Premise Control 4 like interface possible for Premise?

[etc6849]

I was out and about the other day and happened to see the Control4 gui. Overall, Premise can do more than Control4 and is waaay more open. However, Control4 can do something very neat that would be very useful to do with Premise:

You can view the Control4 gui on a television and control it with an RF remote using arrow keys; a touchscreen isn't a requirement! The remote's arrow buttons move the focus from one button to another, kind of like media center when you use a keyboard. This works great and doesn't cost a whole lot ($399 retail for the basic control4 box and $149 for the zigby media remote. I see no reason why this same approach can't be taken for Premise. Has anyone made such a gui yet for Premise? Any thoughts on feasibility?

 

[jimre]

A Media Center plugin for Premise would be the way to go - no sense re-inventing another "TV GUI" for Windows. Not sure if anyone has ever built one, though. Could the automation browser be adapted to spit out MCML instead of HTML?

 

[123]

... Could the automation browser be adapted to spit out MCML instead of HTML?

Based on what little I know about creating applications for Windows Media Center, how would that work? MCML defines the presentation layer for a Media Center application. What would consume the MCML generated by a redesigned AutomationBrowser?

MCML simply defines the appearance of an application ... the balance must be coded and 'compiled' into a .NET assembly. MCML is just one half of what's needed to build a Media Center application.

 

[jimre]

I don't know that much about it either - but yes, I suspect that's the hard part: building an MCE plugin app that consumes & displays dynamically-generated MCML markup, while communicating back to the Premise server. Other HA systems like Lifeware, mControl, and HAI have Media Center plugins so it must be feasible.

 

[chucklyons]

MCE has the notion of hosted apps - not sure what it looks like from a UI perspective, but I would think that would be the approach unless someone was willing to do a lot of work. I think we would all agree that a Premise MCE plug-in would blow away a lot of the other HA plug-ins....

 

[samgreco]

I've been a SageTV user for many years now, but an MCE plug-in for Premise could get me to switch. Although, as a DVR, MCE has it's issues. I think it would be worth trying to come up with the work arounds.

 

[etc6849]

I'm not sure about the differences in plug-ins over VMC versus Windows 7 MC; if anyone wants to attempt it, I vote for Windows 7 compatibility. It really is a lot better than VMC... In Windows 7 Media Center, users can add their own cablecard tuner legitimately, Dolby Digital Plus is natively supported, the tv guide is easier to read with color coding, and you can even watch tv in ~1.25x to save time (if you like that sort of thing). Well worth the upgrade for me since I bought the family pack with 3 licenses (upgrade only ).

 

[integrate]

I'm not sure about the differences in plug-ins over VMC versus Windows 7 MC; if anyone wants to attempt it, I vote for Windows 7 compatibility. It really is a lot better than VMC... In Windows 7 Media Center, users can add their own cablecard tuner legitimately, Dolby Digital Plus is natively supported, the tv guide is easier to read with color coding, and you can even watch tv in ~1.25x to save time (if you like that sort of thing). Well worth the upgrade for me since I bought the family pack with 3 licenses (upgrade only ).

We built a few Premise tv interfaces (or more specifically, interfaces controlled via a remote control - at the time we called them "10 foot UI's") at Motorola for internal demos and backroom CES type showings, but it was all very conceptual and prototype in nature. Nothing that could be given to a wide end-user (diy-er?) audience and be received and utilized successfully.

FYI, you don't have to use the Windows Media Center platform natively - just the USB remote which simulates keyboard button presses (up, down, left, right, enter, etc). You could do it in Internet Explorer with Minibroker and AJAXy javascript. Minus the remote and the hooks into the appropriate keyboard button presses, this is essentially the same platform for the CoffeeShop UI.

But to be clear, MCE integration is very possible too (with MiniBroker). We did that too with great success. Alas, lack of funding...

damon