arenddeboer.com

MCE Remote with VLC (update 18 February 2010)

Arend — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:54:58 +0000

philips-mce-remote

Background:

At home I use Windows Media Center available on Windows 7. It’s a great program but it doesn’t play all the video codecs and file types that I have in my library. Even advanced codec packs like sharks “Windows 7 codecs” do not always solve this problem. To the rescue comes VLC . A media player that can handle almost any media file you throw at it. When using VLC however, I’m no longer able to use my Media Center Remote Control.

Say hello to mceRemote2vlc:

I decided to try and build an application to handle this, without incorporating this functionality into VLC, but using VLC’s excellent RC interface. In short it allows you to control a running VLC instance by communicating with VLC’s built-in TCP-server.
If you want to give it a try be sure to:

Go to Tools-Preferences.
Select Show All settings (bottom left corner)
Click on Interface->Main interfaces
Check “Remote control interface”
Click on Interface->Main interfaces->RC
Enter in the field “TCP command input”: 127.0.0.1:8765
Check “Do not open a DOS command box interface”
Install the .NET Framework 3.5 (if not already available)
Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
A Windows MCE Remote , the following eHome compatible remote devices should be supported:
- Microsoft/Philips 2005
- Microsoft/Philips 2004
- HP
- FIC Spectra/Mycom Mediacenter
- Toshiba/Hauppauge SMK MCE remote
- Hauppauge OEM MCE remote
- Mitsumi MCE remote
- Fujitsu Scaleo-E
- Pinnacle PCTV Remote
- Shuttle MCE Remote
- Centarea Master Remote II

Supported buttons and default mappings:

button	vlc_command	Description
None	none
Power1	none
Left	menu left	navigate menu
Right	menu right	navigate menu
Pause	pause	pause
Power2	quit	exit vlc
PowerTV	none
Stop	stop	stop playback
Record	record	?
Rewind	key key-jump-short	go 10 seconds back
Play	play	play
Forward	key key-jump+short	skip 10 seconds
Replay	previous	previous playlist item
Skip	next	next playlist item
Back	previous	previous playlist item
Up	menu up	navigate menu
Info	key key-intf-show	toggle display interface in fullscreen mode
Ok	menu select	menu select
VolumeUp	key key-vol-up	volume up
VolumeDown	key key-vol-down	volume down
Start	none
ChannelUp	chapter_n	next chapter
ChannelDown	chapter_p	previous chapter
Mute	key key-vol-mute	mute sound
RecordedTV	f	toggle fullscreen
Guide	none
LiveTV	none
DVDMenu	key key-disc-menu	show dvd disc menu
NumPad1	none
NumPad2	none
NumPad3	none
NumPad4	none
NumPad5	none
NumPad6	none
NumPad7	none
NumPad8	none
NumPad9	none
NumPad0	none
Oem8	none
OemGate	none
Clear	none
Enter	none
Teletext	key key-aspect-ratio	toggle aspect ratio
Red	key key-aspect-ratio	toggle aspect ratio
Green	key key-deinterlace	deinterlace
Yellow	key key-subtitle-track	toggle through all subtitles
Blue	key key-audio-track	toggle through all audio tracks
AspectRatio	key key-aspect-ratio	toggle aspect ratio
Print	none
Down	menu down	navigate menu

Download:

http://www.arenddeboer.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Setupv1.0.10.zip

A big “thank you” goes to the team of MediaPortal as most of the functionality is coming right out of this project

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PDA / GPS bike mounted USB charger

Arend — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 13:11:08 +0000

I love to go on holiday by bike. And as a tech nerd I can’t be bothered by plain paper-maps!
Having a GPS-mapping application like OziExplorer on your bike makes navigation very easy.

The problem however is with the rapid draining of the battery-powered GPS / PDA.
Especially mobile phones / PDA’s have a very short (battery) lifespan, often no more then a couple of hours when the display is always on and a GPS-application running. Normally I just dragged a lot of AA aka penlite batteries with me and powered the phone with a simple battery holder like this one:

Of course this isn’t the best solution and I was looking for better alternatives.
Then I stumbled upon this genius, hub-dynamo driven “Bike mounted USB Charger” on an English bicycle forum.
The idea is quite simple. You take a HUB-Dynamo (Shimano DH-3R30) (I ordered one from ebay for less then 40 euro).
The hub-dynamo generates an alternating current that needs to be rectified and the voltage output should be regulated to 5 volts for USB powered devices.

The hub-dynamo:

These are the parts you need, available at any electronic (parts) store.
D1 – D4     1N5818
C1             2200uF   16v
C2, C3       470uF     63v   Low ESR
C4             .47uF      Tantalum bead
C5             22uF       Tantalum bead
R1             47K         .25W

Solder the parts according to this schematic:

And there you go, you have the best energy- efficient charger, all done with green energy!

This is my effort. It still needs some good housing and connectors but it works perfectly:

For more detailed information visit the bike forum at http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php
Many thanks go to Simon Galgut for providing the electronic schematic.

Google maps API for Flash

Arend — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:46:57 +0000

The nice folks at google have made a Flash library-api for google maps.
I have made a sample application which displays my “current” position on the map.

How it works:

Mobile phone
On the Mobile Phone, a Windows Mobile 6.1 ( HTC Touch Diamond) runs a .NET CF 3.5 application that sends the current GPS-location to the server. This is done every second, or on a chosen interval.

Live tracking application

The server
On the server there is a simple php script that stores the GPS-location and device-id, send by the phone, in a database.

The web-application
The web-application is build in Adobe Flex Builder 3 and fetches the last known GPS-location from the server.
It then draws a marker on the map and starts updating again.

To get an idea of how it works without me being on the run (and running the gps mobile application) use the simulation mode.
I have recorded two sample tracks, a walking track and a track by car.

Things to do:
Smooth map movement
Select mobile device(s) to show, and zoom map to show all selected mobile devices.
Show (last known) direction, speed, distance, top speed..

(this is partly implemented in the html/javascript version on http://www.arenddeboer.com/liveTracking/)