Mediaportal Support

[Dachkennel]

Hi there,

I've just signed uo this forum because of this very amazing Voxcommando project. I also noticed this is very very powerfull in controlling i.e. XBMC or Mediamonkey. My Question is:

Will ever be a full support of Mediaportal there in future?

I'm asking because im pretty a kind of Mediaportal-hard-user. Did some skinning before, but on this frontier even my skills in programming are limited. I really whish there is a little hope for controlling MP in the way XBMC was shown in the videos.

I had success on this time to make some easy voice navigation commands for MP using the massage plugin, but at this poit i dont knwo to get deeper. Is there any possibility in navigation for music or TV with MP? for example by telling the artists or channels name? what have to be done to import the databases in voxcommando?

If i can, i like to help on any point on development, but as i sayed beforme my skills are limited.


Sorry for may bad english.

Greets,
Dachkennel

[Kalle]

Hi there,

I've just signed uo this forum because of this very amazing Voxcommando project. I also noticed this is very very powerfull in controlling i.e. XBMC or Mediamonkey. My Question is:

Will ever be a full support of Mediaportal there in future?

I'm asking because im pretty a kind of Mediaportal-hard-user. Did some skinning before, but on this frontier even my skills in programming are limited. I really whish there is a little hope for controlling MP in the way XBMC was shown in the videos.

I had success on this time to make some easy voice navigation commands for MP using the massage plugin, but at this poit i dont knwo to get deeper. Is there any possibility in navigation for music or TV with MP? for example by telling the artists or channels name? what have to be done to import the databases in voxcommando?

If i can, i like to help on any point on development, but as i sayed beforme my skills are limited.


Sorry for may bad english.

Greets,
Dachkennel

Hi Dachkennel (auch nicht schlecht dein username    ), willkommen im VoxCommando-Forum. Du kannst MP über button codes mit VC steuern http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=MediaPortal_button_codes
Es gibt in VoxCommando auch die Möglichkeit Keyboardeingaben per Sprache zu senden http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Actions#InputKeys so kannst Du deine eigenen Makros erstellen.
Ich denke James wird Dir hier posten,  wie er Dich für Mediaportal mit VoxCommando unterstützen kann.

Gruß Kalle

[jitterjames]

There might be some ways to extend control of mediaPortal a bit, but the problem is that the program does not offer any method to control it other than the message plugin which is limited to simple buttons presses.  As Kalle says, you can simulate keyboard entry so you should possibly use that to search for movies etc.

XBMC provides a strong control interface here: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Web_Server_HTTP_API

MediaMonkey provides a great control interface here: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/MediaMonkey_Automation_objects

As far as I know there is no such thing available for MediaPortal.  I used to use MediaPortal for years and finally switched to XBMC because of this.  Other than recording TV shows I think XBMC is better in just about every way.  The problem is further complicated by the fact that MediaPortal does not have built in support for TV series and Movies, but uses plugins for this, so a developer would need to figure out how to access these plugins as well.

If you find a good plugin or new feature of MediaPortal that I don't know about, please let me know and I'll see if there is something I can do with it.  I am not interested in developing my own plugin for MediaPortal because it would be too much work for me, since I would have to learn too much about the program.

[Dachkennel]

Hi there,

thank fpr your replies. So i think i understand the Problem. Mediaportal is for me the best solution because i use it for TV in the main case.
I dont know how long you didnt have had a look in MP for the last time, but since the last two years MP has been very hard updatet. It know runs for me the most perfect system, realy fast in version 1.2. Ther is also a parallel work in progress in developping MP 2.0. In Case of TV Mp seems to me the most powerfull Mediacenter-Software.

So i had a short look if there is already a little bit of work done for a control interface for MP. What i've found is a pluging for full control MP with an Iphone. have a look at here. http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/ipimp-518/ipimp-5-2-0-mediaportal-1-2-0-beta-96262/
I dont know if something like this can be a poit to start.
Ther is also an tcp/ip server process plugin calld wifiremote here http://de.team-mediaportal.com/erweiterungen/eingabe-und-ausgabe/wifiremote
I also found a Webcontrol Plugin http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mpwebservices-463/new-plugin-webservices-transcoded-streaming-web-interface-tvserver-mediaportal-71404/
And this one (in german) http://www.ip-symcon.de/forum/f13/natives-mediaportal-plugin-8796/

So the problem for me is that im not the hard into this interfacing stuff to know exactly what has to be done in development for the perfect interface. I could make a request in the MP-Forum if i just exactly know about what. you understand what i mean?

I think in the MP-User-Corner there will be a a very high numer of peoples that will be fascinatet of "voxcammand" thier systems...

Greets,
Dachkennel

[jitterjames]

OK WifiRemote looks like the answer.  This will take some time but I am excited about it.  A few things will have to happen before I can even start working on this.

1 - I am in the middle of a rush job that will take about a week.  I probably won't be able to do much before that.
2 - I am creating a plugin system for VoxCommando.  I will need to finish this before any major changes can take place, and this would be a plugin for sure, not a core component of VC.  As much as possible I will be moving actions into plugins so that you only load the stuff you want / need.

Still I am very happy to see what appears to be possible with WifiRemote.

Where can I find a download for MP 1.2 ?

[Dachkennel]

Hi James,

these are nice news. It would be perfect if this works.

The link i posted about wifiremote seems to me to be the newest version, in fact that MP 1.2 final will be realesed next mondey i think ive heard. This wifiremote version is from 2011-08-19 i think it will workt in 1.2 final as good as in beta. (i hope so...)

please let me know if i can do any testing or something like that or if i can help in any way...

Greets,
Dachkennel

[jitterjames]

wifi remote does not appear to be compatible with MP 1.2

edit: oops. looks like I installed, 1.2 beta and not 1.2 rc

trying again...

[jitterjames]

seems to work!  OK I'll look into this further when I get a chance.  Seems promising.

[Dachkennel]

Hi James,

have a look at here:
http://code.google.com/p/wifiremote/downloads/list

Greets,
Dachkennel

[jitterjames]

Hi James,

have a look at here:
http://code.google.com/p/wifiremote/downloads/list

Greets,
Dachkennel

please see my previous post.   I have already downloaded and installed those.  It is working.

The problem I have now is that the demo client provided only has examples for very simple commands like "up" "down" etc. and set volume, even though the plugin is capable of doing more than that.

I will probably need to get help from the developer of this plugin, unless I want to spend a lot of time scratching my head.

Also, the plugin does not seem to support much in the way of queuing music etc.  It appears that you need to specify each individual file.  So there can be no commands like "play artist xyz" or "play album xyz", unless we tell it every song by that artist or on that album.

so, this may not be the ideal solution after all.  Unless the developer wants to add functionality, or perhaps I am misunderstanding what is possible.  I am looking at what appears to be the full list of commands here:

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/17_Extensions/3_Plugins/WifiRemote/Commands

[jitterjames]

aha!  OK I've figured out how to do more complex commands.  I have made a test command that can jump to a window using the window id.  That is a good start.

Now the biggest problem will be what the plugin is actually capable of.  Perhaps you could get in touch with the developer and as what would be possible in terms of requesting items by name.  Basically we want something along the lines of requesting media via SQL queries.  Maybe it is already possible, or maybe he could add some functionality for us.

[Dachkennel]

Hi James,

ok i will try to cantact the develloper if wifiremote. I hope i can get more information about this this week. At the moment im into writing my master exam on university (dont know how to say in english) so im a little bit out of time. 

I aksed alredy in MP-Formum to get even more support for this project by other MP-users. So i will post here any information awailable.


Greets,
Dachkennel

[jitterjames]

OK.  Good luck with your exams.  There is also a plugin called "one button random music" which I think has much of the work already done but does not allow control from outside.  Perhaps it could be adapted to wifiremote.

[Shukuyen]

Hi there,

I am one of the developers of WifiRemote.
Your project sounds really interesting and I would love to see support for MediaPortal. So let's see, what we can do to make that work :-)

You are right that most commands that can be sent with WifiRemote are quite basic. The plugin was planned as a "dumb" interface between networked applications and MediaPortal and is mostly used by mobile apps (CouchPotato, aMPdroid) to simulate a normal remote control.

More data-centric work is done with a different plugin, GMA Webservices (will be deprecated by MP-Extended soon). This is a windows service that has access to MediaPortals databases and therefor knows about the actual content. The way to go (in my oppinion) is to query GMA/MP-Extended for the media file you want to play and then tell WifiRemote to do it. I am unsure if GMA already has search capabilities, but they have some very active and helpful developers, so that should be doable.

If you want to talk join us on IRC (#mp-extended @ irc.freenode.net). (Disclaimer: I am not a developer of GMA, so no guarantuees there! But I will help you with WifiRemote as good as I am able to.)

[jitterjames]

Hi Shukuyen,

Thanks so much for your offer to help.  I almost missed this post somehow.  Sorry for the delay in replying.  I used to be a big fan of MediaPortal so I would be very happy if there is a good solution for controlling it from VoxCommando.

I have done some preliminary tests with your plugin and the sample c# client that you provided, and it works great.  Thanks for that!  It is a great starting point and as soon as I have some time to dedicate I am sure I will be able to access all the current functionality without too much trouble.  If i need help I'll be sure to contact you.  I don't use any IRC or other chat clients other than google chat but I'll try to set something up soon.

I'm ok with using this other plugin (GMA) to request information about the library, but in terms of requesting items I think it would be much better if I could send a single request and have the plugin do all the work.  It does not make sense to ask for every song individually and will create a much less responsive setup.  There is a plugin called "one click random music".  I believe it has the code needed to, for example, queue all songs by a certain artist.  Perhaps it would be possible to "borrow" some methods from this plugin and make them available in the wifi plugin?

One question about GMA (I have not even looked at it yet, sorry).  Do you know if it can provide information from other major plugins such as MPTVseries and Moving Pictures?  I don't know if it is still the case, but the built-in video library functionality was useless when last I used MP.

I would also like to see other functions added like the ability to rate music and photos.  Don't know if that would be possible, but it would be loverly!

cheers, and thanks for contacting us.