Kodi/XBMC Plug-in - Feature Requests

[spud]

Please use this thread to ask for new features

[bernieb]

A 'hook" withe Cinema Experince (XBMC Plugin) that already has some features for home automation.

See post# 5 http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=87563

[spud]

A 'hook" withe Cinema Experince (XBMC Plugin) that already has some features for home automation.

See post# 5 http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=87563

not sure to understand what you mean by "hook"?
Could you elaborate on how you'd want the XBMC plugin to integrate with Cinema Experience, and provide some use cases?

[Pete]

Personally it would be nice to see a "conduit" ("hook") to the mothership (homeseer) for automation commands; whatever they may be versus a direct connect to some sort of controller whether that be Z-Wave, Zigbee, X-10, Insteon or UPB.

One could also be a CID popup or similiar coming from Homeseer. Another could be a weather alert coming from Homeseer while watching TV. (movies in my case as I do not watch regular TV).

So communications would be 2-way to the xbmc boxes using your plugin.

[spud]

One could also be a CID popup or similiar coming from Homeseer. Another could be a weather alert coming from Homeseer while watching TV. (movies in my case as I do not watch regular TV).

So communications would be 2-way to the xbmc boxes using your plugin.

Unless I miss something, you can already do that with the current plugin using a "GUI Show Notification" action, see the Action section of the user guide: http://board.homeseer.com/showthread...85#post1078485

[bernieb]

Hey Spud,

Here's what I am thinking for Cinema Experience (CE):

On the Config page, have a radio button for "Are you using Cinema Experience"
If selected, the config page would be populated with all of the actions of CE

1. Trivia Intro Video(s)
2. Slides w/ music playlist
3. Trivia Outro Video(s)
4. Movie Theater Intro Video(s)
5. Coming Attractions Intro Video(s)
6. Trailer(s)
7. Coming Attractions Outro Video(s)
8. Feature Presentation Intro Video(s)
9. Rating
10. Audio (DD/DTS/THX etc)
11. Countdown Video
12. Movie Starts
13. Intermission Video(s) - If selected
14. Rating Video - if selected
15. Audio Format Video - if selected
16. Next Movie Starts
17. Feature Presentation Outro Video(s)
18. Movie Theatre Outro Video(s)

At minimum, each of these actions could trigger an event.
Even better would be to allow several (2,3 or 4) events per actions. As an example when action (6) is triggered, a TTS announcement could be made saying "Folks, the Trailers are starting, Our featured movie will begin in 5 minutes" at the same time, an event would be triggered to dim light A1 to 20%. In the config page, we would just select "Trailers" and add our events.

Ultimately, what would be best is that some of these triggers would be "smart triggers"
So only dim light A1 if the light is already on. (if the movie is played during the day, there should be no need to to trigger a dim of 20%.

It would also be nice to know if a movie is playing, since a movie can last 2+ hours, many other regular events could have triggered since. Again as an example, if light A1 is scheduled to turn off at 10:30PM every night, but now a movie is playing, do not turn off the light that's at 20%. This logic can be added in my regular event to turn the light off every night if HS has a way to detect "Movie Currently Playing"

I currently do something similar with EventGhost that has a plugin for Homeseer and a Python file that I had to "tweak" to make it work. My logic now, is in the script that turns my light on.

I hope this explains it a little better, I am more than happy to further explain and clarify if necessary.

On a separate note, a plugin for EventGhost would be great as well, since this tool performs a lot of functions that could be monitored and acted upon in HS

Thanks
Bernie

[spud]

Hey Spud,

Here's what I am thinking for Cinema Experience (CE):

On the Config page, have a radio button for "Are you using Cinema Experience"
If selected, the config page would be populated with all of the actions of CE

1. Trivia Intro Video(s)
2. Slides w/ music playlist
3. Trivia Outro Video(s)
4. Movie Theater Intro Video(s)
5. Coming Attractions Intro Video(s)
6. Trailer(s)
7. Coming Attractions Outro Video(s)
8. Feature Presentation Intro Video(s)
9. Rating
10. Audio (DD/DTS/THX etc)
11. Countdown Video
12. Movie Starts
13. Intermission Video(s) - If selected
14. Rating Video - if selected
15. Audio Format Video - if selected
16. Next Movie Starts
17. Feature Presentation Outro Video(s)
18. Movie Theatre Outro Video(s)

At minimum, each of these actions could trigger an event.
Even better would be to allow several (2,3 or 4) events per actions. As an example when action (6) is triggered, a TTS announcement could be made saying "Folks, the Trailers are starting, Our featured movie will begin in 5 minutes" at the same time, an event would be triggered to dim light A1 to 20%. In the config page, we would just select "Trailers" and add our events.

Got it.
I think the best way to implement this is to add a HS XBMC Trigger that would get raised everytime an addon or a script call the JSONRPC.NotifyAll() function.
This way it would work for any addon not just Cinema Experience.
Once we have this you just have to tweak the home_automation.py script http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php...0523#pid790523
by replacing all the calls to xbmc.executehttpapi() by xbmc.JSONRPC.Notifyall() or whatever is the correct syntax...

If you're ok with this solution, I will add it in version 3.0.0.1

Ultimately, what would be best is that some of these triggers would be "smart triggers"
So only dim light A1 if the light is already on. (if the movie is played during the day, there should be no need to to trigger a dim of 20%.

If we have a trigger as explained above, all this logic would go in the HS Events, no need to add this in the XBMC plugin.

It would also be nice to know if a movie is playing, since a movie can last 2+ hours, many other regular events could have triggered since. Again as an example, if light A1 is scheduled to turn off at 10:30PM every night, but now a movie is playing, do not turn off the light that's at 20%. This logic can be added in my regular event to turn the light off every night if HS has a way to detect "Movie Currently Playing"

It is already possible with version 3.0.0.0., you just have to check the Status device of your XBMC client, and make sure its value is "PLAYING". See the user guide, section Triggers, there is an example.

[Pete]

Spud,

Re-looking at the plugin with another set up client(s) to test with.

Actually it will be two clients; one only configured for Audio (headless?) connected to one of the Russound audio inputs and one for video connected.

Historically I've not let Homeseer manage my multimedia / devices for multimedia.

[bernieb]

Hey Spud,

I think that your approach may do the trick. Seems like it takes care of all the scenarios listed. I am not sure how much testing I will be able to do since I am not officially on 3.0 yet but I am interested enough in this plugin to setup something temporarily to test.

Good work.
PS. I got a few error messages from the plugin yesterday and today. I'll post what I have in the beta section for your review

[travisdh]

I like Pete's idea as well, it would be great (and not so much a HS plugin, but rather an XBMC plugin) to allow a XBMC plugin on the player to communicate with an XBMC Homeseer plugin, to be able to control lights etc from the XBMC device itself which triggers the Homeseer plugin and controls the appropriate device.

The cinema experience plugin integration would be a good one as well.

[Pete]

I have made the XBMC box the only means of MM to the LCD TV's for anything wherever in the house the LCD TV sits.

I have now shut down any use of the blue ray player and legacy DVD player; probably will never use them as I didn't every really like the "option" of plugging the device into the internet anyways.

Simple set up these days; MM receiver and XBMC box. There is no need for anything else. (that is me an my opinion though).

I have one XBMC box which runs HSTouch or XBMC. I do like seeing the HSTouch screen at 1900X1200; but it doesn't entertain me.

So its a bit different than say an HSTouch propietary touch screen.

The XBMC plugin would be taking advantage of the transport / connectivity to Homeseer but not really a replacement for HSTouch; rather just another console to the mothership.

Geez; an XBMC Homeseer plugin could even attract folks to purchasing Homeseer for the abilities that it would provide on the back end to relating to automation; that and that today XBMC runs on everything from the new tiny embedded USB stick to HDMI port to just a regular PC (well like my Aopen DE's) or say a NUC pc in the future.

I would prefer to mount a NUC on the back of the big screen TV and not ever have to see it anyways.

BTW I have stayed away from the "smart tv's" in general.

The features are nice but my preference are to make my TV smart without any propietary embedded piece of hardware which most likely is not too upgradable anyways.

I would prefer not to connect my smart TV to the internet; similar to why I have never plugged in my blueray player into the internet; but that is me though.

I do though shut down the XBMC box next to the TV and turn it on when I want to use it.

It doesn't though utilize much power and it does read the common DB on the home network in literally just a few seconds while booting up.

[spud]

Bernie, Pete, travisdh

here is a simple example to show how a XBMC script / addon / skin can communicate with HS thanks to this plugin: http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=161852

[Pete]

Spud,

Great stuff and will give it a try shortly.

I am also playing with using XBMC on a small embedded tabletop Linux box. Just got one working with the DECT chips in it such that it will be a bit more than just a little XBMC box. It also has Zigbee energy chip in it.

I do have some 4-5 Aopen DE's running XBMC right now that I could test with and most likely will take it to two of those boxes running Linux.

[Motzi]

**** YEAH!!!!
finaly a xbmc plugin I love you.....

would love to have buttons to jump to the library`s like:

Movies
Tv series
Music

also it would be cool to brows the moveis, tvseries and music from homeseer/hstouch

[spud]

.
would love to have buttons to jump to the library`s like:

Movies
Tv series
Music

Not sure I understand... Where do you want to add those buttons?

also it would be cool to brows the moveis, tvseries and music from homeseer/hstouch

yeah this is a feature I'm going to add