Dianemo from CHT - Professional Home Automation

[totallymaxed]

What do people think of having a simple page on the www.linuxmce.org web site indicating that although LinuxMCE is fundamentally an OSS product, there is also a "fully supported commercial" version of the product for those that wish to pay for a "solution"? This could be used for referrals to other companies than CHT, as well, as and when/if they come on board. There are other products out there that are OSS in their core, but also have references to comercial versions or commercialised services based on the product, on their web sites. Ubuntu doing so for Canonical is one example although Canonical effectively is Ubuntu (Vendor:Product) but there are other examples where the separation is clearer.

Just a thought.

I think this might be something to look at... although your example of 'Ubuntu' in relation to Canonical...is not quite accurate. I would think Asterisk is probably a better example in fact. However there are already pages explaining what CHT does in relation to LinuxMCE etc.

I'd like to point out that CHT actively works to make sure that almost all the code it creates and develops for its Dianemo & Cascade products is made available for integration into LinuxMCE and is made available under the GPL. Sometimes the features and changes we have made may not 'fit' directly with the direction the LinuxMCE Devs are taking however and in these cases integrating our changes may be delayed. If we fix bugs or make other changes to underlying LinuxMCE packages then these are handed straight back for immediate integration.

Our focus for Cascade in particular is to make it simple & easy to add too and expand and to deliver a stable and reliable product. Our customer systems typically have 'uptimes' 200+ days and usually the need to reboot was caused by a software update and not a fault.

All the best

Andrew

[nite_man]

First of all, good work Andrew! Nice to see how your business with LinuxMCE are growing. Your Cascade/Dianemo line looks pretty cool! Now the question. If it's not the secret could you explain how support of touchscreen display on the case was implemented? I asked a few times about it on the Russian forum but I didn't have any idea how to do that.

TIA and good luck with Cascade!

[totallymaxed]

First of all, good work Andrew! Nice to see how your business with LinuxMCE are growing. Your Cascade/Dianemo line looks pretty cool! Now the question. If it's not the secret could you explain how support of touchscreen display on the case was implemented? I asked a few times about it on the Russian forum but I didn't have any idea how to do that.

TIA and good luck with Cascade!

Hi,

Your talking about the Dianemo CI ranges Rack Mount NerveCentre. We dont enable the touchscreen on that model, we use a physical keyboard with touchpanel, as the purpose of the screen is to avoid having to install a separate LCD screen in the 19" Rack. The onboard screen is purely used for system configuration and status display in the Rack.

All the best

Andrew

[nite_man]

Hi,

Your talking about the Dianemo CI ranges Rack Mount NerveCentre. We dont enable the touchscreen on that model, we use a physical keyboard with touchpanel, as the purpose of the screen is to avoid having to install a separate LCD screen in the 19" Rack. The onboard screen is purely used for system configuration and status display in the Rack.

All the best

Andrew

I see. I thought that you run both - on-screen Orbiter and embedded display Orbiter at the same time In any case, thanks for clarifications. You produce a good products!

[totallymaxed]

Hi,

Your talking about the Dianemo CI ranges Rack Mount NerveCentre. We dont enable the touchscreen on that model, we use a physical keyboard with touchpanel, as the purpose of the screen is to avoid having to install a separate LCD screen in the 19" Rack. The onboard screen is purely used for system configuration and status display in the Rack.

All the best

Andrew

I see. I thought that you run both - on-screen Orbiter and embedded display Orbiter at the same time In any case, thanks for clarifications. You produce a good products!

Hi Michael,

We do have an Orbiter on the Rack Mounted NerveCentre with integrated LCD Panel display...but we dont use a Touch interface on it.

The soon to 'ship' ASUS ET2002T might be of interest to you... has an Atom 330  and an ION chipset with integrated graphics, 2GB of RAM, 320GB storage, WiFi, a DVD rewriter and integrated stereo speakers. This 2200T will replace the current EeeTop 1702 model. New Cascade/Dianemo installs will support this new unit from ASUS in the next 10 days or so and there will be an Update pushed out to existing customers to to add support to their systems

Regards

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Thanks again, Andrew!

I guess I'll have to wait for the forthcoming upgrade and the official price list! I definately want my TV over my IP network - less cabling!

Hi Paul,

We have the MythTV 0.21 update in final testing now here and I expect this to be released over the weekend. This will allow you to schedule recordings from a Sky box and importantly will also allow you to take remote control of your Sky Box and display the Sky UI on the MD (as we are capturing the live TV picutre from it and streaming that around the LAN). This mean your Sky Box can be somehwere like your lounge and your Cascade MM in your bedroom can remotely control it using the Sky UI...and you can watch it live or if its a Sky+ or Sky HD you can also set recordings or play them back too... just as if you were sitting in front of the TV downstairs in your lounge. By the way we now buffer the Sky EPG off-air on a server and Cascade installations then check in periodically each day and download the latest EPG data. This means that even if your local Cascade system has no Sat cards (ie its a Freeview or DVB-T based system) we can deliver an off-air Sky EPG to it that matches the one in your Sky Box.

Anyway send me via a PM an outline of what you need your system to do/deliver and I will make sure is family/WAF compliant for you ;-)

All the best

Andrew

PS See my first post in this thread for some ex demonstration Cascade hardware...depending on what your needs are one of these might be suitable...and their cheap too.

[totallymaxed]

Thanks again, Andrew!

I guess I'll have to wait for the forthcoming upgrade and the official price list! I definately want my TV over my IP network - less cabling!

Hi Paul,

We have the MythTV 0.21 update in final testing now here and I expect this to be released over the weekend. This will allow you to schedule recordings from a Sky box and importantly will also allow you to take remote control of your Sky Box and display the Sky UI on the MD (as we are capturing the live TV picutre from it and streaming that around the LAN). This mean your Sky Box can be somehwere like your lounge and your Cascade MM in your bedroom can remotely control it using the Sky UI...and you can watch it live or if its a Sky+ or Sky HD you can also set recordings or play them back too... just as if you were sitting in front of the TV downstairs in your lounge. By the way we now buffer the Sky EPG off-air on a server and Cascade installations then check in periodically each day and download the latest EPG data. This means that even if your local Cascade system has no Sat cards (ie its a Freeview or DVB-T based system) we can deliver an off-air Sky EPG to it that matches the one in your Sky Box.

Anyway send me via a PM an outline of what you need your system to do/deliver and I will make sure is family/WAF compliant for you ;-)

All the best

Andrew

PS See my first post in this thread for some ex demonstration Cascade hardware...depending on what your needs are one of these might be suitable...and their cheap too.

...just by way of an update we have successfully tested streaming BBC HD on Freesat/DVB-S to MM's today. Ion based MM's tested and also 9300 & 9400 equipped models too. Performance and picture quality is really excellent...HDMI/Audio & 5.1 surround also working on BBC HD too.

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Below is a link to mardibloke's very nice demo of the N810 being used to remotely control an Media Manager/MD and ZWave lighting;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMo5hBjEihY

You can see Dianemo/Cascade's UI skin is different visually and you can also see some of the new TV remote screens etc too.

Thanks to mardibloke for creating the video.

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Update - Dianemo & Cascade systems now have plug-n-play support for the Asus Eee Box EB1012 with NVIDIA Ion GPU's

All the best


Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Both Cascade Smart Home & Cascade Media sections updated & expanded;
http://www.cascade-media.co.uk

[totallymaxed]

Dianemo & Cascade both support vdpau hardware video acceleration when in MythTV. This provides greatly improved de-interlacing and smooth video playback for both SD & HD content at 720p & 1080p. All our supported Atom/Ion and other nVidia based hardware will be compatible with vdpau 'out of the box'.

We plan to extend vdpau support in the near future to video playback in the Orbiter as well. When available your Dianemo or Cascade system will automatically receive an Update and you will see an on-screen message - reboot your NerveCentre and the update is applied.

All the best

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Dianemo & Cascade both support HDMI Audio on all the supported nVidia based hardware. Both HDMI Stereo Audio and 5.1/7.1 Surround (obviously the surround output requires a 5.1/7.1 capable Amplifier) is supported and selectable from the AVwizard.

All the best

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Dianemo & Cascade both have Plug-n-Play support for;

- Squeezebox Classic
- Squeezebox Radio
- Squeezebox Boom
- Squeezebox Touch
- Squeezebox Duet
- Squeezebox Transporter

Any number and any combination of Squeezeboxes can be added to a Dianemo or Cascade system.

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Sorry for the delay in getting online ordering live...I know many of you have asked about this. The Cascade online shop went live today!!

You can order your Cascade system online now in the Cascade online shop - See here http://www.cascade-media.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45&Itemid=27#ecwid:category=0&mode=category&offset=0&sort=normal

Only Cascade Media systems and components can be ordered currently but Cascade Smart Home will go live in the online shop in the next few days.

All the best

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Cascade Smart Home & Dianemo now support the Onkyo P305A3 NVIDIA Ion Nettop PC as a Plug-n-Play Media Manager.

All the best

Andrew