Connecting Marantz SR6001

[colinjones]

Was chatting to Hari via PM. We are moving this to a thread so that Hari's answers can help others.

Hari - how are you?

Just wondering how the Marantz SR integration has gone. I have an SR6001 (I believe you have a 7001 don't you?) And I am at the point were I would like to add the integration for it, but I'm a bit out to sea on how to do this, and even how to add templates, or where your final version of the template is!

I don't have a 232 interface (unsurprisingly) so I got a USB-232 converter - hoping that it works! How do I set it up?

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I also use my SR7001 with an usb to serial converter (pl2303).
just follow the instructions on the wiki (SR5600). I will update the page and post a thread when i have finished sending feedback (nearly done).
If you have any questions feel free to ask,

best regards,
Hari

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Hari - lost already!

It says Adding New Template, but doesn't say where to do this from, and also that there is no specific template for AV equipment, and that it should be added. (BTW the page says it is marked for deletion)

Do I just go to Devices-AV Equipment-Add Device? When I do this a wizard comes up, and I can choose Marantz and AV, but there is nothing in the drop down for device template, so I choose to add a new one.... is that right? Then go through the wizard - I am assuming that the bit about the Ruby code is at the end of this wizard....

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there is a link "edit ruby codes" on top.

Hari

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I'm sorry Hari - that wiki article doesn't even come close to explaining it! There are big sections missing, the explainations don't match the web site, and it is unclear in many parts as to what you are supposed to do...

1. It doesn't tell you how to edit a device template, it just says do it. The only way I could find how to do this was by creating a new device first, and then using the pick template option and editing it from there.

2. It talks about both the AV receiver template and Live TV Templates and uses this interchangably with Device. So it isn't clear if you are supposed to end up with 2 devices (Live TV and SR6001) or just the SR6001.

3. I doesn't describe how to configure the pipes at all - or at least the description is very different from what is in the admin site.

I think my templates and devices are now a mess! And onscreen selecting any of the new objects seems to screw up the system. I'm at a loss as how to configure it! The only thing I can think of is that the admin site is completely different in 0710 than previously and the guide was written for 0704?

Subsequently I have found the template editing function, however the sequence of instructions is still missing many steps making it very difficult to follow upless you are very familiar with adding devices and templates from scratch. One of the biggest problems for me was point 2 above - it is ambiguous if you are supposed to end up with just the Marantz device, just the Live TV device or both; and similar questions around the device templates...

Hoping Hari can help me through this - If I end up understanding what the hell I actually did to get it working (assuming I get it working at all!) I am happy to fill in the missing detail in the wiki and target it at "ordinary users"

[bulek]

Hi,

I'm original author of the Wiki page. I know it's definitely not finished or polished yet. There are still a lot of problems that aren't solved. I've tried to get some help from Pluto developers to get me going about understanding why and how to add child devices (LiveTV,OtaRadio) and I mu8st admit I still don't know how to do this properly. Additional problem is that my SR5600 Marantz has multiroom feature and I'd like to make proper template for it, so it can be seen also as amplifier for two audio zones.

Because I got no further understanding of this problem&LMCE, also I didn't put any effort in that page - it's more as a notes for brave ones... I'm trying to get into contact with main developers to clear few things out, but no success. I plan to rewrite Marantz template (probably Hari will also think about this), but until I know how to do it properly it's useless to put effort in it....

I've originally added Live TV device, because it's screen is nearest to the needed screen for control of Audio receiver. In new template I have also added FM tuner (cause marantz has one), but I'm still after full understanding whether those devices should be included or not....

HTH,

regards,

Bulek.

[colinjones]

Bulek - I know you are the author, and I appreciate your pioneering efforts. At the same time, from a novice user perspective, it is very difficult to follow. I realise that you have many steps to take before you get a full picture of how to get everything integrated, still I just wanted to get the very basic integration done - as I had seen Har being the most active recently on this through some of his posts, I asked him directly rather than clutter the forum....

I figured that if I could get this all clear in my mind, I could update your article with lots more detail. It will take a while, and maybe superceded by coming templates, but either way the existing article is a good skeleton to start from.

Thanks guys, Bulek for the start and initial work, and Hari/Bulek for any ongoing help you can give to get me to the point where I can actually start writing something that helps others!

Col.

[hari]

i added the #350 (receive incoming data) to handle responses from the AVR to the wiki page:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Marantz_SR5600#.27Add_Ruby_snippets_to_commands.27

best regards,
Hari

[colinjones]

Hari - I realise that you must not have the time at the moment to answer this thread.

In the meantime, can you please let me know if 0710 will have a pnp script to setup the template that you are updating? I just don't seem to be able to set it up via the web admin.... keep screwing up my system!

[hari]

Hari - I realise that you must not have the time at the moment to answer this thread.

In the meantime, can you please let me know if 0710 will have a pnp script to setup the template that you are updating? I just don't seem to be able to set it up via the web admin.... keep screwing up my system!

the script is in the charonmedia trunk. But you need to have the device template in your installation. If you don't get it to work on your own come to irc, i will assist you through the steps.

sqlCVS should be available soon. Ender has set up the official linuxmce repository on sqlcvs.linuxmce.com. I will keep you posted on that.

best regards,
Hari

[colinjones]

Sorry to keep bothering you, Hari. Just so that I am clear in my understanding:

To have the Marantz range of AV receivers completely pnp, there are two components that are needed:

1. sqlCVS needs to be brought online for LMCE - I understand that this was and still is locked down to the Pluto system, but the guys are working on getting this going on LMCE. The idea of this is a distributed and replicated database from users to a central repository, for storing Device Templates. Allowing people to create their own Device Templates and then optionally auto-uploading and merging with the central repository. Which then provides incremental updates to all other people using LMCE, so that everyone can share their templates. This is were you will insert your new Marantz template so that it will be available once sqlCVS is running for LMCE.

2. The "Charonmedia trunk" is where the LMCE source tree is held and, for instance, where 0710 is slowly developing. As such this is the right place to include the actual pnp script that automates detecting the AV receiver, and installation/configuration of the correct template onto your LMCE system.

Is that how it works?

If so, do you anticipate that sqlCVS for LMCE will be fully operational for the 0710 release? And so all this will just "work"?

[hari]

Sorry to keep bothering you, Hari. Just so that I am clear in my understanding:

To have the Marantz range of AV receivers completely pnp, there are two components that are needed:

1.) a device template using the GSD with the ruby codes for the marantz
2.) a pnp detection script that scans for the device

1. sqlCVS needs to be brought online for LMCE - I understand that this was and still is locked down to the Pluto system, but the guys are working on getting this going on LMCE. The idea of this is a distributed and replicated database from users to a central repository, for storing Device Templates. Allowing people to create their own Device Templates and then optionally auto-uploading and merging with the central repository. Which then provides incremental updates to all other people using LMCE, so that everyone can share their templates. This is were you will insert your new Marantz template so that it will be available once sqlCVS is running for LMCE.

exactly.

2. The "Charonmedia trunk" is where the LMCE source tree is held and, for instance, where 0710 is slowly developing. As such this is the right place to include the actual pnp script that automates detecting the AV receiver, and installation/configuration of the correct template onto your LMCE system.

yes and no. Daniel merges the changes from the svn.linuxmce.com to the svn.charonmedia.org svn. The community does not yet have write access to the pluto svn. That issue is being addressed at the moment.
Changes to that get triggered by bugs from the community in mantis. Some nice guys at pluto are working hard to get 0710 out of the door. The 0710 is built on the new community build servers from the pluto svn.
The charonmedia trunk is the community cvs. Our goal is to merge them soon when legal stuff is sorted out.

If so, do you anticipate that sqlCVS for LMCE will be fully operational for the 0710 release? And so all this will just "work"?

yes. I did some fixes for mysql version 5. Ender from pluto has set up a sqlCVS repository on sqlcvs.linuxmce.com. As the database packages are built from it on the new build farm, all 0710 installations will be able to sync from that.
I already have access but we don't have a commit policy yet. As there is no way to automatically merge data between to sqlcvs repositories we have to figure out some way to play nicely together with the pluto guys.

I set up a testing repository on sqlcvs.charonmedia.org. In the meantime we can add the devices to that for further testing.

EDIT: be aware, when you sync from the testing repo you prolly won't be able to sync from the stable any more without database ID's getting havoc.

best regards,
Hari

[colinjones]

" be aware, when you sync from the testing repo you prolly won't be able to sync from the stable any more without database ID's getting havoc."

I'll wait for 0710 then! I wouldn't know how to force this sync anyway

So svn.linuxmce.com is really the Pluto trunk at the moment (i have been reading that these are intended to merge the Pluto and LMCE onto the same set of donated servers from Pluto), and Charon is our one, that will eventually be decommissioned as our project gets merged into svn.linuxmce.com?