Device Replication

[PRIME]

Just thought I'd share this with everyone. It's yet another use of the "Device Replicator" software device.

I just started using the Device Replicator device, and it just rocks!! My main HouseBot server runs on a "slower" machine. So I'm using device and state replication onto my dual CPU machine to capture video onto the hard drive when a condition is met, and it works like a charm !! The main server with the MR26A and the CM11A on it, is just repsonsible for recieving commands from motion sensors (or RF remotes) through the MR26A, and then turning the appropriate lights and cameras off and on through the CM11A (or even the CM17A).

Then what I do in a task is also change the state of a "null" device on the main server (which won't do anything on the main server, it just gets its logic state changed).

The null device is replicated onto the "faster" machine, and hence when its state is changed to yes, it replicates on the second machine instanly through the network.

I then have a task that monitors the state of this null device on the faster machine, and launches media encoder to capture the video from whatever camera that was triggered by the main server (by the way, Windows Media Encoder has awesome command line support, for capturing, AND for broadcasting, etc...). It's actually a batch file that HouseBot executes, and in that batch file, media encoder is launched. Just as an extra note (in case someone else is trying to do the same thing), I used a batch file because I set a DATE and TIME variable to the current date and time (to the second) and then use these variables as the filename that media encoder uses to save the video from the camera. This way the videos don't get over-written.

You can also create a HouseBot task to launch Media Encoder in "broadcast" mode, for whatever duration of time you want. This way you can connect to the server with Windows Media Player and watch realtime video from any of your cameras (turn cameras off and on through HouseBot remote). Hey Scott, this is kind of a temporary work-around for that video streaming stuff I had posted earlier in the Feature Request Forum. Whenever I want to see what's going on, I launch my "Media Encoder Broadcast" task, which launches Media Encoder command line in broadcast mode for specified length of time, and then I use media player and connect to the server and use the remote to switch between my cameras



Anyway, just thought I'd share cuz HouseBot is sooo cool !



- John