HDHomerun Update

I found from the HDHomerun forums that I should update the firmware. I downloaded the latest and updated, and now I'm seeing about 14 Mbps, which is perfect. If I decide on another HDHR, I'm figuring about 56-80 Mbps of bandwidth. Since our house was wired back in 1999 with Cat-5 (not 5e), 100 Mbps is as fast as the network can run. Also, each SageTV HD extender can use up to 20 Mbps so in worst case, the network will be overloaded - for 1 NIC. Furthermore, where I want the PC located there is no cable jack so I can't create a local GigE network with the HDHRs and the PC. I do, however, have a Cat-5 run from the HDHR location to the PC location, so I can create a small 100 Mbps network with 1 NIC and the HDHRs. I can then add a 2nd NIC connected to the main LAN to handle regular network access and streaming to the HD extenders. One thing is the HDHR is a DHCP only device, but will default to a 169.254.x.x address if no IP address is handed out to it. I just need to set the HDHR connected NIC to 169.254.y.y with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 and the PC should see the HDHRs.

Edit: Turns out, the reduced bandwidth I was seeing was due to using VLC to view the streams. Using Sage, the bandwidth was still 30 Mbps. I have since installed the SageTV 6.5.8 release candidate and the bandwidth is now down in the 10 Mbps range.

Looking into SageTV

I've taken a break from automation stuff and I'm looking at media now. I've downloaded a trial of SageTV and I got an HDHomerun. I have things set up on an old Sempron 2800+ machine, which is adequate for recording and serving video (not at all for watching live HD though). The dual tuners on the HDHomerun use up 80 Mbps when bother are tuned to HD channels. This is clearly not usable unless I upgrade some parts of my network from 100 Mbps to gigabit. I have a few other issues to work out as well, but the Sage software and the HDHomerun seem to work well.

HAL is a Piece of Crap

I just did a long needed Windows update of my HA server and the only app on my machine that craps out? HAL Deluxe. After someone calls and leaves a message, the HAL System Server fatals. I restored my old db files. I re-installed HAL. I did a clean re-install of HAL. No luck. I had a similar problem with 2.066 (I'm using 3.7.3 now). I'm just about ready to go back to an answering machine...again.

Finished up HAL Client-Server App

It's been a while since I wrote my app to link multiple HAL installations. I finally finished it up last night. I've linked the MacroPhrases from the master to the client so all voice commands are accessible from the client. It only does this at startup, so it will not update if the server phrases get updated.

AMEX Wishlist Goodies

I scored a few goodies from the AMEX wishlist promotion that was running. One of them was a $150 statement credit for a purchase from BestBuy. That went to buying a new HDTV. I also got a 25% off Amazon coupon - apparently it's good until 1/15/09 and can be used until the maximum discount is reached. Among things I got is the Antenna Direct DB4 antenna. It works great indoors bringing in HD signals that are over 40 miles from our house. I am contemplating other purchases to take advantage of this - possibly the HDHomerun and some Sage stuff (software & extender). Finally, a friend of mine snagged the Squeezebox Boom for me. It's very cool.

Shelved xlobby Plugin

I stopped worked on my xlobby plugin. I was hoping I could just drop msscriptcontrol into it to create a scripting engine for my plugin, but it xlobby doesn't seem to like it. After a couple days of getting nowhere, I put it on the backburner...

Jabber Re-Integration

I've finally completed integration of Jabber functionality into my xPL sCU app. I had coded it up months ago, but was too lazy to fully integrate it since I've been using xAP Jabber. Last night, I finally cleaned up the code and added response handlers in the xPL sCU hosted script. It's up & running so I've turned off xAP Jabber. I used jabber-net to build in the Jabber functionality.

Plugin for xlobby

I've been playing around writing a plugin for xlobby. I've used it before with the xAP plugin, but it wasn't very stable. I've since removed a lot of my xAP stuff. I do like xlobby's lightweight client for touchscreen applications, so I started toying with a plugin. I've been able to integrate xPL and access to mySQL into a plugin. This allows me to create xlobby events to issue xPL commands, and I can grab the status of everything in my system as its all stored in mySQL. However, the more I think about it, the more I'm going to want to script the responses from the plugin as some of the database contents need to be interpreted. I'll need to add a scripting engine at some point.

xPL Plugin for Event Ghost

I just threw together an xPL plugin for Event Ghost in a couple days. It allows you to add macros in EG that respond to xPL events and to send xPL messages in response to other events. I'm not a Python coder by any stretch, but I can hack my way through enough of it to be dangerous. Therefore, don't expect the code to be that great or readable.

Here's a couple of screenshots of it in action:



This one shows an event generated by the plugin. The format of the event is:
xPL.<message identifier>:<schema>:<source>:<target>:<xPL message body>

Obviously, you'll get billions of different events so that may make it more difficult to deal with on the EG side as there doesn't appear to be any wildcarding of events.



This screencap shows the configuration box to send an xPL message.

Download the plugin here. I don't have much time to support this, so good luck with it ;) You should understand xPL. If not, read and ask.

Current Sensing the DVD Player

I grabbed several split core current sensors off eBay and have been gradually deploying them. This week, I added current sensors to the family room TV, amp and DVD player. Now, when the DVD player is turned on, the system checks if the TV is on. If it isn't, it sends IR to turn it on. Then, it turns the TV volume all the way down since audio will be piped through the amp. Next, it checks if the amp is on and powers that up if it needs to and sets its input to DVD.

Update: I have taken all these current sensors off their DS10A's and ran Cat-5 to the gameport controller I use as a contact closure device.

Touch Pro Finally!

The wife & I picked up our matching pair of Touch Pros last weekend from the Sprint store. What a great phone! A beautiful 640x480 screen, full QWERTY keyboard, GPS, WiFi & EVDO Rev A. It's taking some getting used to having a slider keyboard and the Touch Flo interface, but I've been using Voice Command a lot more now. The UI is a little laggy at times, but I have been doing some performance tweaks that I've read about in various forums. It's been only a week, but overall, I'm really liking this phone.

Wetness Sensors

I jumped in and picked up a bunch of wetness sensors mentioned here. I'll be using them under sinks, behind toilets, under the water heater and the AC drip pan. These will work great with the eternal DS10A deal.

Haven't had much time for automation the last few weeks. I am experiencing major X10 noise problems for the first time. Three different light switches upstairs are intermittently controllable and one turns on by itself. I spent an hour unplugging just about everything in the house, but no luck. I tried changing house and unit codes too. It's very odd as everything was working great 3 weeks ago but I haven't plugged in anything new. Sometimes, device power supplies will all of a sudden start spewing noise onto the powerline, but those have been easy to track down & put on a filter. I'm a little stumped right now and considered replacing them the light switches with UPB ones, but they are so expensive.