The HTPC Project: Software part 2: Sage TV STV mods, Girder Setup

11 January 2005, 12:07 am

Page 8: Software part 2: Sage TV STV mods, Girder Setup

This page is still under construction

Sage STVs

Start by understanding whats generally available in terms of added functionality. This is a constantly moving space, but some of the more recent STVs for SageTV 2.1 are summarized at this posting.

I installed 2 different STVs. SageMC gives me the front end of Media Center. Cayars is good for the power user.

I need to figure out how to have Sage open Zoomplayer and minimize itself.

Girder Setup

1) Get a background on how it works first

One thing to note is that Girder’s old website is still available at http://www.girder.nl/indexold.php

Start here by reading through the online help at www.girder.nl/help. This will give you a basic understanding of the command-event-action structure along with some good information about using states. You will see why states is very important shortly.

Download these 2 documents and READ THEM:

Girder 3.3 Help File PDF

Girder in the Real World

LUA is a very powerful scripting language added in recent versions of Girder.

Download the LUA Reference Manual here and hold onto it – trust me.

Also the LUA Windows Functions and LUA System Functions plugins each have help files that reference additional functions.

2) Install the first set of plug-ins

Now as far as plug-ins go, I have recently added the USB-UIRT – This device is awesome and works with ANY remote. I use the TV remote from my Scenium.

LCD Configuration is handled using Parallel LCD Plugin. I was having trouble with the other LCD Plugin on my 16×2 VFD.

Zoomplayer, Winamp and many other data sources can be displayed using DVDSpy.

The way I’m current using it is that Winamp, MBM, and SageTV data is being supplied by LCD Smartie.

LCD Smartie is closed by Girder when a DVD is started and the group displaying the chapter and duration information is displayed.. more on this below.

3) DVD Player part 1: Automate the starting and stopping of Zoomplayer

So lets take a look at what I did to automate 2 states of Zoomplayer On and Zoomplayer Off using the same multi-group. If you don’t understand what a multi-group is re-read the above help material.

The Zoom Player commands can be gotten by generating the zplayer.gml file in Zoomplayer following these instructions.

1) Close Tray is a straightforward Action to close the tray in case the DVD drive is still open.

2) Kill LCDSmartie is currently executing a command line.. taskkill /F /IM lcdsmartie.exe

3) Clear LCD makes sure that the LCD Display is cleared using the LCD Plugin prior to Girder sending chapter information.

4) ENABLEINFO enables the DVDINFO group controlling the display of the elapsed time and current chapter.

5) Open Zoomplayer executes a command line "C:\Program Files\Zoom Player\zplayer.exe" /opendrive:d:\ /F

The parameters will open the right DVD drive and make Zoomplayer open in fullscreen mode.

6) Bring Player Window to Front does exactly that.. it puts Zoomplayer on top – this comes from the GML files generated by Zoomplayer..

7) Close Zoomplayer I was using a command line of taskkill /F /IM zplayer.exe but then decided to try to use the Close Window command instead.

DISABLEINFO disables the DVDspy commands for Zoomplayer

9) Clear LCD – copy of above command

10) StartLCDSmartie – run lcdsmartie with -hide switch to put into the tray.

Final step

Now set up states as follows: In the above list 1-5 gets a state count 2, starting state of 1 and 7-10 gets a state count of 2, starting state of 2 (will provide graphics shortly)

4) DVD Player part 2: Automate the controls within Zoomplayer

Caveat: My WAF was entirely based on making my HTPC run like a standalone DVD Player. The wife is not into Tivo but the ultimate test will be SageTV, but for now, she is satisfied with how it is setup.

This part was actually fairly easy.. at least to get the basic controls finished.

The commands below took care of basic DVD playback controls.

These commands enabled navigation of DVD menus

coming soon..

Girder automation of SageTV

Home Theater Automation via X10 signals via USB Powerlinc Plugin.