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I would like to be able to show the currently playing Winamp song on a LED panel on my wall. I have no idea where to start.
Does anyone know a good LED that can be used for this purpose? Obviously it doesn't have to be specific to Winamp (as long as EG can forward text strings to the LED panel it'll work).
I used to have EG forward the text to an android tablet, but autoremote is too unreliabe for on-demand information like that. It craps out several times a week so I had to give that "version" up (and it also took an upwards of 5 seconds to see the current song after it starts playing so that was pretty damn annoying too).
It really depends on the communication method and protocol. On that leadleds.com site they have models that are programmed via IR, USB, RS232, RS485, WiFi, Ethernet, GPRS, SMS.
The IR ones should be pretty easy to communicate with if you get an IR blaster like TIRA 2.1 that can learn remote codes. You have the line of sight issue but you can get IR emitters that stick right on over the IR sensor to solve that issue.
USB could possibly be more tricky to interface with unless the programming application has a good interface like command line.
RS232 is pretty good but you would need to get a USB RS232 adapter unless you have an old computer with a serial port. It really comes down to how good the documentation of the control protocol used is. Something the Chinese are not so good at.
RS485 is pretty much same as RS232 except you would almost certainly need to buy a USB to RS485 adapter. I think RS485 is better for long cables.
WiFi or Ethernet are nice because you can use your existing computer network. WiFi means no cable to run. They talk about TCP/IP so that's good but there will still be some sort of control protocol used by the sign so you're relying on this being properly documented.
SMS and GPRS seems a bit over the top to me. Do you really want to have to get a phone plan for your sign?
So it probably comes down to finding a sign that can be easily controlled via EventGhost for a reasonable price. I don't see prices on that site but a quick search of eBay indicates the cheap ones will probably be controlled via IR.
pearbear wrote:
So it probably comes down to finding a sign that can be easily controlled via EventGhost for a reasonable price. I don't see prices on that site but a quick search of eBay indicates the cheap ones will probably be controlled via IR.
Well, yes, but is it possible to transmit strings via IR?
It should be, though it's a lot more messy than just sending the string over the network using TCP/IP or RS232 using the Serial Port plugin. The remote control that comes with the panel has a button for every character so you could just learn every button/button combo or likely there's some sort of a pattern to it that you could determine.
pearbear wrote:It should be, though it's a lot more messy than just sending the string over the network using TCP/IP or RS232 using the Serial Port plugin. The remote control that comes with the panel has a button for every character so you could just learn every button/button combo or likely there's some sort of a pattern to it that you could determine.
Oh yeah that makes sense.
Not sure how efficient it will be but perhaps when emulating the blasts from EG it can send all characters in a rapid-fire manner thus emulating instantaneous transmission
so the macro flow would be like:
Winamp.PlayingTrack.Changed ---> copy to variable ---> convert each character in variable to remote control code ---> output to IR plugin ---> blast IR signal sequence to LED panel
Yeah, it could possibly end up being pretty slow. I know you want the minimum possible delay between the song starting and the display updating. I do use a TIRA 2.1to send a whole bunch of IR commands in a row to my amplifier to change to volume presets. I see I have a 0.3 second delay between each command, which makes it pretty slow. I'm not sure how dialed in that number is but I think the reason for it is it would miss some commands and not end up at the right volume level if I didn't have the delay. I don't know if that's a limitation specific to the amp, the TIRA, or if that's pretty much standard for any IR remote emulation. I know kgchlosser uses a lot of IR communication in his system, maybe he knows more about this.
I just looked at my IR stuff more and the delay is actually only for auto repeat of the manual volume changes. The automatic volume changes don't have a delay but it still takes about 0.3 seconds to send each volume up command and 0.6 seconds for each volume down command. Maybe there's some chaff in my IR codes.
