[haubrija]

Hey guys,

I recently purchased a wifi audio receiver which I can stream music to using DTS Play-fi Audio system. The audio receiver becomes a client of my existing wifi network and is hooked up to my existing A/V Receiver. I use my HTPC as pretty much my only other component.

I want to automate the switching of the input of my receiver to the input for the wifi audio receiver if possible. The A/V receiver typically just sits on the input for my HTPC and doesn't move past that. I searched around on the Eventhghost forums without success. In theory, I would assume there would be some type of network monitor that could monitor if traffic went to the IP of the wifi audio device (i.e 192.168.1.200) which would create an event in Eventghost which I could then use to trigger an IR signal to change the input. When traffic ceased, the trigger could switch it back to my HTPC. I looked at the Broadcaster plugin and the Network Data Rate Monitor and those did not fit my needs.

Does anyone else have any idea (perhaps not using EG) to accomplish this? BTW my receiver is not network compatible. Any help would be appreciated.

PS I also considered just running the wifi receiver into my line in on my HTPC but I've never done that and I don't know if it works with a HDMI out. I also don't think that would be ideal because my HTPC occasionally goes to sleep. Thx.

 

[video321]

How about simply sending a command to EG before switching over to your play-fi app? If you're controlling it from a PC then it's a simple bat file which can send the command then start the app instead of just using the program's shortcut.

Besides, I don't think you'd really want to have your receiver switch based on network traffic.... unless you want it constantly switching back and forth

 

[haubrija]

How about simply sending a command to EG before switching over to your play-fi app? If you're controlling it from a PC then it's a simple bat file which can send the command then start the app instead of just using the program's shortcut.

Besides, I don't think you'd really want to have your receiver switch based on network traffic.... unless you want it constantly switching back and forth

Thx. I would do that but how would the mobile device (iOS) know to send an EG command when I switch over the PlayFi app? This would certainly be the easiest way but I just don't know how to accomplish it.

RE the network traffic idea, it would only be based on the ip traffic to a specific IP on my network, i.e the wifi audio receiver. So I don't think it would be switching back and forth unless data was being sent to it.

 

[Tyborg]

Eventphone works on ios, although I have no experience. Not as clean, but an option

 

[mrtechnician90]

I have used event ghost extensively to control my small media room. If you were using an android device , we could put a simple icon on your home screen that would send the needed command and start up the app at the same time.

The only other way to switch inputs is to send a command from your ios device to event ghost. You can do that through a simple web page or use the eventphone app as stated earlier in this thread. Of course this way is not automated as you are trying to accomplish.

Are you already running event ghost and have the usb ir emitter box?

 

[haubrija]

I have used event ghost extensively to control my small media room. If you were using an android device , we could put a simple icon on your home screen that would send the needed command and start up the app at the same time.

The only other way to switch inputs is to send a command from your ios device to event ghost. You can do that through a simple web page or use the eventphone app as stated earlier in this thread. Of course this way is not automated as you are trying to accomplish.

Are you already running event ghost and have the usb ir emitter box?

Yes, I'm already using eventghost with a UIRT. I primarily use it to run commands from HippoRemote for volume to the receiver and power. For my primary control, I use an iPad based remote software called TouchControl. I had considered doing it as you describe but I was really hoping for an automatic solution. Put another way, my wife will never remember to change the input on the receiver prior to using the music app.

This weekend I tried running the Wifi audio receiver to the Line In and changed the windows settings to listen to the device. This was much more hit or miss than I expected. Sometimes it worked, but other times the audio just didn't go through. This feels like a simple thing that is much more complicated to accomplish than it should be.

 

[mrtechnician90]

Yes i can understand trying to make it easy for your wife to use. The touch control app appears to be quite flexible and integrates with event ghost. Im curios why you are using both touch control and hippo remote as they both seem to do similar things.

Back to the problem. Could you leave the reciever on the wifi music adapter input and go the other direction. Im not sure how your htpc is setup software wise to play video. As you may know event ghost can start up programs . Program one of your buttons for watching htpc. Turn on reciever switch to correct input and start whatever software you wish. You can create a simple variable flag in event ghost to use to know reciever is set to this input. Once you turn off reciever, event ghost can check and if needed switch the input back to the wifi adapter before shutting off.

 

[haubrija]

Yes i can understand trying to make it easy for your wife to use. The touch control app appears to be quite flexible and integrates with event ghost. Im curios why you are using both touch control and hippo remote as they both seem to do similar things.

Back to the problem. Could you leave the reciever on the wifi music adapter input and go the other direction. Im not sure how your htpc is setup software wise to play video. As you may know event ghost can start up programs . Program one of your buttons for watching htpc. Turn on reciever switch to correct input and start whatever software you wish. You can create a simple variable flag in event ghost to use to know reciever is set to this input. Once you turn off reciever, event ghost can check and if needed switch the input back to the wifi adapter before shutting off.

Short answer on your first question, I use Hippo on mobile phones because I like its clean interface for a smaller display, but Hippo doesn't make an iPad sized version of their app. So I go with Touchcontrol on my iPads to accommodate the larger surface size. Touchcontrol does alot more as I have interfaces set up for Home Automation, Smart TV control etc. that Hipporemote can't really do (easily) so the phones are strictly used for TV control. Since I would have to design an iPhone size interface through Touchcontrol, I decided to not reinvent the wheel since Hippo does it better than I could anyways.

I like your idea. Perhaps I can make an eventghost control to switch the receiver each time I launch WMC, MPC, etc. to the HTPC input and then switch it back each time the program is closed. I'll explore whether that is feasible. Thanks for the help!

 

[mrtechnician90]

Short answer on your first question, I use Hippo on mobile phones because I like its clean interface for a smaller display, but Hippo doesn't make an iPad sized version of their app. So I go with To9uchcontrol on my iPads to accommodate the larger surface size. Touchcontrol does alot more as I have interfaces set up for Home Automation, Smart TV control etc. that Hipporemote can't really do (easily) so the phones are strictly used for TV control. Since I would have to design an iPhone size interface through Touchcontrol, I decided to not reinvent the wheel since Hippo does it better than I could anyways.

I like your idea. Perhaps I can make an eventghost control to switch the receiver each time I launch WMC, MPC, etc. to the HTPC input and then switch it back each time the program is closed. I'll explore whether that is feasible. Thanks for the help![/QUOTE


No problem. Creating a new macro in event ghost should be easy. When you open any program you will see the event come up example task.created.mpc-hc or when you close task.destroyed.mpc-hc. Event ghost also knows what program has focus task.activated and task.deactivated. you can use those events to create any new macros you like.

Yes it makes sense why you use one program for a phone and one for a tablet if the apps dont scale correctly. I decided to just make simple web pages for all my controls. They look good and work on tablets and phones fairly well. ir control of devices and zwave lights go through event ghost. I even found a roku box plugin that works over the network. Although dont really have to much use for it. Good luck with your changes.

 

[Somewhatlost]

I have a somewhat similar setup of sorts...
I am using CQC instead of eventghost...
and a SageTV HD300 instead of a HTPC
and Sonos instead of a "wifi audio receiver"
but the concept is roughly similar, just have a button on my tablet/CQC interface to play music, or to watch TV/Movies/etc all I do is press a button and everything needed magically happens...

works well for me...

CQC also monitors the "Play State" of Sage, and if the projector is the display, it will turn on or off the lights as needed based on play/pause/stop...
if the LCD TV is the display, it doesn't bother with the lights as that would be pointless really... I only watch news/boring stuff on TV no need for fancy light control then...