[WINDOWS] XBMC on iMON Display (LCD / VFD) for Windows

Hey guys
About a month ago Soundgraph finally decided (after lots of people complained for months) to release a "plugin api" for their iMON LCD / VFD product line. It is a first shot and works quite well (as always there are some drawbacks but it's better than nothing). The API called "iMON Display API" allows to take control of the display (of course only one plugin at the time) through iMON Manager and display icons/text/equalizer data.

So I decided to combine that API with the new JSON RPC API of XBMC and started working on a tool which will display information about the file currently played within XBMC on the display.

I first started with the C# xbmc-json library developped by dstruktiv to communicate with XBMC but found out it was lacking support for JSON RPC Announcements (a very nice feature, thanks topfs2). Because introducing it would have required quite a rewrite of his library I decided to roll my own called XBMC JSON RPC# (just released the first beta version as well if anyone wants to give it a try).

The download archive contains a file called "README" with all the needed information (so make sure to read it) but I'll list the most important ones here:

Development Status:
This is the very first release and it is released as a beta version as I only did limited testing (personal use) so far. Furthermore I only possess an iMON LCD and cannot test on an iMON VFD. If anyone with an iMON VFD is willing to act as a tester/advisor for me please let me know.

Requirements: (download links and detailed instructions in the README)

• Of course you need either an iMON LCD or VFD (or both although that doesn't make much sense )
• Windows XP or newer
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
• iMON Manager v7.91.0929
• XBMC Dharma Beta 1 or newer
  

Possible problems:

• If you do not see any information about the currently playing file there are two (known) possible causes:
  • You started playback from Files Mode or you are playing a file using an addon (this will be fixed in the next release)
  • Some other program on the machine running XBMC uses TCP port 9090 which is used by XBMC to provide information about currently playing files. Currently there is no way of configuring this port in XBMC so if possible you should either close the program blocking port 9090 or try to change the port in that program to something else. You can use Nmap to scan the TCP ports in use.
    
• The information on the display does not change when using a remote to navigate through XBMC: There seems to be a problem in the coordination of the remote receiver and the display controller in the Soundgraph software. Whenever you press a button on the remote the display freezes for a short time. If "XBMC on iMON Display" tries to change something on the screen in that exact moment (or a bit later) the display won't notice it and will continue showing its old state.
  

Support:
If you notice anything strange or are sure you detected a bug please report it here and create a ticket in the projects TRAC at https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/xbmc-on-imon/. Feature requests and ideas are welcome as well.

Plans for the future:
This first release is just a first shot. I released it because I can't test on a VFD and the more people test it the better the application gets. Everything visible on the display is more or less hard coded. I plan to provide configuration options for as many things as possible (e.g. customizing how a tv episode should show on the display) so that everyone sees exactly what he wants and only that.

Screenshots (v0.1.2 Beta):


Changelog (v0.1.4.0 Beta):

• General
  • About dialog
    
• iMON
  • New version of iMon Display API Wrapper# (v0.1.0.7)
  • Increased maximum delay after scrolling to 5s (from 2s)
    
• XBMC
  • Option to show/rotate the disc icon during playback
  • Default values for Music / Music Video Playback text
  • Formatting option to add leading zeros (format: %keyword:length%)
  • Show system time instead of other text
    

Download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc-on-imon/

Excellent... been waiting for a working xbmc/imon solution for ages! Good man Montellese!!

I'll test asap and report back.

Dear Montellese,

thanks for putting your hands on that thing.
I followed your instructions step by step, but as soon as I push the connect button, I get exeption faults.

iMon Version: v7.91.0929
OS: Windows 7 64bit
XBMC: Dharma b3 build 35016 (Compiled: Oct. 25 2010)
x64 version of your software

The errorlog is here : http://pastebin.com/JeLzkDRd

Thanks for diggin' in !

Hey Raptylos

thanks for your feedback and sorry for the inconvenience. I should have mentioned that I only have a 32-bit Windows for testing so the 64-bit release is kind of a blind shot. Your errror report should help me track down the problem (tomorrow as it is 10.45 pm here and I'm in a train on my way home).

Could I send you a test release (x64 only) tomorrow to see if I located the problem?

Montellese Wrote:Hey Raptylos

thanks for your feedback and sorry for the inconvenience. I should have mentioned that I only have a 32-bit Windows for testing so the 64-bit release is kind of a blind shot. Your errror report should help me track down the problem (tomorrow as it is 10.45 pm here and I'm in a train on my way home).

Could I send you a test release (x64 only) tomorrow to see if I located the problem?

Hi Montellese,

I got a headcrash on my HTPC harddisk 30min ago....

But sure, you can send me a test release, I'll try to setup my HTPC 'till late tomorrow evening.

Thanks for your assistance, I'm glad if i can help you with this project !

Cheers, Raptylos

Awesome, great to finally see a IMON plugin for XBMC. I'm on x64 also so I'm looking forward to the updated code that works for it.

С третьей попытки заработало Montellese большое спасибо за труд. Иногда все таки вылетает с ошибкой при переключении трэков песен. Названия Видео показывает правильно, кириллица отображается. Замечен глюк: при перемотке стрелками клавиатуры индикатор длительности сбрасывается на начало, помогает кратковременное нажатие пауза.
Успехов в дальнейшей работе.
Win7-32. Antec Fusion Remote. Dharma Beta3

Google translate "On the third attempt earned: laugh: [b] Montellese [/ B] thanks a lot for work. Sometimes it all still crashes when switching tracks of songs. The video shows the names correctly, Cyrillic displayed. Seen a glitch: the winding length of the arrow keyboard indicator is reset at the beginning, helps short press pause.
Success in his future work.
Win7-32. Antec Fusion Remote. Dharma Beta3"

Just a +1 for the x64 code update and a big thanks for working on this.

Okay for everyone with a 64-bit Windows: I had some time to look into the matter and I did some research on the internet and put up some test builds (x64 only):

EDIT: Test releases removed

Could you please try these and tell me if one of them works?
If not could you try to download the x86 release and see if that might work?

v0.1.0.0-x86

In the meantime I'll try to setup a Windows 7 x64 virtual machine (luckily as a student I get Windows 7 for free :-) ) so that I can run these tests myself.

Thanks for your feedback and support.

For debugging purpose Windows have 120 days trial i use that for my tests

Only need to type a command every 30 days