Anybody know how to sync lights with media player?

[kevind]

This would be one heck of a party mode.
Imagine an event that snyc the light to Media Player's equializer or something. Instant Night Club.

Ran this buy my wife....huge on the WAF for this one.

Searched for about an hour on the net and could not find any solutions besided very expensive sound stage systems.

Anybody out there smart enough to figure this one out?

[rocco]

Both MP9 and WinAmp use visualizations plug-ins for those colorful screen displays when they are playing music. I suppose someone better than I could write a visualizations plug-in that controlled external lights.

The challenge would be to find an interface medium to switch the lights that wouldn't add visible delay. Maybe a USB device running a 12MHz isochronous pipe. I could build the hardware (not cheaply), but the plug-in would be beyond me.

[kschorz]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kevind:
This would be one heck of a party mode.
Imagine an event that snyc the light to Media Player's equializer or something. Instant Night Club.

Ran this buy my wife....huge on the WAF for this one.

Searched for about an hour on the net and could not find any solutions besided very expensive sound stage systems.

Anybody out there smart enough to figure this one out? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You want one of those Color Light Organs. I built one from Radio Shack back in the 70's then connected a bunch of external Christmas lights to it.
I was 14 years and it was WAAAAAY cool!
My dad thought I was on drugs......

Look here for starters.

[kevind]

Hmm....

What I was getting at would be some sort of plugin that would use the "beat" from music as "On/Off" commands for X10 lights. Then from HS you could tell the plug in which X10 addresses....ie lights...that are to be synced.

This way you could have say your living room lights attached to the plugin so when the music is going the lights are flashing. Great party attraction and a huge "WOW" on your guest.

This is way way beyond my programming capabilities but it would be awesome and I would think one of the industries first for home use.

I would buy a plugin like this in a heartbeat.

[jay]

There is way too much on-off X-10 latency to do what you'd like - follow a beat. I think an A/D converter is more appropriate.
Anyone?

[tobad78]

X10 prob. would not cut it but what about Zwave speed is very fast. And at least its afforable.

[kschorz]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kevind:
Hmm....

What I was getting at would be some sort of plugin that would use the "beat" from music as "On/Off" commands for X10 lights. Then from HS you could tell the plug in which X10 addresses....ie lights...that are to be synced.

This way you could have say your living room lights attached to the plugin so when the music is going the lights are flashing. Great party attraction and a huge "WOW" on your guest.

This is way way beyond my programming capabilities but it would be awesome and I would think one of the industries first for home use.

I would buy a plugin like this in a heartbeat. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Absolutely no way you will ever get X10 to respond fast enough to make your idea work.
That is why you need an outboard device.

[MPodlin]

I don't think any home automation devices (X10 or Z-Wave) would respond quick enough to handle what you are trying to do. My suggestion would be to purchase a couple (for right and left channels) color organ or light organ kits and plug in the lights you want to work off the music. Then just hook the speaker wires up to it. Keep in mind that this only works with incandescent lighting. Search the web, I found my two kits from a local electronics store about 15 years ago for about $9 each and they work great.

(find a single channel version and a cd of thunderstorms and use them to create lightning effects for Halloween.)

The Pod