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Check to see if your cm11a device is actually registered int he webadmin page.
From the left click 'Interfaces'
A new window should open up in the right. There you should see your cm11a listed, it should show that there is a com port for it, in the top drop down
Next click on the entry's 'Advanced' button. On the left of the new window that opens you should see 'Registered Yes'
That way you know for sure that the system knows it is there.

If any of these things are not so, unplug the cm11a from the wall receptacle and wait 30 seconds, and then plug it back in, then do a quick reload router.

I have attached some screen shots from mine below. I use Insteon and X10 devices in my house (more X10, as they work well and are easy on the wallet)
And I have all kinds of scenarios set up, and lots of buttons. You should need no special intervention. Provided the RCA device is compatible with the cm11a, and I am pretty sure it is, you should just be able to use it.

Also make sure the "Controlled by" device is the Core, not the Core/Hybrid, I made this mistake once.

Best Regards, and Best of Luck,

Seth

 
Well X10 is still a good option. Unless you have the $$ for Z-Wave. I bought a CM11A on ebay for about $17 shipped to the door. I also have this board as a core. I use a USB to Serial adapter that I picked up at a local computer store for about $12. It works just fine, and is mostly plug and play. I also have Insteon devices in my installation, but they are currently being controlled by the CM11a, I assigned them X10 addresses. The Insteon PLM is broken, and no longer works for me, but the CM11a does a wonderful job.

Also on ebay I have bought several X10 switches and lamp dimmers. Usually they come in a 3 pack for about $13 to $20 dollars.

Just a thought.

Regards,

Seth

LinuxMCE needs at a minimum 30 to 40G of HD space. The OS needs at least that. And then there are the MD images which require at least 10G more or less. I use a 500G drive as my OS drive. Also, if you intend on using MythTV, it also uses the OS drive to record media, at an average of 2.1G/hr for SD content captured on say a pvr 150/250/350/500 card. So ideally for multiple MD's, I have 5, You want at least 250G, add a decent amount of recordings to that, and that is why I have a 500G drive for this purpose. I have a 1TB, 250G, and 80G drive for everything else, DVD rips, downloaded movies, music, etc.

So keep that in mind for your installation.

Welcome aboard, and Best Regards,

Seth

 

To help eliminate confusion, all of the zantech heads as well as the USB-UIRT itself blast out the same code to everything. In other words, if you have one hooked to your TV, and another hooked to your Sat/Cable Box, when you send a command to the TV, the cable box gets it as well. The block acts as an amplifier to the primary signal, but all emitters get the same code sent to them, the one with which the code works, however, is the only one that responds. Unless they are close. Hence the reason I have to change the codes to my Dish Network receivers. They all come set to codeset 1. So without any changes in the receiver settings, when a channel command is sent, they both change to the same channel. So you set one receiver for a different code. And then on its template, use the remote for the changed receiver to learn the new codeset.

Regards,

Seth

Perhaps I can take a stab at this:

F1 Call ups the overlay menu
F2 Clears the overlay menu
These options are both replaceable by using:
F7 - Calls up the main menu overlay (Choices)
F6 - Call up the Chapter/channel and FFwd/Rwd screen (Control)
F8 - Calls up the Lighting/Volume control screen (Ambience)

The button chosen as the "Left Button" is the activator key and the button chosen as the "Right Button" acts a the dismissing key (clear screen, exit out of current display)

These are all in relation to UI2 Masked or Transparent.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Seth

 
Excellent, thank you for that. Do you now how to overcome it turning off the TV after watching media. Mine does this almost instantly.

Regards,

Seth

 
Can someone confirm to me the time variable setting for dcerouter delays in the advanced wizard. Is it in fact minutes or seconds?

Thanks,

Seth

 
I have discovered a yet another practical benefit of this system.

From the Master Bedroom orbiter screen - "House To Sleep Mode"
I have recently put a MD in my bedroom, and every night, while the wife watches Lifetime or some other food channel, I can go back there and catch up on my SciFi recordings, or start to watch a movie. I have picture windows in that room, that looks out over my property, this floor of the house is actually up off the finished grade by about 12 feet, so I get quite the vista view effect, but anyways, down the road looking out that window is my brother-in-laws place, and he has a 13 year old son, who is in the habit of touching and sometimes breaking all my stuff, but anyways, without further delay.........

Now when I see my annoying nephew from down the road heading for the house, you know the one who comes in, and touches, sometimes breaking all your stuff, and fingering up your Wii games, and.... forgive me I digress.

You see him coming up in the evening, you hit that button, and all the lights including the outside lights go off, and now he thinks everyone has retired for the evening, and he turns and goes back home. 

Just one more useful thing that this system can do.

I have already made a new scenario for the living room MD, called, Lights Out, based on this auto generated scenario.

Regards,

Seth

I can confirm, that this now works. I have created a template called "LCD Flat Panels" that were created as a device under TV's/Projectors/LCD's drop down. I chose rs232 as the control group, created a new group called "LCDs" and added the on off commands using:

Code Select Expand


system("xset dpms force off")
and
system("xset dpms force on")
respectively


Now it shows up as a TV device in the AV wizard, and Sara sees it as a TV. Now when I call the display off button from the orbiter, or press power on the remote to call it, it blanks out the screen. When you hit the menu button on any of the remotes, it comes back, and also after it sits idle for too long, 5 minutes I think, it blanks the screen as well.

Works just like it is supposed to. But I am looking forward to Thom's template in the upcoming release.

Thanks and Regards,

Seth

 
Ok.
I went into the template for the TV and manually added the On/Off command group, and now I have all the functions that my USB-UIRT can control available in the advanced wizard drop down. However, it did not work on a "Test Code" press of the button in the webadmin.

I have a question: Could this be because I have "Ignore On/Off" set to "On" in the advanced page for the TV? This seems like the most logical answer, but I am not sure, as if I turn this to "Off" then every time I exit media, the TV turns off as the last command. This was doing this before I made any changes to the template, and has been the result since the day I installed LMCE.

Does this new ability in the advanced scenario require that "Ignore On/Off" be set to "Off", and if so, is there a way to make it not turn the TV off as soon as the media exits, and then just continue to do so after the timeout has passed? It is quite vexing, but I am sure someone in this forum has found the "proper" way to get these things to all work in concert.

So to sum up:

I now have the on/off function in the advanced scenario when selecting the TV device for that room.
It does not work.
I have the "Ignore On/Off" set to "on" in the advanced window.
If I set this to "off" is there a way to have the TV not get turned off, after media exits (immediately actually) and still have it do the 5 minute no activity timeout power cycle?

I have not yet looked into the delays. But I will have a look at johndecker's answer at the next opportunity.

Kinda sucks sometimes having a system in production, that very seldom ever gets the opportunity to test things, but that just proves it is a solution that everyone gets benefit out of daily in my home.

Best Regards,

Seth

Hi all.

I have a question as to how to set up an advanced scenario on my Living Room MD (Core/Hybrid).

Here is what I want to do:

1.) Turn off all living room lamps/lights/sconces (or make sure they are in the "Off" mode. (This is already being handled swimmingly with the lighting wizard)
2.) Have the TV in that room turn off. (And this is the part that escapes me)

Here is what I have done.

Lighting portion is good. Works great, but I would like to add a 30 second delay. So as to be able to get to the bedroom before they turn off.

However, when I choose the entry for my TV in the advanced wizard, the command box only show one thing "-no command-"

Now I know I can turn the tv off. It actually does it by itself when nothing goes on for 15 minutes, but why can't I add this to a lighting scenario?

There are no commands for "Off" or "On" ??

Also, which portion or drop down do I choose for a 30 second delay, before it powers down the lights?

Any scenario guru's wish to help out here?

Regards,

Seth

I am using this motherboard as a core in my house currently.

I have never had much luck with the video working on it, so  purchased a Nvidia 7200 card for it's pci express slot. However the steps to try to get ATI cards working are outlines here:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Display_Drivers
And the steps to get the onboard network card to work are here, as well as a recompiled driver:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Realtek_8168#Asus_M3A78-EM

The forum entry I posted about getting this board to work is here:
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6806.0

More than that I can not give you. A quick search of the forums and wiki should have given you those links, but I figured I would chime in as I am using this board as a core/hybrid daily.

Hope that helps. And Save YourSelf the Stress, and snag an nvidia card. Until we get better ATI support working well, you won't regret having done so.

Best Regards,

Seth

 
I have a little bit more to add to this.
My wife is 7 months pregnant. She has been told by the doctors to limit her movement, and spend less time on her feet. Now normally this would be fine, however, I already have 2 daughters at toddler age. One is 3 and the other is 2.

They have a TV/MD in their playroom. There is also another one in the main viewing area of the Living room. Now occasionally they watch the same thing, but more frequently they prefer something else. With this system the wife, lying or sitting in the bedroom, can start media on all the other MD's from a central location, the Master Bedroom MD. She can also, adjust the lights, and check on the playroom activity from a webcam in that room. Also, with the addition of some fairly inexpensive microphones, each MD has also become an intercom system. So if it gets too loud in any of the other rooms, she can fire up the intercom to each location, or broadcast to all, "Settle down in there!"

All for free. Well less the cost of hardware. But the software that runs it all, free as in beer.

I have nothing but good things to say about this system. Everyone who has ever been at the house, and seen first hand, the lights dimming during TV/Movie watching, media being played simultaneously on all screens in the house. It is just a wonderful thing.

My best to all the hard work that has gone into this project. With the future release of 8.10 on the horizon, things can only get better.

Kindest Regards,

Seth

I was just curious if someone had an idea "when" or "how often" mythfilldatabase is run by LMCE.

Thanks and Regards,

Seth

If I am not mistaken, this is a known bug. I know I can not use multiple floorplans on my UI2-masked orbiters either. So save yourself some re-installs. I am pretty sure there is no current work around for this.

I think it was designed for UI1, and may in fact work there, but I have been using a whole-house floorplan very successfully in UI2-Masked without any issues.

Regards,

Seth