Setting device properties from Zoom Player

acheslow · Post by **acheslow** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:31 pm

I just managed to get the On Screen Display information from Zoom Player on my HTPC into a device property on my home automation HTPC and thought I would share how I did it. I'll just cover the high-level steps but some of them are in themselves somewhat involved if you've never used Girder.

First you must have Girder. Get it from http://www.girder.nl/
Next download and install DVDSpy from http://www.girder.nl/plugins.php. Be sure to follow the instructions at http://girderplugins.sourceforge.net/DVDSpy/
There is a lot of information from a lot of applications that you can 'spy' on. For this proof of concept I just did the OSD data from Zoom Player. Following the instructions at the above URL I created a Girder command called OSD and learned the DVDSpy event for ZoomPlayer.LCD.OSD
Next download and install the HouseBot external control device from http://www.cebotics.com/F_DownloadPlugi ... ontrol.exe
In HouseBot I created an External Control device and set the port to 9001 and password to pwd. Then I created a null device named "Zoom Player" with a new alpha-numeric property called "OSD". Finally, I copied the HB_Control.exe from the HouseBot directory to the girder directory on my HTPC.
Back in Girder on my HTPC I set the OSD command to Execute using the OS tab. The File parameter is set to the path/filename of the HB_Control.exe; the Step Size parameter is set to /I 192.168.0.4 /O 9001 /S "pwd" /D "Zoom Player" /P "OSD" /V "[pld1]" /C SPV. The important variables here are 192.168.0.4 being the IP address of the HouseBot server, 9001 being the port that the External Control is running on, "pwd" being the External Control password, "Zoom Player" being the name of the Housebot device, and "OSD" being the name of the device property to set.

Now when Zoom Player runs on my HTPC I can see status information in my HouseBot device. This is the first step but now that I know this is possible I can create similar properties to capture the DVD chapter number, elapsed time, duration, etc. Along with a girder bridge device to send information to Zoom Player I can create a theme panel that will have full bidirectional control and status display.

Hope this helps if anyone was interested.