EIB howto and production readiness

[archived]

I would like to develop solutions homeautomation and video/audio integration.
What is the way to go for designing a solution with EIB-devices and pluto-orbiter for visualisation and remote control? Can you point me to a howto please?

I would like to sell pluto to customers. Is it o.k./production-ready for EIB, mythTV and asterisk? If not ... when can we expect it?

regards
manfred

[archived]

hello, eib system is rocksolid, and we have demo homes up and running for some time.  Myth TV is a bit more questionable.  it seems to work roughly the same within Pluto as an any other distribution, however there are some rough edges that need to be worked out before it is ready for a mainstream consumer.  In Europe, for example, the guide data is pulled by XML TV from scraping web sites, which is prone to errors and easily broken.  We are therefore working on another PVR plug-in based on VDR, which comes from Germany.  Whereas myth TV centers around analog PVR capture cards and an external source for EPG data, VDR is specifically designed for the European DVB cards where the EPG data is included in the stream.  I think this'll be a much better solution for European customers, which I assume you are, however it is probably a month or so away from being fully integrated into Pluto.  Asterisk works fine, and we have incorporated the AMP configuration pages, however we still want to add some more wizards to make it easier for novice customers, since AMP still assumes a fairly high technical skillset.

tomorrow or the next day we will be releasinga 28 version, and that includes an additional 50 or 60 how-to articles.

did you follow the quick start guide, and get your system up and running?  Did you add yet the EIB interface, and is it working?  If you let me know specifically where you get stuck, I'll be sure to respond, and we are constantly adding how-to articles every time we find sticking points with users.

[archived]

I'm actually in exactly the same situation as Manfred.

I'm running a home theatre and home automation business in Australia and have been building MythTV based PVR's using DVico DVB tuner cards.  I also sell PC components (for people to build thier own HTPCs) and a range of X10 products suited to Australia.

Australia has some very archaic licensing agreements for TV guide data (the TV networks don't own it so you have to buy it from another company).  There is a company that sells the data to end users (AU$15 per month IIRC).  There are also web scrapers out there for XMLTV/MythTV and they work quite well (although I'm sure the listings company considers them to be illegal).

From my experience the guide data transmitted in the DVB stream is totally useless for the following reasons:

First Problem: The DVB stream only sends current and next program data and to get guide data on a channel you need to tune to that channel.  That means you need a tuner card available at ALL times to just scan the channels for the current and next program information.  So if you want to be able to record 2 channels and watch another, you will need 4 tuner cards so you have one available to retreive DVB EPG data for scheduling recordings.

Second Problem:  You have to hope the channel in question actually provides usable data.  One of our major commercial channels never does.  It provides such useful info as "Episode 104" but never tells you what it's an episode of.

Even with the problems of our networks frequently starting or ending shows late (I have to add 30 minutes to absolutely everything I record), the XMLTV products (purchased or website scraping) are much more usable in this country.

[archived]

hello, eib system is rocksolid, and we have demo homes up and running for some time.  ....

tomorrow or the next day we will be releasinga 28 version, and that includes an additional 50 or 60 how-to articles.

did you follow the quick start guide, and get your system up and running?  Did you add yet the EIB interface, and is it working?  If you let me know specifically where you get stuck, I'll be sure to respond, and we are constantly adding how-to articles every time we find sticking points with users.

Hi,

dumb EIB question - what EIB device do I need to interface with Pluto ? What's approx price ?

Regards,

Rob.

[archived]

I have the Gira rs232 interface.  It works very well.  Here are 3 options:

Manufacturer:    GIRA
Manufacturer No.:          0504 03
Price incl. VAT: 93,02 EUR

Manufacturer:    MERTEN
Manufacturer No.:          6814 88
Price incl. VAT: 94,95 EUR

Manufacturer:    BERKER
Manufacturer No.:          7506 01 89
Price incl. VAT: 92,43 EUR