LMCE controlling sources not piped through it

[colinjones]

Just a quick question for my piece of mind - I am nowhere near the point of being able to test this yet!

If you have an A/V source (eg a cable TV decoder, DVD player, etc) and you pipe its outputs directly to your TV/amp (ie not connected through the LMCE box in any way) - can LMCE still control the set up, meaning you choose that source from your MD/Orbiter and it issues the correct commands through 232/IR blaster/etc to start playback/choose channel, select the correct inputs on TV/amp and volume, etc.

I have been assuming that this is what the A/V set up stuff is all about in the setup wizard (Sarah!) but just wanted to make sure I wasn't expecting too much of LMCE!

And if this is the case, and you pull in EPG from a 3rd party xml source, will LMCE understand how to integrate this with the A/V setup so that you can seemlessly choose the program you want from the EPG and then it fires off all the necessary commands? Obviously, I realise in this setup you couldn't record/redirect the signal with LMCE.... what about if your cable box has built in PVR - can LMCE be configured to know how to use that functionality as well?

Col

[1audio]

Generally speaking you can use LMCE as a glorified Harmony. But it will be running blind- as in no knowledge of what is actually happening on the screen. EPG and content stored on a DVR are the biggest limitations with this. Both are really designed for active participation by the user to translate info on the screen to actions. Even if you have the EPG info (schedules direct) the interaction could very easily get lost.  Its worth a try and is demo'ed on the video. However the latency may drive you crazy.