Controlling Media Devices via Ethernet or RS232

[Ritmo2k]

I am heading over to our local AV store to look at what devices they offer w/ eth or rs232 support for a new house so that it will all be controlled with LinuxMCE.
The wiki's section, http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Have_LinuxMCE_automatically_control_the_TV_and_Stereo suggests it's all automatic but not having any devices like this I am not sure what to expect or choose.

RS232 is obvious and detailed here in http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/AV_Devices
Ethernet has me a bit curious, http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Plug%26play suggests it correlates by mac address so how does one perform the initial pairing? Do I need to know the mac address before hand?

Finally, does anyone have any reco's for manufactures to look for that have decent ethernet controlled devices?

Thanks!

[PeteK]

I am heading over to our local AV store to look at what devices they offer w/ eth or rs232 support for a new house so that it will all be controlled with LinuxMCE.
The wiki's section, http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Have_LinuxMCE_automatically_control_the_TV_and_Stereo suggests it's all automatic but not having any devices like this I am not sure what to expect or choose.

RS232 is obvious and detailed here in http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/AV_Devices
Ethernet has me a bit curious, http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Plug%26play suggests it correlates by mac address so how does one perform the initial pairing? Do I need to know the mac address before hand?

Finally, does anyone have any reco's for manufactures to look for that have decent ethernet controlled devices?

Thanks!

Ethernet-controlled devices do use MAC address for identification.  This is set in the device template definition.  Typically, a range is set based on a manufacturer's assigned MAC address range.  This gets a bit tricky when using devices from manufacturers that make more than one device used with LMCE (Roku for example).  You can always tailor your range if you'd like, however.

[Ritmo2k]

Appreciate the reply. So if I had 5 tv's for example whose only difference in mac address was the last octet, ab, ac, etc... what kind of issues should I expect?

Thanks!

[colinjones]

The MAC addresses will all be in the manufacturer's range but unique. That is what you want. The pnp system will detect them all as the correct device/model and create a device based on the template you design. And because they are all unique, it will realise that they are different devices and create a new device based on the same template each time. You then just configure the room etc..