2.0 uh oh

[ttscoff]

I just switched to 2.0, and one of my hopes was to offload all music and speaking tasks from my HA pc. So I was going to use seerAMP to remotely control winAMP on my HTPC. But it's not finding the playlists no matter where I put them or how I reference them in the action. I can make it work from 1.7 on my old box, but not with the exact same parameters on the new HS2.0 box. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Brett

[dale3h]

Hmm...sounds fishy. Are the playlists stored on the HomeSeer machine or the Winamp machine? Also, are the songs stored on the HS or WA machine?

[ttscoff]

Currently, for the purposes of figuring out where they're supposed to be, the playlists exist on both of the machines, in the winamp directory and in the homeseer/seeramp/playlists directory. The playlists I'm trying to work with right now only contain URL's (Internet Radio) but the songs in my other playlists are stored on the WA machine. I've tried full path names and I've tried just using the name of the playlist and having it exist everywhere I thought that winamp would look. No luck. I've had this working before. I don't understand why it can't find it now. With the playlists stuck all over the place like they are, if I send an event to play playlist "classicalradio.m3u" from my HS1.7 machine to the winamp machine, it picks it up just fine. If I send it from the HS2.0 machine, winAMP reads CLASSICALRADIO, indicating that it can't find the playlist...

Thanks for the quick response!

-Brett

[dale3h]

Alright, I've got a quick fix for ya. There's a hidden setting called "gPlaylistDir" which holds the playlist directory of the WINAMP PC playlists. It is a setting on the HOMESEER PC, though. This might be confusing, so if you'd like to call me, shoot me your number via email (to synthesize@synvb.com) and I can explain it better over the phone.

Open your SeerAMP configuration file on the HOMESEER PC (C:\Program Files\HomeSeer 2\Config\seeramp.ini) and in the instance you want to modify the playlist directory for, add (if it's not already there) this line underneath it:

gPlaylistDir=C:\htpc\winamp\playlists\

Your config file should now look something like this:

[hspi_seeramp]
gEnabled=1
gShowMenu=1
gFirstRun=0
gInstances=Instance 1,Instance 2
[Instance 1]
gName=Instance 1
gPause=1
gPlaylistDir=C:\htpc\winamp\playlists\
[Instance 2]
gName=Instance 2
gPause=0

**Please note that "C:\htpc\winamp\playlists\" is a directory on the WINAMP PC, NOT HOMESEER.**

Your file may differ depending on the number of instances, the names, the settings, etc.

Once you have added that, please restart HomeSeer so that it can pick up the change. You should now be able to set an action for "Play Playlist" and set the playlist to "rock.m3u", "classic.m3u", or even "rock\aerosmith.m3u" (this example would be a playlist named "aerosmith.m3u" in a folder named "rock" inside the "C:\htpc\winamp\playlists\" directory).

Please let me know how this works out for you.

[ttscoff]

Rock and roll...

Hey, that worked!

As cool as it would have been to actually talk to somebody from the board, looks like it won't be necessary. Thanks for the quick solution! Now I just have to figure out how to wirelessly pipe the sound from the HTPC to two other rooms without losing too much sound quality ;-).

Thanks,
Brett

[dale3h]

I've got a solution for that, too. Are you wanting to run a transmitter and a receiver, or wireless speakers? My dad has like 8 to 10 wireless speakers setup around the house, all of which have AWESOME quality. Don't let a cell phone ring around them, though...that's really annoying.

Let me know if you want a transmitter/receiver setup or a transmitter/wireless speaker setup. I can get you great info on either one.

[ttscoff]

You're just the man with the answers...

I've played with a lot of scenarios. Ideally I'd like to be able to control where the music is being played, and especially where homeseer is speaking. HS2 may have solved the speaking part for me, as i have enough networked machines to make good use of the speaker app. The music part is less obvious. I guess essentially it's a wireless speaker setup. I have a pair of 900Mhz speakers, but they kind of "shift" frequencies and require frequent tuning, and they shut themselves off after a minute of no transmission with a loud static burst, so I don't like them very much. Any *affordable* suggestions are welcome.

I recently ebayed a couple of RCA Lyra wireless transmitters and am waiting for them to arrive. They plug into a USB port and I'm assuming they work like an external soundcard. They're supposed to provide superb quality for 100 feet. I read that they can disable your primary soundcard though, which would be a problem. Anyway, what I'm planning to do with the 2 of them is use the pair to wirelessly "mix" the signals from my HA and HT pc's and send them to hardwired speaker setups at either end of the house. We'll see what kind of quality I get out of that...

Like I said, I'm open to suggestions. Expandablity over time is key... I buy what I can afford to but I never have much because I spend it all on HA ;-).

Thanks,
Brett

[dale3h]

The speakers my dad has auto tune themselves to the frequency. The only problem I can see with this is that if you want to zone audio, the speakers are going to pick up every zone and play it. I'll shoot him an email and ask him what brand they are. They were pretty affordable, and VERY expandable. Like I said, we have one tranmitter and about 8 to 10 speakers.

[ttscoff]

Are the speakers indepedently powered (like, could they be turned on and off with an app. module?)? I'm definitely interested in the brand...

Thanks for all your help!

Brett

[dale3h]

Yes, they are independently powered. They can be used on battery mode for, if I rememeber my dad's results correctly, 12 to 18 hours! If you don't want the battery pack in there, that's fine, just run it off of the wall power and you can turn it on and off with an appliance module.

They make green speakers and black speakers. The black ones auto-tune themselves, but the green ones don't. The green ones are built to be used outdoors.

I'll get back to you with the brand when I find out.

[Tcassio]

Sounds like an ideal way to go if the quality of sound is good.

[dale3h]

RCA brand runs 40 hours on batteries, but you can't turn them on and off with an appliance module. Advent (the green ones he uses) are capable of running on an appliance module.

Another alternative would be to rewire your phone lines with CAT5 cable and just use a pair of unused wire within the CAT5.

[ttscoff]

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out.

-Brett

[Lamouris]

Did you find the specific model numbers? I'd be curious about this myself.

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out.

-Brett

[dale3h]

Did you find the specific model numbers? I'd be curious about this myself.

No, I did not. I'll try to get them from my dad soon.