input no longer has voltage present. If I add some sort of "no auto-stop" parameter, then all you should have to do is program the CAV6.6 with the default STOP command for "power off". If the CAV6.6 sends that to the HT zone, then the plug-in should pick it up (just as if you pressed stop on the keypad) and pass it on to MC. The only catch is that at that point the keypad is powered off, and the plug-in might therefore ignore the STOP command. If so, I could look into it and fix it.

Does this sound like a good solution?

Sounds like a good solution but I don't think you need to get that complicated. I like your original idea better - that is to just have a flag or checkbox to NOT stop MC when there are no zones active and skip the whole integration with their Power Management.

That's all I'll be doing in any case - it's up to each individual user to decide whether they want to bother with setting up the macro in their CAV6.6.

Should the flag specify a specific zone? I guess it should, since the CAV6.6 only supports one HT zone, right?

I'm not sure about the Cav6.6 having a single HT zone but I know it does have RCA pass throughs for each source on the Russound. One global flag that applies to all zones and sources would work fine for me. (But you just KNOW someday someone's going to come to you and ask you to control it on a source by source basis) :-)

Yeah, and as such I will make it flexible. Just to confirm: this should be specifiable on a source basis, not a zone basis, right?

Russound has posted new controller and keypad firmware in their document center. They only significant change to the keypad firmware seems to be extending the maximum length of scrolling text from 32 to 37 characters. The new controller firmware (which is much easier to update) seems to include more significant fixes. I will probably upgrade my controller when I have time, but might not bother with upgrading my keypads.

for me one global flag would work wonderfully. Either it shuts MC down or it doesn't. Maybe start with that and see if anyone really needs to have more granular control?? No one has piped into this feature debate yet.

hyslopc,

I installed XP Home and now everything is working -=excellent=-.

I am not sure if it was .Net Frame work 1.1 that was causing me issues on the other build, but from my reading it would seem to be the only thing I can link it to.

Anyways, awesome software! I am really enjoying being able to control my audio on the pc remotely. I also got the video portion working very well through the CAV 6.6 using an ATI All-in-Wonder card. I will be purchasing a PC to dedicate to media centre and your interface!

My only request would be the ability to control playlists as has been previously discussed by using an extended push on one of the buttons.

Also the ability to toggle whether to have it turn off with no zones connected could be handy for me in the future as I expand on the functionality you have given me.

Thanks again, great solution!

Al

Great to hear. WinoOutWest is testing the "no auto stop" flag, and hopefully we'll hear back from him about it shortly.

.Great to hear. WinoOutWest is testing the "no auto stop" flag, and hopefully we'll hear back from him about it shortly

I am a willing tester as well, if needed.

Cheers

Al

hyslopc,

I was excited to see your CAV6.6 integration and am personally interested in adapting it for my own use with Apple's iTunes . I sent you a PM with details.

My only request would be the ability to control playlists as has been previously discussed by using an extended push on one of the buttons.


MMMMMMM... Playlists!! :cool:

Any updates on implementing this feature?

How about Fm tuner support? I'd like to setup an FM source using something like the Axife FM tuner software and a USB tuner. It'd be really slick to have the station number, call letters or some other text displayed right on the UNO display.

I've got girder and netremote running on the MC11 machine. Any ideas on how to make your code interface with a tuner?

Ditto on the tuner support!

And on another note...
After I updated to the .251 version of MC11, my second and third zones stopped working. Same deal with .275 (the RC). Did anyone else see issues after an update?

Can't MC11 handle your FM tuner? I haven't tried it myself, but I understood that it was part of MC.

And on another note...
After I updated to the .251 version of MC11, my second and third zones stopped working. Same deal with .275 (the RC). Did anyone else see issues after an update?
Yes, I had to go and manually reselect all the zones. That and .274 seemed to have volume control problems.

Can't MC11 handle your FM tuner? I haven't tried it myself, but I understood that it was part of MC.
MC supports TV tuners (of which I have none) but I don't believe it supports any FM tuners.

So either your app would have to know about tuners or be able to 'interface' with another program that did. Axife is one (commercial) app that does a pretty good job of handling the dozens of different tuner choices.

-Bill Kearney

Sorry for being dense, but what did you mean by "Yes, I had to go and manually reselect all the zones. That and .274 seemed to have volume control problems."?

If you can put your FM stations into an MC11 playlist, then there's no reason why you can't use the plug-in to switch from station to station.
No, most USB FM tuner devices provide a line-out audio signal, not a stream. Even with the various tricks one can use in MC11 I don't think it'd be possible.

This is sort of why I figured it'd be better to have your app handle interfacing directly. Really what I'm after here is imitating one of the Russound tuners, not feeding the audio in the PC. Since your app has the serial port I figured this might be the place to start.

Although, any idea what it'd take to interface through an R-NET port?

And grayvader, MC11 forgot which devices were associated with which zones. So I had to manually go into the zone manager for each zone and reselect which device it should use. I can't be any clearer than that and perhaps it'd be better to have that conversation over on j.river's own forum for MC11 and not clutter up the threads here.

OK fair enough. I'd like to be able to easily listen to the radio, too. In order to provide good FM radio support, I guess we have the following options:

1) J River adds a new generic Radio API to MC12, and I implement it in the plug-in. This would be the best option, but it relies on J River deciding that this is important.

2) We find out which of the FM Radio cards have APIs that are usable to implement a good interface, and then have a vote here to decide which one I implement directly. We would have to decide on one, because I don't think I'm interested enough to implement multiple APIs that do the same thing.

3) I add an API to my app (as I've considered doing for a long time), and someone else writes one or more radio "plug-ins" to my app. This obviously depends on whether such a person is ready, willing, and able.

Hyslopc,

I have used a free app called Radiator in the past that supports a wide variety of FM tuner cards. It also has an SDK and several plugins developed for it. See below for a link to it and its plugins page. I have previously controlled it from the command line, girder, etc. I don't know if this would work, but I figured I would mention it.

(I tried to post links, but the board wouldn't let me since I have less than 5 posts. You can search Google for "radiator radio" and it should be the first or second link at flesko.cz.)

I have been using your app for several weeks now and love it. Thanks a bunch for putting it together. I really like the idea of being able to browse playlists and look forward to that feature being added.

One other thing I would love to have would be the ability to browse by Genre (Rock, Country, Classic, Blues, etc) like we do Artist now. I find that usually I am in a mood for a particular type of music rather than a particular artist anyway. I know that you can configure a view by Genre grouping as an option within JRMC, but I believe that only browsing by artist is available from the keypad using your app, correct?

Lastly, I was originally using Girder by way of Netremote to control my Russound wirelessly with my PDA. With it, you can use your PDA to control zones, select sources, setup playlists, view album covers, lyrics, etc... My only problem is that the Russound only has one RS232 port (that can be active at any one time). I currently need two, one for your app, and one for Girder. Do you know of a way to connect multiple serial channels to the Russound? I considered using a splitter, but I don't know if the Russound protocol can handle multiple devices controlling it over the same channel.

Another option would be for your app to relay commands to the Russound from either a socket connection or a web interface... that would open up many possibilities. I am assuming these would also be possible with the API you mentioned previously.

Joey

Lastly, I was originally using Girder by way of Netremote to control my Russound wirelessly with my PDA. With it, you can use your PDA to control zones, select sources, setup playlists, view album covers, lyrics, etc... My only problem is that the Russound only has one RS232 port (that can be active at any one time). I currently need two, one for your app, and one for Girder. Do you know of a way to connect multiple serial channels to the Russound? I considered using a splitter, but I don't know if the Russound protocol can handle multiple devices controlling it over the same channel.

Another option would be for your app to relay commands to the Russound from either a socket connection or a web interface... that would open up many possibilities. I am assuming these would also be possible with the API you mentioned previously.


Ditto on what Joe's saying here. I too have Girder but not (yet) in use to interact with the CAV6.6 (but I'd like to).

This is why I ask about the R-Net port. I'm wondering what might be possible in using (misusing?) one of them for these other purposes?

Meanwhile, however, a scheme that passes messages either in via Girder to the plug-in or vice-versa might be a solution. Depending on what you need in girder would determine the complexity of it.

1) J River adds a new generic Radio API to MC12, and I implement it in the plug-in. This would be the best option, but it relies on J River deciding that this is important.

Given how looooong MC11 has been in beta, let alone "release candidate" (ha!) I wouldn't hold my breath here.

2) We find out which of the FM Radio cards have APIs that are usable to implement a good interface, and then have a vote here to decide which one I implement directly. We would have to decide on one, because I don't think I'm interested enough to implement multiple APIs that do the same thing.

The commercial app Axife has a compatibility list. That might be one place to look for range of device interfaces.

3) I add an API to my app (as I've considered doing for a long time), and someone else writes one or more radio "plug-ins" to my app. This obviously depends on whether such a person is ready, willing, and able.

What language are you using for the app?

Lots of good ideas here. Does anyone have the email address of the person who has added CAV6.6 support to Girder? If so, I could contact them and we could discuss the best way of sharing the serial port, and maybe working together in other ways, too.

I agree that it would be great to be able to use the + and + buttons to browse by other fields, not just by artist. I tried to implement this originally based on how the playlist was sorted. That is, if it was sorted by gender, then + and - would browse by gender. Unfortunately I couldn't find any way to get the MC11 API to support this. I posted on their forums to ask if there was a way to do it, but didn't get any good replies. The main problem is that MC playlists are only ever sorted by sequence number as far as MC is concerned. The fact that the tracks have previously been sorted by a field is not known to MC at the time the playlist is playing - it just plays them in sequence. So in order to determine a sort order, you would have to go through the tracks one-by-one and try and work out if there is a sort order, and if so, how it has been done - there is no way to get MC to tell you.

My software is written in C++ (using MS Visual Studio).

Is there any documentation on this plug-in? How can I control the name/number of zones it offers to the CAV6.6? What cable pinouts does it require (and is there a way to use hyperterminal to speak to the unit just to see if the link is working?)

So, the latest rev supports three sources? Is there a way to control how many sources it provides and their position? As in, I've got the sources on the CAV setup to provide:

source 1: mp3
source 2: dvd
source 3: tivo
source 4: tuner
source 5: cd changer
source 6: mp3

Can I configure your plugin to match up to this? The rationale behind the grouping of them is that some zones have A-Bus slaves on them which can only select from 4 sources. I can use the master Uno keypad to select the other two (5&6) if needed. But for typical use I'm likely to rotate between the MC11 mp3 playback, Tivo and the Tuner. Thus I need the plugin to rearrange what's on which source.

Also, the plugin crashes if the MC11 app is in the process of doing a Library -> Update from Tags action. It seems MC11 decided to "forget" the track names from about 3000 of my files. If I run the 'update from tags' function and try to use a keypad the plugin crashes. Not a typical problem, to be sure, but might it be something that could be handled?

Most of these questions have already been answered in this thread and/or the old one, but there's no harm in going over them again. The correct cable is a standard straight-through RS-232 cable. The number of sources depends on your CAV6.6 zone config - you can configure up to 6 of them. They are always numbered from 1 upwards.

If the plug-in crashed, it should have asked you to email me a cav66.dmp file - did it do that? If not, what OS are you running?

This is a little off topic, but I fits with MC11 and the plug-in...

I am experiencing of odd problems, and I am wondering if anyone else is/has had them?

I have a couple fo mp3s that are 0.5 - 1.5 hours long (they are audio books). When I play them, it works for a time then the audio slows when down, stutters, skips, etc. I can make it return to normal, by running down stairs and moving the mouse around or hitting a key on the keyboard. They usually play fine for about 10-15 minutes then start doing this - move the mouse - play fine for 10-15 minutes... and so it goes. It will also happen with a normal 2-5 minute mp3 if the CAV is in party mode and all six zones are playing. Then is only takes about 45 seconds to goof up.

The computer is running XP with SP2, M-Audio 410 card, Athlon XP 2000. It is dedicated to distriduted audio 90% of the time (10% home theater), so no other processes are running: only MC11 and the CAV plug-in.

Any thoughts?

Could be power management or a screen saver - make sure you disable all those things (or set them up so that they reflect your usage). I would open up task manager and leave it open, then reproduce the problem and have a look at what it is showing (without touching the keyboard or the mouse). Make sure you're running the latest MC11 build, too.

Most of these questions have already been answered in this threadCould you put a few of them into the readme file inside the zip archive? It'd help the next person...

The number of sources depends on your CAV6.6 zone config - you can configure up to 6 of them. They are always numbered from 1 upwards.

I have more zones in MC11 than I feed to the CAV6.6. The machine running MC is a rack-mounted touchscreen in the home theatre room. That room is on it's own amplifier and not part of the Russound setup. Thus I have an MC11 zone all it's own. I also have one for an FM transmitter (good for headphone use during lawn work). So I need to have it NOT force those zones onto the CAV6.6 keypad displays. I'm fine with having to rejigger the wiring to make it happen if need be.

Also check the power management settings and/or other background processes. Things like the Index Service come to mind. If, for some reason, those things think the machine is "idle" they might start gobbling up CPU.

You could also use the Performance monitor to keep a much more fine-tuned chart. The task manager will only show you what happened to be consuming CPU when you're looking at it. You can setup a performance monitor log to watch the Process object and then setup Counters on just certain apps.

To test it, get all the apps started. Then start the task manager, sort by CPU consumption and leave it on top. Disable any screen savers (this might affect the stuttering). Then come look at what shows when the audio stutters. If a certain app, besides System Idle, is chewing up CPU you could then setup a Performance log on it.

But this might be better asked over in the MC11 forum on J.River's site.

What, if any, messages can you see when an A-Bus keypad is used? Can you see any of the keypresses? Can you send it an Off command? I just hooked up an A-KP2 out on the deck and, to my dismay, is doesn't appear to listen when an Uno sends an "All Off" command. Any idea what the "Status" jumper on the A-KP2 does when operating off a CAV6.6?

I don't have any A-Bus hardware, so have never tested it. Will send you an email...

Anyone still have FlashMagic on their computers. I was going to update my keypads today, but the FlashMagic link is down. And I can't find another copy on the internet.

Thanks for any help.

post your email address and I'll send it on...

Grayvader... Thanks for helping me out.

Apparently the FlashMagic site was just down for a few hours, as I was able to download it this morning. I guess a needed to have a little patience.

Thanks again.

Lots of good ideas here. Does anyone have the email address of the person who has added CAV6.6 support to Girder? If so, I could contact them and we could discuss the best way of sharing the serial port, and maybe working together in other ways, too.
Actually, I have written my own interface to the Russound CAV for Girder. I would have responded earlier, but haven't been able to spend a lot of time recently due to work demands. I am getting back on this project now and am trying to get some of the issues ironed out. I am not a Girder expert, but I essentially wrote an excel spreadsheet to automatically calculate each command with the CRC and then hardcoded the commands manually in Girder. Once in Girder, it can be controlled by many other sources (PDA, website, etc).

I am trying to simultaneously control the Russound with Girder and your app. I would definitely be willing to assist in any way possible. I will send you my email address in a PM.

I agree that it would be great to be able to use the + and + buttons to browse by other fields, not just by artist. I tried to implement this originally based on how the playlist was sorted. That is, if it was sorted by gender, then + and - would browse by gender. Unfortunately I couldn't find any way to get the MC11 API to support this. I posted on their forums to ask if there was a way to do it, but didn't get any good replies. The main problem is that MC playlists are only ever sorted by sequence number as far as MC is concerned. The fact that the tracks have previously been sorted by a field is not known to MC at the time the playlist is playing - it just plays them in sequence. So in order to determine a sort order, you would have to go through the tracks one-by-one and try and work out if there is a sort order, and if so, how it has been done - there is no way to get MC to tell you.
I am not sure either but I haven't really looked at the API. I am more of a hardware guy myself. I have used NetRemote with the PDAs I am using to control MC11 and with it, you can set the root of a library list folder and display it in any way desired. I don't know if they give you access to this via the API. Are you actually displaying the playlist or a library list on the keypads? If you are using playlists will the API allow you access to the library listing instead (which you can customize the listing of also)?

thanks,

Joeberg

hyslopc, joeberg

if you guys want/need any assistance integrating or working with Girder let me know. G4 is in beta. PM me if you are interested in looking at it. There is a new serial plugin that will allow you do most anything needed with the CAV via lua.

Girder is cool and all, but what this little app really needs is Playlist capability via the keypad and straight to MC11! :cool:

You mean being able to switch playlists via the keypad, right Randy? I agree - that's the thing I'm missing most, and is definitely #1 on my to-do list. I miss that feature at least a couple of times a week, so I am highly motivated to add it, as soon as I have a few hours spare that my wife doesn't know about ;)

You mean being able to switch playlists via the keypad, right Randy?

Exactly what I mean!

I agree - that's the thing I'm missing most, and is definitely #1 on my to-do list.

:cool: Man, I wish I wasn't such a dumba** when it came to programming: I would offer to help. But alas, this is not my stength... I just like messing with the stuff! :D

I would like to get this download if possible have a CAV in use and currently assembling media centre with a view to superseding the RNET link with RS232. Anyone able to point me in the right direction.

The first post in this thread includes a link to the download page.

I just wanted to contribute to this thread a bit.. I just installed a CAV6.6 in my home and just purchased MC 11 yesterday (after my 30 day evaluation expired).. the MC CAV6.6 plugin is great!

A couple quick questions:

1 - I have 7 rooms.. my main living room where my home theatre PC is, then six additional zones.. if none of the zones are powered on, i can't play anything out of MC 11 (with the CAV plugin loaded)..audio plays for 1-2 secs then stops.. if i turn on at least one zone, it works just fine.. any ideas how to remedy this?

2 - MC 11 build 305 is released.. any updates to the CAV 6.6 link software to accomodate this new build? seems to be a bit flakey at times..

-Brett

I am currently testing a new version which fixes problem #1 by adding an ini file which allows you to specify various parameters for each zone (eg whether auto-stop is enabled or not). The new version is ready, it's just that I haven't written any documentation for it yet - I'll try and do that sometime over the next few days.

Regarding build 305, I just installed it, so if there are any problems, hopefully I will see them shortly (and can then fix them).

Any word on when you'll have a new build ready?

I still haven't gotten around to writing the documentation, but I reckon most of you can figure it out for yourselves, so I've uploaded the new version to http://www.objective.se/cav66_new.zip. Have a look at the cav66.ini file in the zip, and you should be able to see what you want to change. Note that the command-line settings no longer work in this version - all settings are now in the ini file.

Nice work Carl. Does it have the ability to use only select sources from the MC11 zones?

As in, can I just use sources 1 & 2 from the first and second zones in MC? While not having it pay any attention to other zones in MC? I've got two other zones; one for the touchscreen's console and the other for the home theatre that I would like to have the plug-in completely ignore.

Nice addition of the AutoStop parameter. The others listed in the .INI file are pretty self-explanatory. What other params are there?

I also notice the plug-in keeps the Media Center.EXE program from quitting. That is, if you have the CAV66.exe program running and you quit MC11 the task stays listed in the task manager. It appears to be keeping something open (handle? dll?) to the MC executable. I note that if you quit the CAV66 plugin it does close the MC executable. Trouble is, if you quit MC11 leaving the plugin running and then restart MC11 you get a second process. I have no idea if or how this might negatively affect the stability of MC11. But given how readily MC11 eats it own database I'm not eager to take many risks here....

How about adding an option to the File menu for exiting both the CAV66 plugin along with MC11? Something like just "Exit" for quitting the plugin and "Exit and Quit MC11" as a new option that ends them both?

Or note that when MC11 is exited to automagically quit the plugin. This might be best as I'm worried about how well the shutdown process will handle things being cleaned up.

It'd also be nice to have the program automagically minimize itself to the systray. Not just to the taskbar; on a touchscreen PC it's helpful to avoid cluttering it up. Perhaps .INI options for "MinimizeOnStartup" and "MinimizeToSystray" would make sense?

I now posted a new version (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_21.zip) which supports the setting:

Ignore=Y

- inside a source section. I have only tested this very briefly - let me know if you find any problems with it. I will post on the J River developer's board to ask for the best way to ensure that MC11 and my program are both shutdown properly. The example ini file I posted included all possible settings, so there are no other settings (beyond the new one I just added).

I'm noticing an odd problem but it may not be the plug-ins fault. If MC11 is playing files from a network share and that goes missing it seems to get hung up. I was using two different zones and one stopped showing actively changing tracknames. In returning to the console I noticed some red [x] icons next to some track names in MC11's view. The cav6.6 plugin didn't seem to be dead but it wasn't providing any data to the CAV6.6. I'll try to repeat it.

I am finalizing plans for a new home construction.

I am strongly considering Russound CAV6.6 for full-house audio/video, and using an HTPC with MC11.

I will have the CAV6 in the Living Room (LR) and a "distribution center" (DC) in the lower-level (LL).

I want to wire the entire house to support Multi-zone Audio, Video, and S2 keypads (in at least 6 zones), internet, phone, tv and video cable, and support for in-wall dspeakers and ability to attach additional speakers at the room from junction box.

What wiring goes where?, i.e. [1] to keypad, [2] to junction box at floor, [3] back to LR CAV6, and [4] back to LL distribution center?

I know how the Cable modeom to router to patch panel to zones fits into the DC, but what else do I want to set up down there?

Lastly, I want the wiring to be able to handle home automation also. What addtl wiring reqs are needed for this?

I have read other posts which have helped me to understnad pieces of this but I don't have a grasp of the whole setup schematic. I will source everything out of the US but I reside in Philippines. Local support for what I purchase will likely not be avaialble, so my ability to support this is required. I can handle the the ethernet, HTPC installs, and that wiring, but the multi-zone w/keypads together with A/V and HDTV start to confuse me.

Thanks for any help!

p.s. If anyone has set up sub-zones and ABUS, would appreciate some explnation on this also. Thanks.

The CAV requires a LOT OF WIRING. Be sure you put it into a place that lends itself to that. I have sub-zones and I've responded over in the J.River forum.

Version .310 of MC11 seems to be a little better at handling proper quitting but it's still not quite right. As is stands now if you start the plug-in without MC11 being running it will start MC11 but not quit it properly. If you start MC11 and then start the plugin you get the same problem.

Interesting when I start MC11 by itself it starts as an application. When I start the CAV66 plugin first, however, MC11 starts are a child of a SVCHOST process. Don't know if that's relevant as quitting still leaves it hanging either way.

When looking at the threads and handles with PROCEXP (from sysinternals) it looks like you're opening a handle into MC11 and it's not getting released when you quit. That seems to be keeping MC11 in memory. But without source or at least symbols I can't do much more to debug it.

I am calling Release() and deleting our pointer to MC, and I don't know what more I can do. I agree that build 310 doesn't fix this issue (although according to J River, it should). I have posted on the J River forum to say that it's still not working. Please do the same, and hopefully we can get another build from them that fixes this problem.

Not sure about this but it also seems like the MC11 process is opening a handle to the COM port that the plugin would use. I don't seem a similar one being opening by MC11 when run on a different machine. But the quit/not quitting issue still exists when trying MC11.310 and the plugin on the new machine.

I've been monitoring this thread, and I was curious if you plan to release the C++ source for us with development backgrounds. I may (or may not) create a plug-in for Meedio (HTPC software) for the Russound.

Your source would definitely save me a lot of pain.... any help is appreciated...

Dave C

how about taking this plugin a step further and add the ability to turn on/off zones and control individual zone volume and such.. the rs232 commands are published on russounds doc center..

even better, implement a text to speech program that you could direct toward specific zones.. i could wake people up with messages =) =)

-Brett

My wishlist includes:

Playlist selection
Caller ID (from modem) sent to keypads

Thanks for the great plugin - I use it -everyday- :o

Al

My wishlist includes:

Playlist selection
Caller ID (from modem) sent to keypads

Thanks for the great plugin - I use it -everyday- :o

Al


Playlist! Definitely! :cool:

I have looked through these threads and I am new to this software. My environment contains the following Russound Equipment.
CAV6.6 with a second on order, ST2 AM/FM XM tuner, PC with Microsoft Media Center Edition 2005, PC now running this JRiver Media Center 11. I also own the Russound PC Power Tools software and that has made it very easy for me to program things. I just added one of the Russound color keypads and it works and looks great.

I evaluated the SMS3 250 Russound Media Server and I found it to be very easy to install and use. One of the requirement of the CAV6.6 is to assign the ST2 Tuner to Sources #1 & #2. I have the XM Radio portion of the ST2 connected to Source #1 and the AM/FM tuner connected to Source #2.

So, this is where my question of how to map, (edit the .INI file) of the plugin to let me properly assign a single zone from the Media Center 11 to a single Source and I would like that to be Source 5 or 6.

Can anyone tell me if this is possible and how their .INI file is set and what the have done in Zone assignments within MC11?

I tried deleting all but Zone 5 and that did not seem to work. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated as this looks like a great application. An instruction manual would be great.

Thanks;

Currently there's a 1:1 mapping between MC sources and CAV6.6 zones. That is, MC source 1 can only be mapped to CAV6.6 zone 1. So if you want to map something to CAV6.6 zones 5 and 6, then you will unfortunately have to create 6 MC sources (called "zones" in MC), and just ignore the first 4. I will try and fix this at some point so that you can map any MC source to any CAV6.6 zone via ini file settings.

One of the requirement of the CAV6.6 is to assign the ST2 Tuner to Sources #1 & #2. I have the XM Radio portion of the ST2 connected to Source #1 and the AM/FM tuner connected to Source #2.



This not a requirement of the CAV6.6. I also have this particular tuner and have it as sources 5 and 6 on my CAV. However, I would agree that the tuner is shipped by default set to sources 1 and 2. In your ST2-XM manula you will see on page 5 in bold type that your MUST assing your sources. On page 26 it gives detailed instructions on how to assign source number, etc.

Sorry for asking this here but does anyone know if there is a plugin or app anywhere that will allow the Russound CAV6.6 to talk to a pc running itunes?

I would imagine there is some demand for this but haven't been able to find anything - any help or direction would be greatly appreciated

If not is anyone interested in writting such an app for $?

Thanks

Rob

Serious question: why? What can iTunes do that MC11 can't? I've never tried iTunes, so I wouldn't know. There's very little I'm missing in MC11 today - about the only thing I can think of is FM tuner support.

I checked out Apple's developer site, and there is a COM interface to iTunes that looks fairly similar to MC11, so it wouldn't be hard to add support for it. That said, from the looks of the API, iTunes doesn't support multi-zone, making it a less-than-natural match for the CAV6.6.

Hyslopc

I wasn't aware that the MC could stream multiple streams, I guess that make it a lot like the dedicated Russound MP3 hardware (once one adds your app)

I have not used MC yet. I have a CAV 6.6 and will be adding another one in the spring. I also use iTunes as I have 3 iPods and have purchased some of my songs off the itunes store (DRM). I was thinking it would be cool if someone had an interface to iTunes to the CAV 6.6 and a google search got me here.

It looks like Russound just announced a CAV6.6 to iPod interface called ibridge (I can't post a link but if you search for Russound ibridge you will find it). It will allow full control over the ipod - sounds cool.

My original plan was to dedicate an old laptop as a dedicated itunes server for the CAV 6.6 but it looks like I now have two choices MC or the new ibridge and a dedicated iPod (since the whole setup is in a utility room). Either one should be a lot less expensive than the Russound MP3 player (~$2500 cdn).

I love the CAV 6.6 (I have Power Tools and thus have been able to customize the zone labels and source names)

Thoughts or input welcome :-)

Rob

I'd download a trail copy of MC11 and see what you think. Not sure if it can play the iTunes DRM content, but if it can then I think it (plus my software) will meet your needs.

Had a panic today. This morning when I woke up there was a faint buzz coming out of the speakers in my bedroom that sounded like a ground loop. After I got up, I turned the keypad on and off again, but the buzz stayed, so I went and switched the controller off, waited a couple of seconds, and then switched it on again. Didn't think about it until I went to turn on one of the keypads this afternoon, and nothing happened! Cycled power on the controller a few more times - no joy. Went to my music server and checked whether my MC11 link software was getting messages from the keypads - it was, but the keypad IDs were all off, and the controller was ignoring the messages.

After thinking for a few minutes, I decided to re-flash the controller. After that, everything works fine! Hopefully this helps anyone out there who ever experiences the same problem.

That's pretty odd - any ideas on why it happened?

Nice work getting it going again!

cheers
Al

hyslopc,

Great plugin. I started it up with Dark=Y in one of the zones, and now I can't get the light to come back on! I tried resetting the ini file with Dark=N and power cycling everything, but the display is still dark. HELP!

BTW, I tried to download 1.21 from your link above <http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_21.zip>, but it seems to be dead. What's the latest version? I'd like to try the ignore flag since I have a MC zone that is directly connected to a 2-channel system that is independent of the CAV6.6.

Sorry, we moved to new server, and I forgot to copy that zip file across. It's up there now, so the link should work again - let me know if you have any problems. That's still the latest version. I'm on vacation now, so I have time to look at adding new features but of course I'm not at home, so don't have access to my CAV6.6 for testing :(.

About the dark zone - is the problem that the dark setting doesn't work, or is it just that you don't want the zone to be dark anymore? To put the backlight back on, just hold down SOURCE to go into the kepad menu and change the keypad's backlight color to whatever you like.

Thank You! The solution was so simple, it eluded me.

Got the latest version. Thanks for updating the link.

I've been using your sofware for a couple of weeks now and there are a couple of things that I find myself wishing for often:
Provide an ini file option to display Artist before Song Title. I have a lot of instrumental jazz in my collection and I often want to look to see what artist is playing, but by the time I look at the keypad, the text has stopped scrolling and I can only see the song title. I can click Next, Back to refresh it, but this interupts the music.
Related to the above, when Play is pressed while a song is already playing redisplay the scrolling song name and artist. Right now, Play restarts the current song, which I have not had a need for.
Here's the biggie (and frankly, less important). Allow navigation up and down the Viewscheme/Playlist hierarchy. If playback is stopped, the Stop key invokes "menu mode" (or press and hold). +/- would traverse up and down the tree and |</>| would cycle through the items at that level. Play obviously plays whatever is currently selected (Playlist, Genre, Artist, Album, Song). Stop could cancel back to the active Playing Now.

I'll certainly continue using and enjoying the software as is, but if you find yourself with time on your hands... :)

If you set DisplayTime=Y, then the song title is refreshed after the time is displayed, which means it is regularly refreshed. I have been meaning to fix it so that it will refresh even if DisplayTime=N. I am on vacation right now, so I can't test anything, but I have posted a new v1.22 here (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_22.zip) which should refresh the keypad display every 12 seconds even if DisplayTime=N. Feel free to give it a test and please let me know if it works or not.

Completely agree with your suggestion for browing the hierarchy, and I will definitely implement this sooner or later. I find myself constantly wanting the same thing.

I just had a chance to install the new version and it works great! Thanks a lot.

OK now I'm back from vacation and I finally got a chance to sit down and spend some time on support for browsing playlists. I've just posted a new v1.3 test version here (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_30.zip). In this version, if you hold down STOP for about a second, then the keypad will switch to playlist browse mode. While in this mode, you can browse through all of your MC playlists using the + and - buttons. Once you've selected the playlist you want to hear, press Play. To cancel, press STOP again.

The playlists are displayed in the order they are stored within MC, which (at least on my PC) doesn't correspond with the order they are displayed within MC itself. I can add some code to sort them later on if people want this. I probably haven't tested this version enough, but I know how long you guys have been waiting for it, so I figured I better post it sooner rather than later. Please give it a try and post your feedback.

I am having some trouble with this newest version. When I press and hold STOP, all goes well. The + and - work fine for finding a playlist. But that is where it ends. When I push play the LCD displays "No Playlist" and then that Source no longer works. I have to go into MC and select a playlist in order for the Source to work again.

Seems to work great for me! Thanks for this very nice addition.

I had to delete the "Recently Playing Nows" lists though as I don't care to scroll through them all. It also displays playlist groups as discrete items, which is a little confusing (I have my lists organized into groups).

I use MusicLobby also and it has similar issues with playlists (unsorted order, includes all the auto lists, and displays groups as playlists) so I ended up creating View Schemes for my playlist management instead. This way the hierarchy and order are displayed properly in MusicLobby and none of the automatic lists are shown. (Note: one of the setup options in MusicLobby is the path of the "base view scheme" such as Media Library\Audio\. It then displays only the nodes below that in the library view.)

If you added support for View Schemes, I would be a very happy man. You would need to be able to traverse the hierarchy using a combination of +, -, |<, and >|. The top list could be "Playlists >" and "Library >"; pressing >| would take you into the next level.

Just for reference, this is what my Viewlist Hierarchy looks like:

Audio
- CD Library
-- Artist (A-Z)
--- 0-9
---- (artist)
----- (album)
--- A-D
--- E-H
(etc)
-- Artist/Album
--- (artist)
---- (album)
-- Compilation Albums
--- (album)
-- Genre
--- (genre)
---- (artist)
----- (album)
-- Mood Explorer
--- (genre)
---- (intensity)
----- (beats per minute)
- Playlists
-- Folk
-- Jazz
--- High Energy
--- Instrumental
--- Relaxing
--- Jazz/Folk Mix
-- Soft Rock
-- Classic Rock
-- Kid's Music
-- Party
--- 60's
--- 70's
--- Dance
--- Hawaiian
--- Christmas
-- Internet Radio
--- Smooth Jazz
--- Lounge
--- Ambient
--- Classic Rock
--- Groove Salad
--- New Age
--- Trance
--- Top Hits

Thanks for the great feedback. Randy - which MC11 build are you running? I've only tested with MC11 build 314.

I am using MC 11.0.314.

How strange. Do you get the "No playlist" problem with all playlists? Have you tried cursoring to a variety of different playlists, and pressing play on them?

I had a think about it, and it's probably best to make it so that if you hold the stop button, then it goes into a menu, with the following options:

1) Browse playlists
2) Browse viewlists
3) Rate current track
4) ? (suggestions welcome)

You could use the next and previous buttons to go between the different menu options, and then press +/- to choose an option. In this way it would be very similar to Russound's own menu (which is activated by holding down Source).

I wanted to add a sort option, too, so that you could re-sort the current playlist in different ways, but as far as I can tell, the MC11 SDK doesn't support it :(.

I had a think about it, and it's probably best to make it so that if you hold the stop button, then it goes into a menu, with the following options:

1) Browse playlists
2) Browse viewlists
3) Rate current track
4) ? (suggestions welcome)


Hyslopc, that sounds awesome. Consider Shuffle as #4.

Regarding Randycw's problem, I'm getting the "No Playlist" issue in my second zone (source 2 in CAV6.6) only when a playlist is already selected and playing in zone 1.

Hmmm - it seems on reflection that I am not specifying a zone when I play the specified playlist. Why not? Well, because it's not possible to specify a zone! I didn't think about this at all when I wrote the code, but it's a limitation within the MC11 SDK. I have now posted on their site about this (and about the sorting issue), to request that they update the SDK to include support for this. If anyone has access to the MC forums, by all means go into the developer forum and reply to my two posts saying "Me too!"

hyslopc,

Thank you, thank you!!

Just installed and I am playing with it now, just the fuctionality I wanted :cool:

I will let you know what I think after I have demo'd it a little closer.

cheers

Al

Hmmm - it seems on reflection that I am not specifying a zone when I play the specified playlist. Why not? Well, because it's not possible to specify a zone!

Interesting. I know that MusicLobby allows me to switch zones and choose a playlist. When I do so, it also switches the active zone in the MC UI (running in the background). Assuming that the playlist methods operate on the active zone, perhaps you can switch to the zone and then issue the command(s).

I just did some more testing and confirmed that if I set MC to zone 1, then from the keypad select zone 2 and choose a playlist, the keypad display shows "No Playlist", but when I switch back to zone 1 on the keypad, the playlist I choose is now playing. When I then change the MC UI to display zone 2, I can choose a playlist from the keypad in zone 2 and it works. When I switch the keypad to zone 1 and choose a playlist, I get "No Playlist", but the playlist I selected starts playing in zone 2!

Excellent testing - thanks! I've now changed my code to switch the active zone before playing the newly selected playlist, and in my (very limited) testing, this seems to work fine - great! I've uploaded a new v1.30/1 that you can download from here (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_30_1.zip).

PS: Keep the suggestions coming, as I will add the menu functionality as soon as I have time, and at that point will try and incorporate all suggestions.

That link points to you C: drive. Can you post the url again?

Sorry about that. Link is fixed now.

I just installed the latest version and it works great. I can freely switch between zones and select playlists in each. Brilliant!

I just installed the latest version and it works great. I can freely switch between zones and select playlists in each. Brilliant!

Yep! Me too! :cool:

MuiscLobby doesn't allow you to dynamically re-sort a playlist, does it? Just wondering if I've missed anything there in the SDK, but I can't see a way to do it. I would really like to be able to do this from the keypads - for example, sort by artist, find a song, play it, then shuffle.

Yes, MusicLobby does have a Shuffle button that does shuffle a playlist everytime I click it (i.e. it doesn't toggle, it reshuffles). The list order is reflected in the Playing Now view of MC11, but the Shuffle mode of MC is NOT activated (?). I can only assume that there is API call for this.

Also, MainLobby Server has a Media Center plugin (which uses the MC API). According to the docs, the supported commands are:

PLAY
PAUSE
PREVIOUS
NEXT
STOP
SHUFFLE
MUTE
VOLUMEDOWN
VOLUMEUP
SETVOLUME~<<0-100>>
TOGGLECONTINUOUS
TOGGLEEQ - turns on/off EQ for Zone 1
CLEARCURRENTPLAYLIST
PLAYALBUM~<<filename>>
APPENDALBUM~<<filename>>
PLAYFILE~<<filename>>
NEXTZONE
PREVZONE

hyslopc,

First, thank you very much for your time and efforts in
developing this program. Your contributions are very
much appreciated by many of us.

I've been a Media Center/Jukebox user for many years and had a
Russound installed a couple of months ago. I finally got around
to configuring things to use your program, but I'm afraid it
doesn't seem to be working properly for me.

When I skip to the next song in the current playlist, the keypad
display doesn't update with the new song name for almost a minute
(the cav66.exe program display updates right away). Also, When I
press and hold the Stop button it will display one playlist name,
but I can't seem to scroll to other playlists or to play the
playlist. Pressing the menu up key displays "Menu Up".

I'm using the latest version of MC11 as of a few days ago and my
controller and keypads have the latest firmware versions (2.10.16
and 3.01.01).

The source I'm testing with was previously configured for
a Squeezebox, if that helps. (btw, your program is evolving to
look very much like a Squeezebox embedded in a Russound keypad.
If you're not familiar with it, you should check it out at the
slimdevices site. You may get some ideas for your program.)

One suggestion for the next version: when browsing playlists, press
and hold the Play button to append the playlist to the Playing Now
list (instead of replacing it).

Again, thanks very much!

someonewho - could it be that your RS-232 serial cable is faulty?

Always possible, but it's a brand new cable. I'll see if I can find another to test with.

Thanks for the response and help.

Does anyone have a copy of Russounds PC Power tool that they can send me? I need to change some of the CustomeNames on the CAV6.6 for the UNO-S2 Keypads, but it can only be done with this software.

That's a heck of a favor - the s/w costs $300+ ! :(

Yeah tell me about it. After spending close to $3000 for the system, you can't even program every feature with out spending more on their software.

I'm about to head down this path, i.e. CAV 6.6, JRMC11, M-audio 1010LT and Russound ST2-XM dual tuner w/ AM/FM + XM. For those of you that also use Music Lobby, do you prefer to use this plugin for control of JRMC11 from the Russound keypads? What is the tradeoff?

I plan on also implementing WiFi touchpad control of the system thru the Cinemar suite using a Airpanel V210 on RDP from the HTPC running JRMC11. My understanding is that if I use hyslop's outstanding plugin, I will gain mny advanced functions at the Russound keypads, but will lose the ability to control the Russound from the Airpanel. Is this correct? What about the MusicLobby PPC option? Is this better than the Airpanel?

Ultimately, I'd like to have a wireless control that can control all functions of the system including JRMC11, CAV6.6 and ST2-XM. Airpanel is preferred but PPC will be acceptable. Moving the Airpanel from one zone to another will definitely involve a switch to a differenc access point. My understanding is that for devices like the Airpanel which are utilizing RDP, that roaming between different access points is not supported, that once out of range, either a reboot or re-establishment of the RDP session is required. My experience with RDP via multiple PC's on a wired 10/100 LAN indicate that it can be quite slow. This will be unacceptable in a V210 configured as an advance remote control! Comments?

Perhaps the ultimate solution can only come from a teaming between hyslopc and Cinemar?

Doug Frazee

I use both MusicLobby and hyslopc's plugin. You are right that you must choose one program that has control of the Russound (this app or MainLobby server), but I've been pretty happy with the compromise.

I can use my Airpanel running MusicLobby to browse playlists, change tracks, pause, and restart; but I can't change volume or change radio stations. I actually find the keypads more convenient for everything except browsing playlists.

If you decide to control the Russound from MainLobby, you must add scripts to display artist and song title on the keypads and trap keypresses. If you want to browse playlists, it gets much more complicated. I haven't figured out how to configure MainLobby to ensure that MediaCenter only plays when at least one keypad is on and playing (but I haven't tried very hard). This is a feature that I really like with hyslopc's program. I think it handles multiple zones better than MainLobby also.

One of the things I miss is not being able to send text to the keypads based on other events like caller ID.

One hybrid solution to consider is using hyslopc's program for the keypad interface, then use IR commands to control other aspects of the CAV6.6 and tuners.
.

The "architecture" I'm thinking of of building-out is as follows.

The Russound controller, ST-2 tuner, and a PC are located in the
basement where the cable, antenna, and data network are
distributed through a patch panel. The PC is connected to the
CAV6.6 and is running the cav66.exe program to provide basic
playlist display and control from any of the keypads.

The S-Video output from the PC would be connected to a modulator
that will merge the PC's video signal into one of the antenna
channels. I'll run MC11 in theater view mode and any of the TVs
in the house should then be able to display MC11 by switching to
a particular channel.

For control I'm using programmable URC MX-800 RF remotes where
every TV is. There will be an RF receiver in the basement that
can pick up button presses from any of the remotes. These will
be "flashed" to an IRMan IR receiver connected to the PC. MC11
has an IRMan plug-in, and thus should be able to respond to
anyone clicking a remote while watching the theater mode
interface.

What would be nice is if the CAV6.6 controller itself could
respond to IR inputs. You could then control volume and other
sources from any of the RF remotes.

I haven't bought a couple of the pieces yet, so any suggestions
are welcome!

What would be nice is if the CAV6.6 controller itself could
respond to IR inputs. You could then control volume and other
sources from any of the RF remotes.

I haven't bought a couple of the pieces yet, so any suggestions
are welcome!
You'll be using zone keypads, right? Why not just program the remotes to send IR Vol +/- to the keypads to control zone volume? For that matter, the keypads let you use IR passthru so that the CAV can control the HTPC via IR emitter - no need to use RF .... unless, that is, the keypad is not line-of-sight from where you expect to use the remote?

Thank you, but, yes, I've already programmed the remotes that way. There are line-of-sight problems I'm trying to address in a couple of places (notably, the family room couch!).

I have a trial version of MC build 11.0.316
I have the plugin version 1.30/1 as well.

When I run the plugin, it shows "no info" 6 times and then just sits there. Is it possible that the new build broke the plugin? This is my first attempt at using these products.

My goal is to evaluate this solution for use with a Russound CAV6.1 system. I am very intersted in having 2 or more different tracks playing at the same time in different rooms. Can this be done (if I get the proper sounds card of course) by just selecting another source on the uno s2 keypad? I'm not clear about how the stream source gets started and am hoping that it doesn't require the use of the keyboard or mouse.
My alternative is to use Russounds SMS3 server but it will cost me more than this by far.

Thanks for all your time and Happy Holidays everyone :-)

hardwired1,

You can certainly do what you describe, however, you'll need a
separate sound card for each source (or a sound card that
supports multiple audio outputs).

Media Center supports multiple, independent, concurrent output
"zones." Each zone is mapped to output its audio to a different
sound card and can be configured with different playback options.
Zones are configured in MC11 using the Player -> Playback Options
-> Zone Manager menu option.

It can get a bit confusing because MC11 uses the term "zone" to
refer to a set of output configuration settings (which are used
as sources to the CAV6.6), whereas in the Russound world a "zone"
is the physical location where a keypad and speakers are.

The cav66.exe program maps each MC11 zone to a source input on
the Russound CAV6.6. This mapping is specified in the cav66.ini
file. In the cav66.ini file each of the MC11 zones is associated
with the CAV6.6 source inputs (in sequence, 1 to 6).

For example, if you wanted to have two independent MC11 audio
outputs that connect to source 3 and source 5 on the Russound
CAV6.6 you'd perform the following steps:

a. Create six zones in MC11 (Zone 1 to Zone 6). Configure Zone 3
to output to sound card A, and Zone 5 to output to sound card B.
The other four MC11 zones can be ignored (or you can use them for
other purposes).

b. Physically connect (with audio cables) the sound card A output
to the CAV6.6 source 3 input, and connect the sound card B output
to the source 5 input. From this point, anything that's played
(output) on MC11 zone 3 will be heard on CAV6.6 source 3, and
anything played on MC11 zone 5 will be heard on CAV6.6 source 5.

c. Edit the sources section of the cav66.ini file to look like
the sample below. These settings tell the cav66.exe program to
ignore MC11 zones 1, 2, 4, and 6 and to pass-along any keypad
commands for CAV6.6 source inputs 3 and 5 to MC11 zones 3 and 5
(respectively).

[Source 1] ; this is MC11 Zone 1, ignored
Ignore=Y

[Source 2] ; this is MC11 Zone 2, ignored
Ignore=Y

[Source 3] ; this is MC11 Zone 3, actively used
AutoStop=Y

[Source 4] ; this is MC11 Zone 4, ignored
Ignore=Y

[Source 5] ; this is MC11 Zone 5, actively used
AutoStop=Y

[Source 6] ; this is MC11 Zone 6, ignored
Ignore=Y

d. Run the cav66.exe program.

The cav66.exe program is then smart enough to understand that
when, for example, the (Russound) zone 2 keypad has source 5
selected it will pass along the keypad commands to control what
MC11 zone 5 is doing. If you switch the keypad to source 3 it
would then send the keypad commands to MC11 zone 3.

To answer your other question about how the "stream source" gets
started, this can happen in one of two ways. You can use the
Russound keypad to select and play playlists that have been
defined in MC11 (press and hold the Stop button on the keypad to
access the list of playlists). Alternatively, you can use MC11
directly to select songs for playback (first activate the MC11
zone you want to control). The keypad can then be used to go to
the next song, pause, etc.

[n.b., I use only one zone/source but I think I got the above
information correct!]

Hope this helps!

I've uploaded v1.31 of the link software here (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_31.zip). This version includes some enhancements for dealing with really long playlists:

1) Next/prev track/artist keys now wrap through playlists. That is, when you reach the end of the playlist, it will wrap to the beginning, and vice-versa.
2) The next/prev artist keys will now switch to "first letter mode" if they are held down for more than 2% of the playlist. In first letter mode, only the first letter of the artist will be displayed for 1/3 of a second. This feature is designed to make it much faster to locate the artist you are looking for in a playlist containing hundreds of artists.
3) When browsing playlists, it is now possible to hold the play key down in order to add the selected playlist to Playing Now. If the play key is not held down, then the selected playlist will replace the contents of Playing Now, just as in previous versions.

As always, if you find any problems with this release or have any requests, post them here. Thanks for the many people posting here and answering questions for others - much appreciated.

Thanks Someonewho. I will be trying that setup tonight. I was wondering if anyone has tried running MC11 with Hyslopc's link software and MCE 2005 on the same box. Basically, I want the MC11 for the audio streaming to always run in the background and then use Microsoft Media Center for TV at the same time. Anyone try that? Not a good idea?

I use an HAI OmniPro II. About to get the CAV6.6 and hoping to use the MC11 interface software discussed here. BUT, I'm also interested in integrating the CAV6.6 with my HAI home automation panel using their integration features.... My understanding is that they BOTH work through the serial interface. Since the Russound CAV6.6 appears to allow only ONE active serial interface at a time, does that mean I have to choose only one of these two devices to integrate the Russound to?

Any other options?

Thanks!

This comes up more and more. The only solution is for someone to write an API that allows sharing of the serial interface. Since to my knowledge, no-one else has done that, I am thinking that I am going to eventually have to do it myself. Then it will be up to the other software suppliers to decide whether to support my API or not.

Instead of a proprietary API that HAI would need to integrate with...

What if the MC PC had 2 serial ports... Couldn't your software take control of both serial ports? Then, connect one to the HAI panel (COM1), the other to the CAV6.6 (COM2). Your software could send anything received on the COM1 out over COM2. Anything received over COM2 could be sent over COM1. That way the HAI would think it was connected directly to the CAV6.6.

I guess the only issue might be that either the HAI or your software would be confused when the CAV6.6 responded to commands sent by the other device? Maybe the link software could pass data to COM1 for just the 5 seconds after data had been received on COM1 (and link sw would ignore that data for its own use during that time). If a command hadn't been received from the HAI in the prior 5 seconds, then it wouldn't be sent any of the replies from CAV6.6. Not sure how often the devices are polling or if there are unsolicited event notices from the CAV6.6 that both 'clients' would need to see.

Interesting idea. As you say, unsolicited data is perhaps a problem. Can you fill me in on how the HAI uses the CAV6.6? In particular, does it talk to the controller, the keypads, or both? Does it use the keypads' display?

As far as I know, the HAI sends commands to the CAV6.6 and the HAI's consoles can be used to control the CAV6.6 zones. However, I don't believe that the HAI sends info to the UNO displays, they only respond to the commands sent to the CAV6.6.

Here is some background on Russound/HAI integration from the HAI website...

OmniPro II gives you control of your music choices and
lets you customize your music experience when
connected to a Russound CAV6.6 or CAM Audio
Distribution System.
Different music, in different rooms, for different people -
it's one of the most exciting and fastest growing options
for home entertainment.
The HAI OmniTouch touchscreen interface provides a
convenient method for selecting your favorite music as
part of a complete HAI home control solution.
The Russound CAV6.6 and CAM Audio Distribution
Systems give you the ability to select and distribute
music from any audio source to different rooms in your
house simultaneously and independently. Using an
HAI OmniTouch touchscreen, you can control on/off,
volume, muting, transports, audio source, and many
other functions for each audio zone.
Additionally, you can create “modes” in your HAI
OmniPro II to customize your music and home control
experience. Imagine returning home to your favorite
music playing, lights set to your desired levels, and
temperature to a cozy setting…just by disarming your
system. Never again will your children disturb your
neighbors in the middle of the night because they forgot
that the outside speakers were on – OmniPro II will
make sure that it doesn’t happen by turning the outdoor
audio zone off after dark.
HAI coordinates home control with Russound‘s home
entertainment for the ultimate in convenience and
enjoyment.

OK thanks. It sounds like the scheme you propose could work in the case of HAI. I wonder if the HAI keypads provide any next/prev track functionality? If so, then those commands could be trapped and processed by the link software (ie we could pass them on to MC).

I guess the biggest problem with developing something like this is the fact that I don't have any other hardware that is capable of talking to the CAV, so I can't test it myself. So if and when I find time to develop it, I'll need someone to volunteer their time as a serious tester.

I have connected the CAV6.6 and 2 sources from my 2 sound cards in my PC (audigy 2 and some other cheap card) and setup MC11 build 11.0.316 and Hyslopc's plugin 1.31/0 . The CAV was just ordered so the keypads came with the latest firmware, I verified this. I didn't however know how to verify the firmware rev on the CAV6.6 So all that said, this plugin and MC11 program are great. I also opened MCE 2005 to watch TV with no conflicts while playing audio at the same time in another zone. I like all the program features and how well it integrates.

Now comes the trouble :(

Sometimes the plugin doesn't pass on info the keypad and vise-versa and I have to restart it.

I created a few playlists (maybe I didn't make them in the correct format?) but I cannot do anything with them from the keypad. If I hold the stop key, the plugin reports "browsing playlists" but then I can't use any other keypad buttons to scroll them.

When I press the + - buttons, the song changes to the next artist. Can I make these do the next album instead?

Last thing - The track name scrolls and is followed by the current date/time. I put in DisplayTime=N in the ini but it still appears.

2nd last thing - do you have a manual or complete list of the features of the plugin yet? If this all works out, I will pass on a donation for all your hard work.

Thanks!

I have been reading the threads on the MC11 and the plug-in created by hyslopc. Here is where I am at and would like some advice.

1. I have a 2 CAV6.6s linked together with 10 of the 12 zones used. I have a SMS3 media server that crashed and is being replaced right now. There are a few frustrations with the SMS3: A. Most of my music is digital in .WMA download format from Walmart Online. SMS3 wants you to rip the cd in whole album form. It is difficult to get music from the PC to the SMS3. B. The ripping by the SMS3 is very poor. It often has noises, skips, and pops interjected into songs. C. The SMS3 is a box that runs UNIX and is prone to bad crashes. The place I bought my SMS3 said that of 25 units sold in the past several months, 3-4 have been returned with unrecoverable errors.

2. From what I read I think the hyslopc and MC11 solution is preferable to the SMS3. I would be interested in any comments.

3. I will sell my new replacement SMS3 on ebay and then buy a computer for MC11. I am space constrained and would like a suggestion for the type of PC, ghz, RAM, OS and sound cards.

4. I have the UNO-TS2 as one of my Keypads. Does the UNO-TS2 work in this environment?

5. Does MC11 support protected .WMA files?

6. The forum threads seem to be the only "manual" for the plug-in. I would like to write a user manual for everyone's use. Has anyone attempted and can we collaborate?

Thanks.

I will try and answer all of your questions - let me know if I missed anything:

1) v1.31 is a little bit young, and might have some bugs. Once (only) it "zoned out" on my PC, too, but generally it has been fine, so I decided to just wait and see if it happens again. Sounds like there is a bug in there somewhere. You might want to run the previous version for a while until I sort out this problem, although if you're patient enough to use the new version and try and work out why/when the bug occurs, I would sure appreciate it.

2) I haven't tried the SMS3, but my experience with my own plug-in is very positive :). The only problem I have is that the PC I'm running it on locks up once every 1-2 months or so.

3) I think the original thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=419953&perpage=20&pagenumber=1) had a bit of info about hardware. Basically you don't need a fast PC, but you probably want a quiet and reliable one. A great resource for that is Silent PC review (http://www.silentpcreview.com). I highly recommend using an ASIO-based soundcard if you are interested in multi-zone. The new Creative cards look pretty good - I'm thinking about getting one myself.

4) I haven't heard of anyone using my software with the UNO-TS2, but it should work fine as long as you have the latest controller firmware. Definitely let us know how it works out.

5) Not 100% sure if MC11 supports protected WMA files, but I think it does. You could post that question over on the MC forums.

6) Someonewho was having problems browsing playlists. I suggested he tried a new cable, and it seems to be working for him now, but I don't know for sure if it was the cable or not. Someonewho - can you let us know?

7) It's not currently possible to redefine the +/- keys. While it would be possible to manually map these to any field, I would prefer it to be smart and automatically use whatever field the playlist is sorted by. However that's not easily possible with the current MC API. I have asked J River to extend the API to allow me to find out how a playlist is sorted, but haven't heard back from them yet. It would probably be possible to scan the playlist looking at the most common fields and try and guess the sort order, but I would prefer something more reliable.

8) Make sure DisplayTime is in the [Source 1] section.

9) I am in email contact with another forum user who has kindly taken the time to write a really good manual. He's gotten pretty far with it, so hopefully he can post something soon. I'm sure he would appreciate all suggestions and help.

Someone suggested making the keypad UI more like the SqueezeBox, ie much more menu-based. Appreciate all thoughts on that.

Sorry for the delay in responding -- 'tis the season to be busy! I haven't had time to confirm it yet, but I think my original problems were due to the controller configuration of the source input I was using. The installer configured sources 1 and 2 for an ST-2 tuner, source 3 for a squeezebox, and disabled sources 4-6. I was first testing the cav66 program by unplugging the squeezebox inputs and using source 3 for the PC with the cav66 program. I finally figured-out how to open up source 4 using the keypad setup menus. Once I started using source 4 everything worked fine. My conjecture is that the installer disabled (set to "unassigned") the + and - buttons for the squeezebox and I was therefore unable to scroll through the playlists. This doesn't fully explain some of the display delay problems I was seeing, but perhaps it's related. I also made darned-sure that the serial cable was seated properly! In any case, things are working great now.

Hope this helps...

Also, one thought on using the +/- buttons to skip to the next album... Perhaps this could be a general .ini setting or a setting by source, as in:

[Source 4]
SkipNext=Artist or
SkipNext=Album or
SkipNext=Genre
etc.

Sorry, me again. You might also want to have:

SkipNext=5% or
SkipNext=10%
etc.

This would let you simply skip through a percentage of the playlist much like the remote commands 0-9 now allow you to do. This might be handy for people that use completely un-ordered playlists where skipping to the next artist or album is pretty much the same as skip to next song. My playlists are mostly un-ordered and I rarely use the remote.

How about... SkipNext=Random for the free spirits among us!

Good idea. I'll see if I can implement that sometime soon.

Rather than having it be a .ini setting, how about making this your first dynamic configuration setting?

Press and hold the Pause button to access the setup menu -- screen displays "SkipNext".

Press Next or Previous to scroll through other (future) configuration settings.

Press Play button to select this setting -- screen displays current (default) setting "Artist".

Use + and - to scroll through settings Artist, Album, Genre, Random, 5%, 10%, 25%.

Press Play to select desired setting -- screen displays "SkipNext"

Press Pause to exit configuration settings.

A second (actually, it should probably be the first displayed) dynamic setting could be "Shuffle Playlist". Pressing the Play button for this setting would issue the MJCurPlaylistAutomation.ReShuffleFiles() function for the current MC11 zone.

Boy, it's really easy thinking-up things for someone else to do! We all really, really appreciate everything you're doing hyslopc!

I have re-posted the v1.31 software here (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_31.zip). The zip now includes documentation in the form of a PDF file. Please post any comments you have on the documentation to this thread. Many thanks to John G and others who contributed - much appreciated!

I have re-posted the v1.31 software here (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_31.zip). The zip now includes documentation in the form of a PDF file. Please post any comments you have on the documentation to this thread. Many thanks to John G and others who contributed - much appreciated!

Docs look good Carl! Nice to get it all in one place.

Cheers

Al

I wanted to give an update on my progress.

I did install Jriver Media Center and Hyslopc's plugin on a MCE 2005 box without any trouble. I was able to run Windows Media Center at the same time as running MC11 streams.

The reason it seemed I was not able to select the playlists was because there were several "recently played" playlists that were being generated automatically and were named with a date and time. Several of these had the same date and time as the current day so as I was scrolling through the lists, I thought it wasn't working. I deleted the auto- recently played lists and can now see my custom lists ok. I could have just kept scrolling enough to get to my lists but didn't go far enough I guess.

The date showing up even after adding DisplayTime=N was because the song was displaying it's name and then the date/time of the song itself. I thought this was actually a system time but was fooled.

I'm not sure why the plugin would sometimes stop passing data between MC11 and the CAV6.6 . I have ordered a new machine from 2parts Fusion with a M-audio Delta 66 card and will see if the better card and machine make any difference. This is the real deal since I am impressed with the testing so far. I am sure that it was not a serial cable issue but am not sure it wasn't a COM port conflict of some sort.

I have heard that Delta cards don't work well with MCE2005's Media Center so I will be using the other 7.1 sound card as the windows default and the Delta card only for MC11.

Thanks for the manual!

-Ben

Hi, Is anyone familiar with the technology that allows someone to click on a link from a web page and auto load it into iTunes?

pleae email me back at archdeluxe500@aol if you can help

best regards,
Deluxe

The link software won't ever display the date/time of the song playing. DisplayTime=Y displays the local time of the PC, as set in Windows control panel.

I purchased my CAV 6 in 2004...do I just need to download updates to use your software?
tia,
Ron

Not 100% sure if MC11 supports protected WMA files...
It does.

ellisr63,

Your 2004 CAV6.6 controller and keypads may or may not be at the
appropriate firmware version levels to work correctly with
hyslopc's cav66.exe program. Installing the program will not
automatically update the firmware on the controller or keypads.

What you should probably do is download the latest version of the
program (the link is a few posts up). Read the documentation and
try installing and using the program as described. Running the
program should not harm your CAV6.6, even if it has the wrong
firmware version. If it works, then you don't need to do
anything further.

If it doesn't work as described you'll need to determine what
firmware versions you currently have and update them if
necessary. The recommended firmware versions are found in the
documentation.

You can determine what firmware versions you have by accessing
the controller and keypad setup menus from one of the keypads.
You should consult the CAV6.6 documentation for details, but this
basically involves removing the border cover from one of the
keypads (it just pops off), pressing or pressing and holding the
setup button that's then exposed, and navigating the menus to
find the current firmware versions.

If you're not technically savvy, you may want to have a
qualified installer upgrade the firmware for you. They should
be able to do this in an hour or two. If you want to tackle it
yourself, the directions are in the CAV6.6 documentation and
other documentation on Russound's web site. Note that you
may need to jury-rig special wiring to update the keypad firmware
(the connectors on the keypads are non-standard).

The CAV6.6 documentation, and firmware versions can be found
in the Document Center section of Russound's web site (free
registration required).

Good luck!

I got the v3 firmware installed in the CAV-6 and when I went to install the update for the Uno2...I got an error could not communicate.. I did the update for the Uno...where you do it from the keypad and enter setup without removing it from the wall. Has anyone else had success at doing it this way? I really don't want to have to re punch down all the connections agin if I don't have to.
tia,
Ron

ellisr63,

I've not had to do a keypad firmware upgrade myself (mine's brand
new). However, If you check the UNO-S2 documentation it gives
you a lot more information.

When you pull the border cover off of a keypad, you'll see the
"update port" to the right of the keypad. This has three or four
wire sockets that need to be connected to specific pins of the
serial cable. I suspect there's a special adapter cable for this
or you can try jury-rigging it.

Also, it looks like you'll need to pull the keypad out of the
wall because there's a jumper on the back of the keypad that sets
the keypad to "run" mode or "OS update" mode. You need to switch
this to OS update mode to upgrade the firmware.

There's probably a lot more specific documentation on Russound's
web site.

Again, good luck!

ellisr63,

I've not had to do a keypad firmware upgrade myself (mine's brand
new). However, If you check the UNO-S2 documentation it gives
you a lot more information.

When you pull the border cover off of a keypad, you'll see the
"update port" to the right of the keypad. This has three or four
wire sockets that need to be connected to specific pins of the
serial cable. I suspect there's a special adapter cable for this
or you can try jury-rigging it.

Also, it looks like you'll need to pull the keypad out of the
wall because there's a jumper on the back of the keypad that sets
the keypad to "run" mode or "OS update" mode. You need to switch
this to OS update mode to upgrade the firmware.

There's probably a lot more specific documentation on Russound's
web site.

Again, good luck!

Thanks...There was an option in the instructions from Russound that allowed you to update by just removing the cover plate and getting into setup...by pushing the button and moving the arrow you could get right to update mode. Now maybe I need to use my laptop and their special connector to do this without removing it from the wall. I was assuming that since you could do it without removing it from the wall that it would go down the cat 5 that is already connected. I have a spare keypad so I will try to update that one and see how it goes.
Ron

Thanks...There was an option in the instructions from Russound that allowed you to update by just removing the cover plate and getting into setup...by pushing the button and moving the arrow you could get right to update mode. Now maybe I need to use my laptop and their special connector to do this without removing it from the wall. I was assuming that since you could do it without removing it from the wall that it would go down the cat 5 that is already connected. I have a spare keypad so I will try to update that one and see how it goes.
Ron

You will need to get hold of a spare CD to sound card cable from a PC. The sound card end is a perfect fit for the UNO-S2. I think you may have to move one of the pin positions. You then connect the other end to a serial plug for you laptop. If you have a laptop you can visit each keypad location, other wise you need a -really- long serial cable or you have to pull them from the wall. (A pain!) I believe I powered down the CAV66 when I did all my updates, took about 10 minutes for the first one and then 3 minutes for the rest. I also did a firmware update on the CAV66 at the same time, in this case it is a serial DB9 to serial DB9 connection. The docs that come with Hyslops software explain the keypad update as well.

cheers

Al

You will need to get hold of a spare CD to sound card cable from a PC. The sound card end is a perfect fit for the UNO-S2. I think you may have to move one of the pin positions. You then connect the other end to a serial plug for you laptop. If you have a laptop you can visit each keypad location, other wise you need a -really- long serial cable or you have to pull them from the wall. (A pain!) I believe I powered down the CAV66 when I did all my updates, took about 10 minutes for the first one and then 3 minutes for the rest. I also did a firmware update on the CAV66 at the same time, in this case it is a serial DB9 to serial DB9 connection. The docs that come with Hyslops software explain the keypad update as well.

cheers

Al
Where would I find out the pin config to do it with a sound card cable and a db9?
tia,
Ron

Hey Ron,

This seems to have gotten left out of the docs, check this out:

-----------------------------------------------
Hardware setup

• PC

The hardware required to allow your CAV 6.6 to have access to all your media is a PC running Microsoft Windows with an available serial port, a sound card and optionally a video card with TV out. The PC and CAV 6.6 are linked together by a straight through serial cable from the RS-232 ports. Only three wires are required on the serial cable, they are: Receive Data (RD) (pin 2), Send Data (SD) (Pin 3) and Ground (Pin 5). I made my serial cable as long as I needed by using CAT5 cable and a 9 pin serial adapter at both ends. Note that the CAV6.6 has two RS-232 inputs: one on the front and one on the back. You can use either port, but only one of them is active at once, so make sure that the switch on the front of the CAV 6.6 is set appropriately. Just plug a 9-pin serial cable into a serial port on the PC, plug the other end into the CAV6.6, start cav66.exe, and you are in business.

• CAV 6.6 Controller/Keypads

To have the software run correctly you need to check the firmware versions on your CAV6.6 controller and keypads before installing them, and upgrade them if necessary. It's easier to upgrade the firmware before you install the system. If anyone is contemplating upgrading their CAV6.6 keypad firmware, here's how I did it. The controller is a piece of cake: just use the same standard RS-232 cable that you use with my software. The keypads, on the other hand, use a proprietary plug for firmware updates. I went through my pile of spare PC cables & plugs and found two things which ended up being perfect for the job:

1) A female DB9 "raw" plug with contacts designed to be soldered onto wires that I bought from a local electronics store a long time ago. Another alternative is to butcher an old 9 pin serial cable.

2) A small 4-pin cable (of which only 3 of the pins are connected), from a CD-ROM drive (digital audio plug). If you mess around with PCs a bit you probably have one lying around.

As it turns out, the 4-pin cable is exactly the right size to connect to the keypads, but whereas the cable had pins 1, 2, and 4 connected, the keypads need pins 1, 2, and 3 connected. Pulling the cable out from slot 4 and plugging it into slot 3 turned out to be very easy: you just press on the metal contact that lies 1/4" from the tip of the plug, and pull the cable out, then push it into slot 3. On the other end of the cable, I removed all three cables from the plug, and connected them to my DB9 connector. I upgraded one keypad first to make sure I didn't mess everything up. After rebooting the CAV6.6, I could see that the firmware upgrade was successful. I then went around with a laptop and upgraded all 6 keypads in less than 5 minutes. A laptop is a nice touch for doing these upgrades if your system is already installed.

CAV 6.6 Firmware Configuration

To have things work properly for keypad display updates you must program the CAV 6.6 source at the keypad. It may currently be set to "unassigned", it needs to be set to "Peripheral".
------------------------------------------------------------------



Hope that helps

Just looked around and I can't find the original info on the cable pinouts (even Russound has removed the doc from uner tech tips) - I don't have my cable handy to check it out - anyone else??

Al

Hey Ron,

This seems to have gotten left out of the docs, check this out:

-----------------------------------------------
Hardware setup

• PC

The hardware required to allow your CAV 6.6 to have access to all your media is a PC running Microsoft Windows with an available serial port, a sound card and optionally a video card with TV out. The PC and CAV 6.6 are linked together by a straight through serial cable from the RS-232 ports. Only three wires are required on the serial cable, they are: Receive Data (RD) (pin 2), Send Data (SD) (Pin 3) and Ground (Pin 5). I made my serial cable as long as I needed by using CAT5 cable and a 9 pin serial adapter at both ends. Note that the CAV6.6 has two RS-232 inputs: one on the front and one on the back. You can use either port, but only one of them is active at once, so make sure that the switch on the front of the CAV 6.6 is set appropriately. Just plug a 9-pin serial cable into a serial port on the PC, plug the other end into the CAV6.6, start cav66.exe, and you are in business.

• CAV 6.6 Controller/Keypads

To have the software run correctly you need to check the firmware versions on your CAV6.6 controller and keypads before installing them, and upgrade them if necessary. It's easier to upgrade the firmware before you install the system. If anyone is contemplating upgrading their CAV6.6 keypad firmware, here's how I did it. The controller is a piece of cake: just use the same standard RS-232 cable that you use with my software. The keypads, on the other hand, use a proprietary plug for firmware updates. I went through my pile of spare PC cables & plugs and found two things which ended up being perfect for the job:

1) A female DB9 "raw" plug with contacts designed to be soldered onto wires that I bought from a local electronics store a long time ago. Another alternative is to butcher an old 9 pin serial cable.

2) A small 4-pin cable (of which only 3 of the pins are connected), from a CD-ROM drive (digital audio plug). If you mess around with PCs a bit you probably have one lying around.

As it turns out, the 4-pin cable is exactly the right size to connect to the keypads, but whereas the cable had pins 1, 2, and 4 connected, the keypads need pins 1, 2, and 3 connected. Pulling the cable out from slot 4 and plugging it into slot 3 turned out to be very easy: you just press on the metal contact that lies 1/4" from the tip of the plug, and pull the cable out, then push it into slot 3. On the other end of the cable, I removed all three cables from the plug, and connected them to my DB9 connector. I upgraded one keypad first to make sure I didn't mess everything up. After rebooting the CAV6.6, I could see that the firmware upgrade was successful. I then went around with a laptop and upgraded all 6 keypads in less than 5 minutes. A laptop is a nice touch for doing these upgrades if your system is already installed.

CAV 6.6 Firmware Configuration

To have things work properly for keypad display updates you must program the CAV 6.6 source at the keypad. It may currently be set to "unassigned", it needs to be set to "Peripheral".
------------------------------------------------------------------



Hope that helps

Just looked around and I can't find the original info on the cable pinouts (even Russound has removed the doc from uner tech tips) - I don't have my cable handy to check it out - anyone else??

Al
Thanks a million for the info Al. now how do you change the keypad to Periphal?
tia,
Ron

Thanks a million for the info Al. now how do you change the keypad to Periphal?
tia,
Ron

Hi Ron

Changing to Periphal, is just a device setup from the keypad, like DVD, CD, etc. Each source has thier own,, you will find perif on the list.

If (when) I find my cable, I will post the pinouts.

Al

Hi Ron

Changing to Periphal, is just a device setup from the keypad, like DVD, CD, etc. Each source has thier own,, you will find perif on the list.

If (when) I find my cable, I will post the pinouts.

Al
Thanks Al, I'm hoping this week to find the time to get this completed. I do have a spare audio cable and I just bought a rj45 to db9 connector to use.
Ron

I bought a new laptop yesterday and loaded the CAV66 and MC11 software and everything is working fine. The documentation is great. Currently I am just using the internal sound card out through the headphone jack. I ordered an M-Audio Firewire 410 and hope to be able to do three Russound sources through that.

My system has two CAV6.6s put together for a total of 12 Russound zones. I have not yet done extensive testing, but when one of the zones was activated from the first CAV6.6 I was able to use a zone from the second CAV6.6 to controll the "media server". If you get the chance, supporting a second controller would be great.

Supporting a second controller has actually been on my to-do list for a while. Unfortunately I don't have one myself, otherwise I would have done it long ago. From reading the documentation it seems like it shouldn't be too hard. I would need someone who is serious about testing it - ie who has the time to test the software, tell me about the problems they have, and then try a new version. Since I don't have a 2nd controller myself, it could take many, many attempts to get it working, so whoever is going to test it will need time & patience.

Let me know if anyone is interested. I probably can't do it right now in any case (lots of work on), but maybe in a few weeks time.

I would be happy to help develop support for a second controller. When you get a break in your schedule, let me know.

If someone were to send you a paypal donation, what account would they send it to?

Thanks.

If someone were to do that, I'd be very happily surprised! My account is paypal at objective.se.

I'm certain this is a dumb question, but the solution continues to elude me. I have a CAV66 and am running JRMC11. In the instruction details, it states to use a command-line parameter to change the COM port. I am trying to get the plugin to use COM4. The term command-line parameter is "Greek" to me.

Thanks in advance

COM port is no longer configured on the command-line. Download v1.31 - there's a PDF file included in the zip which explains how to configure the com port (as well as pretty much everything else).

Carl,

The documentation says that Port values in the .ini file can be COM1 or COM2. Are COM3 and COM4 also supported?

Thanks...

I just wanted to update everyone on my project and let them know a couple of issues I encountered and what I did.

I bought a Compaq AMD Turion 64 laptop, a USB to serial port converter and a M-Audio Firewire 410. The 410 is an external sound card (plus more) that has ASIO with 5 stereo pair outputs and so it seemed like a good choice as I was going with the laptop because of space constraints and to minimize the noise the unit puts out.

First off, CAV66.exe is a wonderful program. I love the simplicity and elegance of the interface. The use of the buttons on the keypad is great and compared to my old SMS3 it is much easier to get to the music I want to hear. I would be cautious about adding too much more flexibility to the keypads as I think it would complicate the interface. My vote would be to have different options in the .ini file. The main user of the system is my wife and she likes refrigerator technology. You open it up and a light goes on and you close it and the stuff stays cold.

The documentation that was posted on this forum came at a great time and was very helpful. One place I stumbled for a bit was on how to setup MC11 with separate zones. Once I found the Zone Manager all went well.

In testing the unit and getting everything up and running I found I needed to reboot if I ever got out of MC11 and CAV66. Re running CAV66 without rebooting the program would not work and MC11 would not come up. I suspected it might be a bug in CAV66, but after one attempt the music kept playing even thought CAV66 and MC11 were "closed". I went to Windows task manager and found that in the Process tab that MEDIAC~1.EXE was listed as being active. I highlighted it and clicked to have that service stopped. It gave me a dire warning, but now that I have done that 8 or 10 times this seems like an easy and safe work around to rebooting.

Also with the Firewire 410 and MC11 sometimes my sound card assignments would get jumbled from when I would exit MC11 and get back in. I'm still not sure why it does that but reconfiguring the "zones" seems to work.

I have 2 CAV6.6 units. For Russound zones that are plugged into the 2nd unit, they would work as long at least one zone from the 1st unit was also on the same Russound source. If not, it would play about 1 second of music and turn off. I changed the parameters in the CAV66.ini file to autostop=N and now all Russound zones will play and control any of the MC11 zones. The only downside is unless I manually stop each MC11 zone it plays on. Not a big deal right now.

Because it has 12 Russound zones, I did not even enter any information in the zone section of the CAV66.ini file. It comes up and shows information on 6 zones and not the other 6, but the laptop is tucked away and not accessed very often and so this is not an issue for me.

On the playlists selection on the keypads I would sometimes get dates and times that would prohibit me from scrolling through the playlists. I turned off the clock display in each source listing in the ini file so it is not an issue for me.

When going from source to source the MC11 sources do not have the name of source display for very long if at all. On the Russound equipment it seems like the name of the source when selected stays on for 2-3 seconds before going to the music information. This is nice so that you know what source you are on.

I have a UNO TS2 and it is does not have a good interface for the CAV66. There are about 8-10 preset templates for things like an SMS3 or Russound Tuner. I wish they had one that mirrored the regular UNO keypads. For the SMS3 it was neat because it would have a screen that would post the name of the song, artist, genre and a couple of other items. These did not scroll but were on the screen as long as the song was playing.

In MC11 some of my playlists are larger with 60-80 songs in each. These songs I like to be in a random order. I used the shuffle playback function in MC11 to have this happen. I discovered that you have to go to each MC11 zone and turn this feature on or off. You could then have some sources with shuffle and some without.

My 410, although it said it has ASIO, if I select ASIO in the zone manager I get a message that there can only be 1 zone with ASIO. I haven't taken the time to figure out even how to set it up, but the sound quality is fantastic and so I will not worry about that.

Sometimes I like to hear an Internet stream through the system and right now I have to load Media Player to have it run. When I do this I disable MC11. If anyone has thoughts here it would be appreciated.

" have 2 CAV6.6 units. For Russound zones that are plugged into the 2nd unit, they would work as long at least one zone from the 1st unit was also on the same Russound source. If not, it would play about 1 second of music and turn off. I changed the parameters in the CAV66.ini file to autostop=N and now all Russound zones will play and control any of the MC11 zones. The only downside is unless I manually stop each MC11 zone it plays on. Not a big deal right now."

You mean if you turn off the zone from the keypad it won't turn off the zone?
Ron

"You mean if you turn off the zone from the keypad it won't turn off the zone?"

For 2 CAV systems, when in the CAV66.ini file you have a source with autostop=Y, if no zone is using that source in the 1st CAV and then if a zone in the 2nd CAV tries to play that source, the music will come on momentarily and then halt because of the autostop parameter in the .ini file. If however, you put autostop=N, then zones from both CAVs will work but when you turn off a zone and no other zone is still playing that music, MC11 will continue to go through the playlist. To stop MC11 from playing you must manually hit the stop button on the keypad.

The issue with MC11 continuing to run after CAV66.EXE has exited is a known one, and I have reported it to J River here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=27357.0), but I have not received any reply. I posted a reminder there today, feel free to post there saying "J River - this problem is important to me - please fix it".

All legal COM port values are supported in the ini file - you may specify any valid COM port, although I recommend sticking to COM9 and lower (otherwise you have to specify using a slightly different syntax).

Having Problems with ini file for cav66. Went through all setup routines with firmware updates on cav6.6 as well as uno2 keypads and followed setup instructions from pdf manual.
using MC v.11.0.316 and cav66 v.1.31

For some reason the cav66.exe file won't read the cav.ini file until I change the extension to .txt and when that is done the program runs and takes over all the display sources on the keypad(s) ie . . source 1 will display tuner 1 (st2 tuner on source 1 & 2) than cycle through "time", "no playlist etc . . .

I copied the demo .ini from the pdf file and altered only the room names and what sources are active according to what I have set up in MC11.

I did take a look at the cav66.ini file that came with the version dated 5/16/2005 and the setup was just a little different from the pdf version.

5/16/2005
cav.ini
zone setup first
source setup last
cav66.exe v.1.31
pdf manual
cav.ini
source setup first
zone setup last

Any thoughts on what I may be doing wrong?

Thanks in advance

uan,

A few suggestions... First, make sure the .ini file is named cav66.ini and is located in the same directory as cav66.exe (you mentioned "cav.ini" in your message, which the program wouldn't recognize).

Second, you can try switching the zone and source sections to see if that makes a difference. Carl can tell us if it would, but most program .ini files can have the setting values in any order. I put it in this order in the documentation based on some notes Carl had sent me.

Third, in the documentation I put comments on some of the lines, which are preceded by semicolons. You might want to try removing the semicolons and everything after them on each line. Again, Carl can let us know if the program recognizes comments in this manner.

Let me know how it goes so I can update the documentation accordingly.

Good luck!

Sorry about the typo "cav.ini". I do have cav66.exe and cav66.ini in one directory however cav66.exe doesn't seem to read the .ini file unless I change extension to .txt. After that everything runs but the switches do not seem to effect the output.
ie. "ignore=Y" and so on.
I do get a display on the keypads and can use the buttons to control choice and playlist but it wants to take over the display on all sources 1-6.
Unfortunately the location of the russound is at a friends home (trying to help him understand the possibilities of the cav 6.6) and I can't make quick changes.
Do appreciate the quick response.
Thanks again

uan,

What makes you think cav66.exe is not reading the .ini file when it's named cav66.ini? What are you seeing? Could you possibly copy and paste the contents of the .ini file so we can see what it looks like?

Regards...

uan,

What makes you think cav66.exe is not reading the .ini file when it's named cav66.ini? What are you seeing? Could you possibly copy and paste the contents of the .ini file so we can see what it looks like?

Regards...

Boy, do I feel silly.

Had a chance to go to friends house to check .ini file and unbeknownst to me my friend had switched serial cable on com ports putting it back to com1 on computer (I had cav66.ini set for com2 which explains why cav66.exe would go to defaults when it couldn't find the .ini file because I renamed it cav66.txt).
Made the com port switch in .ini and everything worked like a charm.

sorry to waste your time

uan

I can assure you that I have seen much, much sillier things - great to hear it's working!

The issue with MC11 continuing to run after CAV66.EXE has exited is a known one, and I have reported it to J River here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=27357.0), but I have not received any reply. I posted a reminder there today, feel free to post there saying "J River - this problem is important to me - please fix it".
Sorry we missed this. I've asked matt to reply. If you need anything, you can always e-mail me. jimh, jriver dot com.

Thanks, Jim - really appreciate it!

Thanks for the software. It works great on my CAM6.6X.

One addition I would like to see: I have a CAM6.6X with 1 S2 and 5 UNO-S1 controllers. The S1's don't have a PLAY button, so I have to either have "autostop off" or start it from the S2. I would like to see an "AutoPlay" option on a perzone basis.

Thanks again

Hyslopc:
Just a note to say thanks. This program is awesome. I am very excited to not only see mp3 info - but also control it by the lrc1 remote & keypads. I have owned a CAV66 for 2yrs - and been drooling over Russounds SMS device, however - Cost is always an issue. I have been running a pc constantly for two years with Itunes & a keyspan remote - but decided to see what was out there for other options and stumbled across this thread. My CAV66 is a Rev2 - W/Firmware 2.01.16 & I just updated my S2 keypads to 3.01.01 to get the scrolling functionality & correct time display (Had original fimware in them) - I own the ST2 Dual am/fm tuner, I have a cable box & Multi-CD player - I was wondering if it is possible to set switches in your program to force the date time to intermittently flash as it does on the Media Center sources on to other sources not associated wtih Media Center. Or is there a way to tell Media Center to activate a zone (satisfing your program) & somehow flash only the time on the other sources.

For example - My Source 2 is Tuner 1 of the ST2- I have the station display programmed - and am hoping to see if the time could flash alternately - any thoughts?

Also is there a way to tell the time to stay longer on the display in the .ini file?

BTW - Interesting note: My ST2 was originally source 1 - and when I activated your program, I hadn't told the ST2 its new source - so the scrolling text for the songs was showing on the display of the st2!! (That freaked me out at first)

Any way great job - I still have to purchase the Media Center software - and I would also like to forward $$ to you as well.

Question to all: Does any one know of an RNET tuner that will pass RDS data to keypads? Does Russound have any plans for this? Or Even HD?

Next Project - using small lcds w/composite input to display Music/Album Art Etc. and somehow integrate with cav66.

Thanks again - Neil

I have uploaded v1.32 (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_32.zip), which adds support for an AutoPlay setting. The setting will work in both Source and Zone sections of cav66.ini, but obviously it is most useful when used in a Zone section.

I had a look at adding support for displaying date/time for non-MC sources, but unfortunately that is difficult with the current design. Today if a source is setup with Ignore=Y, then we never look at it at all. Obviously that could be changed, but it would have required more time than I had available today.

I'm finally setup with my Russound, MC11, and this program - and it's awesome! I am definitely sending a donation in. Please let me know where to send it.

One thing I don't like, is that it doesn't show the source name when switching between sources.

For example, I have sources 1-4 configured as MC zones 1-4. When I hit the SOURCE button on the keypad, it immediately shows the track name rather than showing a source name.

I'd like it to show the source name for a second, then show the track name.

I planning on making my sources categories, say source 1 would be 'Mellow Music', source 2 would be 'Classic Rock', source 3 would be 'Current Pop', etc...

Hitting the source button and immediately showing the track info makes it more difficult to find the source I'm looking for.

One more question - how the heck do you edit the custom source names on the CAV6.6? I can toggle through all the predefined source names, but there are 'custom names' listed that I can choose. How do I edit that name?

OK - I re-read this thread again (the first time I read it was before I had used the software or CAV66 or keypads, so I guess a lot slipped by me). To summarize, I guess I have 2 questions:

1 - I saw someone else mention this as well, so I know it's not just me. When I switch sources, it pretty much immediately shows the current track for that MC source. It flashes the source name VERY quickly, but basically it's unreadable. Is there any way for the source name to show on the keypad for a couple seconds before switching to the track name? Seems like it would have been a common request, so I'm wondering if something's just not right on my end...

2 - Apparently you need the PC Power Tools software to edit the CustomNames on the CAV6.6/S2 keypads. Is there any other known way to edit the custom source names?

Thanks guys!

One more thing, then I'll wait for some replies. :) I found this post in the archives about sending a fake 'source name' to display on the controllers when you switch sources.

Is this something that could be implemented into this software? That way us users without the PC Power Tools software could customize our source names. Maybe with a SourceName= under each source?

Also, I'm dropping you a donation today. Thanks again for this awesome software!

You could use the Cinemar MLCav66 plugin to send a message to the Russound keypad each time you press the Source button. You would see the the underlying source name for a split second, but actually you coudl set the russound to display nothing instead of a name. Then you will see a custom defined name supplied by the plugin.

For example:
MLServeCmd.MLCav66|Message~1~4~4~Rockin Jukebox~Center

The plugin allows you to configure every keypad for up to 4 controllers.

You'd just need a license for MainLobby/MLServer and you'll have the capability.

Also, you'll also be able to use a computer to control the Russound too from a great looking user interface.

I'm near completion of a PocketPC control for the Russound as well.

Keep in mind, you can also use the CallerID plugin to pass names to every keypad. Huge bonus in my opinion.

Actually ironically enough, I spent tons of time trying to reduce the amount of time the source name (and other messages automatically displayed by the controller) show, so that these would never be seen, and you would only ever see the MC track info. It wouldn't be too hard to add in a delay when switching sources, but if you want custom names to show and that's hard to do otherwise, then maybe that's a more useful change? It wouldn't be too hard to add in an optional Name= setting under each source in the ini file - let me know what you think.

As far as running MainLobby's CAV66 integration at the same time as CAV66.exe, I'm not sure that's possible, unfortunately. I've thought many times about adding some sort of DLL interface so that the Mainlobby guys could plug into my serial interface, and we could share the COM-port, but unfortunately I haven't gotten around to it. I'll probably be interested in this myself eventually, if I move to a new place where I could intall some touch screens.

Thanks for the reply!

The custom source names isn't a huge issue to me, but would be nice.

However, having the keypad display some sort of source name is of great use to me. I plan on using different sources for different types of music, say source 1 = Rock, source 2 = Oldies, etc... So, when changing sources I'd like to quickly be able to see what I'm switching too.

If it's not hard to have it display a custom source name for 2-3 seconds before switching to the track information, that would be 100% ideal to me. A 'Name=' setting for each source sounds great to me.

As for the MainLobby stuff, I was just quoting that text to help explain the custom source name request. I don't have any interest in it.

Thanks!!

Hi Hyslop,

I'm currently looking to control my MC11 by serial strings,
Your program looks very fine, I guess that you use the MCC commands to control the MC11.
So my question if your program can easily adapted just to pass thru the MCC commands to a serial port or TCP/IP Winsock port.

Otherwise I could look to adapt my serial protocol to the CAV protocol.

Thanks,

Dimitri

I did some tests and I'm convinced that simulating the Russound will be the easiest way to connect the MC11 to my device.

So if you could give me some hints on what Russound commands you trigger.
For example :
Zone 1 on : [F0][00][00][7F][00][00][70][05][02][02][00][00][F1][23][00][01][00][00][00][01][12][F7]

Zone 1 off : [F0][00][00][7F][00][00][70][05][02][02][00][00][F1][23][00][00][00][00][00][01][11][F7]

That is what a third party system should send to trigger the button which activates Zone 1 ON en Zone 1 OFF
I don't know what a keypad sends, I guess that you trigger on the bold section because this is the source address which invokes the command.

So if someone could give me some samples of a string that you recieve fom the CAV6.6 it would be a great help for me.

Greetz,

Dimitri

DimitriDC,

I'm not quite clear on the "big picture" of what you're looking to do. It sounds like you have some sort of "device" and you'd like to issue serial or TCP/IP commands from this device to control MC11. In your last message your thinking looks to be to have your device emulate the keypad control serial commands coming from the Russound controller and then somehow pass these as inputs to hyslopc's cav66.exe program such that the cav66.exe program would then issue the corresponding commands to MC11.

Does this sound right? What kind of device is this and what kinds of programmatic control do you have over the formatting and transmission methods of commands that can be sent to the PC? Is Russound equipment at all involved in your target configuration?

Hyslopc's program is written in C++ and uses Media Center's automation interface libraries to control MC11. Are you familiar with the MC automation interface SDK? Could this be used to write a simple program in C++, VB, or a number of other languages to serve as an intermediary between your device and MC11?

You're absolutely right,

my device is a Crestron controller, the CAV6.6 is controlled by it and takes cares for the sound distribution. As a music server the SMS3 is too limited for my needs.
I have to take care of about 600 GB of music and it is still a growing collection.

So I would like to simulate the keypad and use the CAV66.exe
Crestron has all the flexibility to work with serial commands even by a TCP/IP connection (that would be the best solution because then I don't have to use a separate serial port).

The SDK would absolutely fit to my needs to control the MC11 with my controller.
But my programming skill stops at simple C-programmed microcontrollers, So I'm not capable to program ***********grams in C++
A simple program between my controller and MC11 would be the most intelligent solution, but beyond my limits. Therefore I would use Hyslopc CAV66.exe because it looks very well developed and it has all the functionallity I need.


Greetz,

Dimitri

Hi, has anyone verified that this software works with the CAM 6.6 models? I saw an earlier post in this thread that asked this question but no one had verified if it works or not.

Thanks for any info.

For some reason I didn't get informed about these latest posts, so I didn't read them until now - sorry. Dimitri - I'll have a think about what you're trying to do and the best way to fix it. One option for you would be to write a program in VB using the MC COM control. I think you might be surprised how easy VB makes COM development.

I'm just starting to setup MC11 to play some web radio stations. For some reason, every time I try to play this station CAV66 crashes on me. Media Center plays the station fine, but if CAV66 is running it will crash.

Classic Rock Rocks (http://www.live365.com/play/240371?bitrate=128&AuthType=NORMAL&membername=kremlar1973&VisitCount=16&SaneID=65.96.52.137-1143203134598167&lid=506-usa&pid=1120&now=1143647148979&session=56enSsBAv7CpI&tag=live365&LID=506-usa)

I've added several other stations and CAV66 seems to have no problems.

Any idea what's "different" about this station??

Thanks!

When I try and play that station on my PC, I get no audio at all - IE just sits there looking busy. Is it down right now?

buggdog - I believe Tphillips wrote on the previous page of this thread that CAV66.EXE is working great on his CAM6.6.

Here's another that crashes CAV66 on me:

Rockland USA (http://www.live365.com/play/300930?bitrate=128&AuthType=NORMAL&membername=kremlar1973&VisitCount=27&SaneID=65.96.52.137-1143203134598167&lid=506-usa&pid=1120&now=1143649781745&session=56enSsBAv7CpI&tag=live365&LID=506-usa)


Here's another:
Planet Zeb (http://www.live365.com/play/69654?bitrate=128&AuthType=NORMAL&membername=kremlar1973&VisitCount=31&SaneID=65.96.52.137-1143203134598167&lid=506-usa&pid=1120&now=1143650274305&session=56enSsBAv7CpI&tag=live365&LID=506-usa)

And another:Fab 4 Radio (http://www.live365.com/play/302597?bitrate=128&AuthType=NORMAL&membername=kremlar1973&VisitCount=37&SaneID=65.96.52.137-1143203134598167&lid=506-usa&pid=1120&now=1143650679253&session=56enSsBAv7CpI&tag=live365&LID=506-usa)

When I try and play that station on my PC, I get no audio at all - IE just sits there looking busy. Is it down right now?

No, it's up and running for me. I wonder if that link is tied to me (it has my Live365 used ID in it, and I believe my IP address).

You can go to www.live365.com and get their free membership. They have tons of stations. I have it configured to use an external MP3 player (rather than their web browser interface). When I open a station, it saves out a PLS file for me that includes the URL for the streaming audio. That URL is what I posted here.

Am I on the bleeding edge here, or are others playing Web Media stations through MC11/CAV66?

Thanks!

Hmmm - the free trial is only for 5 days, and requires a credit card.

That's if you want to try out the VIP access (additional stations) or use their custom player.

If you just want to listen to a station:

- go to www.live365.com (http://www.live365.com)
- in the "Find Stations That Play" type 'Classic Rock Rocks' and click GO
- click the little yellow speaker icon next to Classic Rock Rocks! (number 6 on the list)

If that station is full, try one of the others:
- search for 'Fab 4 Radio'
- click the little yellow speaker icon next to FAB 4 RADIO (number 1 on the list)

If it asks you to register (it might not), you can do that with your name & email address.

Live365 is a popular streamer. I believe it comes on TiVo now, and Windows Media Center.

Sorry to be a pain...

If there's a way to reproduce this crash without handing over my credit card details, please post clear instructions how to do so.

Hyslopc -

Let me try again, but I'll walk you through the registration. You definitely don't need to give them your credit card info.


- go to www.live365.com
- click the My Account link in the upper right
- click the center purple "Join Now" button and register for a free account, no credit card
- follow the instructions to signup, then login to your account
- click the My Account link, then click the Listen Settings tab
- for your MP3 player, choose the "MP3 Player" option
- save your settings

Close your web browser, go back in and go to www.live365.com
- sign in if you're not already signed in
- in the "Find Stations That Play" type 'Classic Rock Rocks' and click GO
- click the little yellow speaker icon next to Classic Rock Rocks! (number 6 on the list)
- If that station is full, try one of the others (search for Fab 4 Radio)
- when you find the station, click the little yellow speaker icon
- this will open a player window and ask you to download a PLS file
- open this file with a text editor, it will contain the URL for the streaming station


If you have Skype, we could walk through it together. My Skype ID is Kremlar.

Thanks again!

OK thanks. The problem is because the "track names" of those radio stations are extremely long (thousands of characters). Luckily, MC11 can handle this, but my software couldn't. That's now fixed in v1.32 (http://www.objective.se/cav66_1_32_1.zip).

Hey, hyslopc ... well, I'm back - had been following your thread since the previous iteration, but I've been gone for the past few months (ahem - suffice to say that the d*mn contractors working our remodel required some significant handholding). It's finally coming to a close, so I'll soon have my CAV on order and be putting together an HTPC.

I'm wondering, do you have a FAQ of any sort for your software? If not, I'd be happy to put one together for you and host it ... if you're interested, just lmk. (It's not entirely selfless for me to offer to do this - figured it'll take less time for me to put together a FAQ from any saved notes you may have, than read thru this whole thread again!! ;))

OK thanks. The problem is because the "track names" of those radio stations are extremely long (thousands of characters). Luckily, MC11 can handle this, but my software couldn't. That's now fixed in v1.32.

Hey - that's great! Thanks!

By the way - did you ever get a chance to implement a 'source name=' switch like we had talked about before?

Anyway, it seems like Live365 stations might not work well for me after all, however - the links I had bookmarked stopped working, it seems like the sessions time out after a while.

Anyone know if there's a good source of web radio URLs out there?

Thanks!

There's no FAQ per se, but the install guide included in the release explains everything pretty well (one more thanks to those who worked on this). I forgot to include it in the last zip I posted, but I've included it now.

No SourceName= setting as yet, but I will look at it sometime soon - feel free to remind me again.

Thanks!

You also mentioned possibly adding code to sort playlists in the future - I'd definitely be interested in that if you decide to do so.

BTW - my system doesn't seem to be wrapping the playlists. When scrolling using the +/-, it reaches the last playlist then stops. Any reason it would be doing this?

Thanks,
Mike

Sorting would require changes to MC. I've requested them, but no guarantere if or when we'll get them - maybe MC12. Right now, playlist selection doesn't wrap.

With this version, I've had to exit and restart CAV twice in the past few days because my keypads stopped responding.

Anyone else having any issues?

Thanks!

Does anyone know if this will work with the CAA66 system? Quite a bit less expensive and the wife prefers the keypads.

Short answer: yes it will.

Long answer: According to Russound's technical documentation, there is almost no difference between the CAV66 and the CAA66 RNet protocol implementation. That said, there is a small difference in one of the commands we send - a couple of the reply characters are "unsupported". If that means that the CAA66 always sends a dummy value, then it will work with no changes. If the CAA66 doesn't send a value at all, on the other hand, then I may need to make a very small change in order to support it.

Note that of course you will not get any track info on the keypads, since they don't have a display - for me that would be a deal-breaker, but everyone has different priorities.

I guess I assumed the display on the keypad could show information other than input device. Here is a pciture of the keypad:

http://www.russound.com/images/kpl_image.jpg

Is it possible to manipulate the display?

With this version, I've had to exit and restart CAV twice in the past few days because my keypads stopped responding.

Anyone else having any issues?

Thanks!

I am. I have to routinely restart now. At least 3-4 times weekly.

Hi hyslopc

I went through all your posts and replies dated back to 2004 and I can't find any reference on one particular music source: web radio broadcasts. The Russound SMS box supports this feature. I'm planning to purchase CAM 6.6 in the near future with UNO-S2 keypads for living rooms. I'm very curious if I can get luck with your SW (of course if you could kindly share it with me) on CAM 6.6 and MC11.

Will I be able to somehow choose stored URLs to web radio sites and source the stream or muliple streams? Have you thought of this feature.

greatly appreciate your work

Is it possible to manipulate the display? I guess - I've never tested one of those keypads, but since it has a display and is documented as supporting the same protocol as the CAV66's keypads, I would assume it works.

Regarding stability, I'm not seeing any issues here, and I use it all the time. Can you see any pattern with the instability, or are you getting cav66.dmp files created when it stops running? If so, please PM me about it.

Regarding web radio, we just had a discussion here about it last week, and I've started listening to a bit of web radio myself. MC11.1 seems to support web radio stations pretty well now.

Regarding stability,

I haven't narrowed it down much yet, but it has been working well the past few days.

Here is one issue that doesn't make sense to me, but maybe it will make sense to you:

I purchased a Russound IR remote control. Everything works 100% on the keypad - I can change sources, change tracks, change playlists and it's 100%. With the remote, I can change tracks and everything is great. If I change sources, however, usually the track info stops displaying on the keypad. If I walk up to the keypad and change sources again or hit next track, the track information starts flowing through. Isn't that an odd one?? The remote does have discrete source selection (rather than a single button that cycles through the sources). Not sure if that would make a difference...

Ah - that *does* make sense. We are probably getting a different type of message from the remote than we get from the keypad. I will try and reproduce this here.

OK.... I haven't used my remote at all since the last crash. I went upstairs and turned on one of my keypads and there was no track information at all. Trying to skip to the next track did nothing - it stayed on the same song. I was able to change sources however.

I went downstairs to a zone that was already on and it's showing a track that played previously on the keypad. It's not scrolling at all, it's just showing the first part of the track name.

CAV6.6 seems to be running, but the track information displayed on the PC is outdated. There is no DMP file.

I closed CAV6.6 and re-ran it. I left Media Center running. It is now showing the correct track info and it seems fine (for now).

Is there anything else I should check next time it happens?

Thanks!

Thanks, Mike. What is the last version that has been working reliably for you? I can then look at the differences between the two versions and try and work out what is causing the problem.

I'm a relatively new user, so I've only used 2 versions - this one that you modified for me to allow longer track names, and the version before it.

I didn't have any problems with the version before it, but I did only run it for a short time.

Do you still have that last version available? If so, I can install it and see if it helps me.

Previous version is still available: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7295819&&#post7295819. Give it a test and let me know the result - thanks.

I wanted to reproduce the problem with changing sources via the remote, so I went around the house looking for the remote, and found my 1yo son playing with it. I then tried to use it, but although the red LED on the remote flashes, and the keypad even blinks to show it is receiving IR data, nothing happens. When I press the "Input" buttons on the remote, nothing happens at all.

Could my baby son have pressed some combination of keys on the remote that puts it into some sort of strange mode?

I grabbed the previous version and am giving it a try. I'll let you know how I make out.

Regarding the remote, here's a VERY weird one that I encountered.

Everything was working great with my system, but I freed up some space in my server rack so I figured I'd move my CAV66 into it. I had to make some longer patch cables to connect between my patch panel and my CAV66, which I did. I plugged all the patch cables in and plugged the CAV6.6 into the SURGE ONLY side of my battery backup. It was previously plugged into a plain old surge strip. I figured the CAV6.6 would draw too much for the battery side of the battery backup, but thought the surge only side would be fine.

Powered everything up, and it worked great. That is, until I tried the remote - no response at all, same as you. I pulled the batteries from the remote for 2 hours, triple-checked all my patch cables, power cycled the CAV6.6 a dozen times - same problem.

I was trying to think of what else had changed, and the only other thing that came into my mind was the UPS. So, I pulled the plug and moved the CAV6.6 to a basic surge strip instead - and the remote started working fine.

Don't ask me how or why, but I haven't looked back since.

Hope that helps!

A slight change of topic....

I have a CAV66 and have been annoyed with a hum that constantly comes from it. It is only noticable with a quiet room, ear very close to the speaker, or -very- noticable with headphones.

I finally isolated the amp to having no inputs, one keypad and one speaker on a very short cable to a speaker near the CAV. The hum still remained, I even went as far as to isolate the ground, thinking it was the result of a ground loop, but still the hum remains. I have another issue which is the video sometimes 'breaks up' like it is losing sync for 10 seconds and then comes back to normal. It will cycle like this for a while (15min - 1 hour), which is very annoying. The video issue is very hard to reproduce, it just happens randomly, although I did manage to capture the behaviour with my camera. I have had many theories why this is happening from a cheap DIVX DVD player to an outside camera to the CAV66/MC11 software/media server.

I have ruled -all- these out, my next step is to take it completely out of my house and try it at another location (brothers house). If the problem (hum) still exists, it is warranty time I think.

Can I please ask the other CAV66 owners to try an see if you hear the hum I am talking about. To hear it just select a source like DVD and press pause, then get up to speaker and listen closely for the hum. It is unaffected by the actual volume setting on the keypad, i.e. the keypad could say '0' and the hum remains at the same level. If you have a headphone hookup, it will be very obvious.

I would be very interested in what you report

thanks

Al

Carl - sorry for not replying to your email, this issue has been taking up a lot of my time troubleshooting. I will test again when things are stable - right now I only have a bare minimum installed on the CAV

I have the hum, too.

I also have the hum - But it only appears to be in one of my rooms - thinking it is speaker wiring close to electrical. - But my cav66 is just over 2yrs old.

My remote also is unresponsive at times - thinking there could be electrical interference on the cat5 drops to the controllers - or ambient/background lighting fouling up the ir transmission from the remote...thoughts???

I tend to agree with NDeangelis - the only room where I have noticed hum is the room which has a lot of electrical wiring running through the ceiling. I told the electrician to keep the cables as far apart as possible, but you know how that goes - they're probably running right next to each other.

I'm not noticing any hum in any rooms, but definitely worked hard on keeping the speaker wire far from the electrical. If I remember correctly, I also used shielded speaker wire.

Mod's edit: No requests for pirated software allowed at AVS.

I'm not noticing any hum in any rooms, but definitely worked hard on keeping the speaker wire far from the electrical. If I remember correctly, I also used shielded speaker wire.

The hum I am getting is present in all channels and also without -any- inputs and only one keypad/speaker hooked up directly behind the CAV.

Al

You said you isolated the ground - how did you do that?

Mod's edit: No requests for pirated software allowed at AVS. - Second warning.

You said you isolated the ground - how did you do that?

In order to isolate the ground you can use a cheater plug, these are the adapter you use to plug a 3 prong cord into a 2 prong outlet. But in order to truely isolate the grounds in your AV system you must disconnect all the interconnects. It is very possible that the hum is a ground loop hum and is caused by your AV system referencing multiple grounding points. Usually this is the result a wacky ground reference on your cable or satellite feed. This is very common and the only way to fix is to get an inline isolation transformer for you coax line.

In order to isolate the ground you can use a cheater plug, these are the adapter you use to plug a 3 prong cord into a 2 prong outlet. But in order to truely isolate the grounds in your AV system you must disconnect all the interconnects. It is very possible that the hum is a ground loop hum and is caused by your AV system referencing multiple grounding points. Usually this is the result a wacky ground reference on your cable or satellite feed. This is very common and the only way to fix is to get an inline isolation transformer for you coax line.

Yeah I use a ground lifter (cheater) plug - not recommended for anything but a test as it eliminates the ground to the device. My hum remains in this test - interesting that there is one person -not- hearing the hum.

I had the video go nuts (lose sync) again today, it is once or twice a minute for about 5 seconds each time for about 25 minutes. I am going to pair down to just the two TiVos and see what happens. Right now I have the 2 Tivo's, a VCR and 2 dvd players. Normally I would also have a camera/CD combo and the MC11 on both audio and video (Which is -awesome-).

Thanks for the feedback so far

al

Hi.
I have downloaded version 1.32, but have not installed it yet. I have several questions.

First, the documentation makes reference to COM1 and COM2. Does the s/w support COM3 through COM8?

Second, I have three CAV6.6's (18 zones plus 2 ABUS sub-zones). Will the s/w support multiple units, and if so, what needs to be configured in the s/w? The documentation makes no reference to multiple CAV's.

Third, the documentation makes reference to being able to stream multiple independent sources using plural sound cards or a special multi-outpout soundcard, but does not tell which soundcard to use or how to configure it. What needs to be done for three seperate streams?

Fourth, is there any possibility of supporting a Sirrus or XM tuner connected to the computer, such as, for example, the XMPCR ox XM Direct (for XM) or SiriusConnect (for Sirius), or even an ordinary FM computer tuner card (instead of having to use the Russound ST2X (for XM), ST2S (for Sirius) or ST2 (for FM) tuner? A computer FM tuner card is only a few dollars, and the XM and Sirius solutions are available from Timetrax for about $100.

Thanks
Steve

Third, the documentation makes reference to being able to stream multiple independent sources using plural sound cards or a special multi-outpout soundcard, but does not tell which soundcard to use or how to configure it. What needs to be done for three seperate streams?

That is a function of the J. River Media Center software that CAV66 interfaces with. If you look in the documentation for that software, it's fairly easy to setup multiple zones. I currently run 4 sound cards in my PC.

steve - I recommend taking a couple of minutes to read this thread from start to finish. You will get the answer to all of your questions and many others. Feel free to post again if you still have some questions after reading the whole thread.

Hyslopc,

I read the whole thread several times. Question 1 is anwered; it appears you can use COM1 through COM9 (you recommend not going higher than COM9).

No real anwer to question 2. One poster indicates that he can get it to work with 2 controller IF Autostop is set to No. If it is set to Yes, the zones on the second controller stop playing after 1 to 2 seconds. Thus, it seems to me that the s/w is not presently designed for multiple CAV6.6 units. Is this correct?

Will have to check JRiver's forum regarding multiple streaming.

No answer in the thread regarding using a FM tuner card in the computer, or an XM or Sirius tuner that is connected to a computer. So, is there any possibility of supporting a Sirrus or XM tuner plus an FM tuner connected to the computer?

Thanks
Steve

Steve,

If I may chime in.. I use a decent home theatre PC and a CAV 6.6 with all 6 zones active and 4 sound cards.. rather than use XM, i just use shoutcast (internet radio streams) which work with jriver media center, therefore, work with the cav66 plugin and send the song name ot the display.. i believe xm/sirius users have the option to stream live radio as well via the internet - you may want to check that out.

-Brett

Brett,
Unfortunately, the XM and Sirius websites only stream some of the channels, not all of them. Also, while some local FM radio stations are available on the net, not all of them are. However, it is an idea.
Steve

All of these things have been discussed over and over, but since it's apparently still unclear:

1) The software does not support multiple controllers, simply because I only have one controller, so I can't test with multiple controllers. I'd be happy to add support for multiple controllers, but I will need someone who is serious about testing it, and can spend several hours with me over the course of several days running tests with their multi-controller setup.
2) Regarding FM tuner cards, the link software links to MC, and so supports everything that MC supports, and nothing else. Since at this time, MC does not support FM tuner cards, no FM tuner cards are supported. Since MC supports web radio, it is supported.

Hyslopc - I went back to the previous version several days ago like I mentioned and everything seemed great, but this AM I had the same problem - no track info or controls from the keypads. I exited out of CAV66, re-ran it, and it started functioning again.

Any suggestions??

Hyslopc,

Sorry for upsetting you. I was asking because in reading all the posts (which I did prior to my first post, and again after your initial reply) it appeared that at least one individual offered to assist you (via testing) with respect to adding multi-unit support, and numerous individuals requested radio support (which you had expressed an interest in). Since there were never any follow through posts with respect to these issues, I just wanted to ask.

Steve

No problem, steve! I agree it's not 100% clear from the thread history - didn't mean to sound upset. I would love to add FM tuner support, multiple controller support, and tons of other stuff, but so far haven't found the time.

Hyslopc,
Will this work with UnoS1 pads and if so what functions will be able to be controlled since it doesn't have a play and stop button. Can the button functions be changed in your program?

I've never tested with the S1 keypads, but there is at least one other person here using them along with the AutoStop=Y and AutoPlay=Y settings, so anytime a source is selected and the keypad is on, it is playing.

Hyslopc -

Any idea on my issue with CAV66? Is there any way to turn on a log of some sort that might clue me in?

Is there a command line switch to exit the application? Maybe I could setup a scheduled task to exit and restart it nightly and see if that helps....

Hyslopc,

first, I would just like to say that this is a wonderful idea. I do not even have my CAV yet, but I think what you have done is great, even though I have not seen the software yet!

I have read through this thread, and I would like to concur with the other posters who would like to see some kind of integration with Girder. I use Girder at home for my whole-house control, and plan on using it when I get my CAV (the house will be done in 6 weeks or so, and I will be installing it then). this way I can control all of the zones via my PC interface (which I have linked on my LAN so any web-enabled device can control the system). anyways, the issue is there is only 1 serial port on the CAV.

Girder does have a COM interface, and they also have a plugin for controlling the CAV through girder. Their plugin serves a different function than your software, it is for controlling zones (source selection, volume, etc, etc).

Once I downloaded your software, I had planned on making a contribution, but if you think you have the time to look into the integration with girder, I would be willing to contribute now to help pay for your girder license. I am sure a few others who may be interested in this would be willing to contribute to this as well.

anyways, let me know if this interests you, and if I can help in any way.

I looked into this briefly, but unfortunately the Girder serial plug-in doesn't seem to be sophisticated enough. I don't want to toot my own horn, but the RNet protocol is really, really complex if you want to cover it 100%. The software I have seen that uses Girder to talk to the CAV66 just sends static blocks of data and doesn't look much at what comes back - that won't cut it for the sort of functionality cav66.exe provides. It was also hard to get really good performance even with a native multi-threaded C++ application, and adding additional layers would inevitably slow things down.

Can you tell me more exactly what you mean by "Girder integration"? What benefits would it provide?

Well, I am not talking about having your software integrate tightly with girder.

Mainly, I am looking at a way to share the serial port on the CAV. Ultimately, I would like to be able to use your software to integrate the CAV with JRMC, be able to see what's playing on the keypads, and to change what JRMC is playing from the keypad (or from any web-enabled device in the house).

But, I also want to be able to control zones via a COM interface. My front end is an ASP.NET web site with vb.net used to send commands to girder. girder controls most of my components, either via serial ports, or IR.

I guess I was thinking that you could use girder as your "conduit" to the serial port, sending/receiving payloads through the girder COM interface. this way both girder and CAV66 could share the serial port.

Another solution would be to provide a public interface into your app, and allow source control (does your app do zone and source control from the pc?) however, this solution would probably only be helpful to a few people who are writing their own front ends, and doing it with .NET. This is why I was hoping for some kind of integration with girder...