MainLobby question

[royalj7]

While I can appreciate the al carte approach ML takes, I’m having a little trouble understanding exactly what I would need for a particular setup. If one of the ML guys could help me out it would be much appreciated. I’m looking to control the following equipment:

IR control of five pieces of A/V equipment
Insteon or Zwave lights (if there is a difference in cost for either)
2 x Aprilaire 8870 tsat
Russound CAA66 (is there a driver for this?)
Computer with DVD's ripped to shared HD


I would like to control the system from:
A local HA server
2 x touchscreens
From the internet. What are the options for these and what are the modules used? I would prefer to not have to install anything on these machines.

Thanks for the help folks!
--Jamie

 

[DavidL]

Jamie, you got PM.
thanx for the interest.

 

[Steve]

Jamie,

I may not be the best person to answer this, but in the interest of getting you at least an approximate answer quickly (all prices taken directly from Cinemar site)...

Base package: $179
Insteon plugin $49.99 (Zwave plugin coming soon and most likely will be similar price)
Russound plugin $99.99
DVD Lobby $59.99

I think that would be the bare minimum to meet your needs, but I'm not sure about the IR or stats. CD, Weather, Web pages, CID, TTS and graphics of course are also extra.

So I believe you are looking at $389 at a minimum. Just take a look at
the products and you can get a general idea.

I don't believe you need anything different or special to control locally from touch screens, not sure about control via Internet.

I'm sure one of the Cinemar guys can fill in the blanks shortly...

Edit: Sorry, David replied while I was typing, glad you got a quick reply!

 

[royalj7]

Thanks for the quick reply Steve. Pretty much on target

After talking with Cinemar alittle, it seems I would need the following:

Mainlobby Combo - $180
Global Cache/USBUIRT plugin (either one) - Free
Insteon or UPB plugin (No Zwave) - $50
DVDLobby - $60
Russound plugin - $100

Looking pretty good but I have a couple questions though for the ML folks. TheaterTek was suggested in conjunction with DVDLobby. What exactly do I get with this solution that I wouldn’t from just DVDLobby? Does DVDLobby not have a DVD player internally?

No plugin for thermostats. Is there any other way to control/monitor them other than getting an ELK?

I really would like the ability to login to ML remotely and check lighting/equipment.etc status without installing any software (especially mainlobby clients) on the machine. i.e. viewing from a public computer. Is there any way to do this and what would be involved?

Thanks!
--Jamie

 

[DavidL]

DVDLobby is a catalog and UI presentation for viewing of your movie collection. It is not a Player. Reason for this is that DVDLobby can also be an interface for managing your movies on a DVD changer (the Player). Or, for movies that are stored on hard drives (played with a software DVD player like TheaterTek or Zoom Player). Or both at the same time. Your end user won't have to know where the movie is stored, just that they would like to watch it - just hit the coverart picture and they are watching.

Cinemar has the best interface in the business for TheaterTek. We codeveloped a tight 2 way interface with TT including "MiniWindow" capability. at some point, we will post some screen shots of this in action.

Cinemar will be building thermostat plugins shortly. Just a few minutes ago, Mario asked on the Cinemar forum for the aprilaire sdk from our user community. So, things are moving along.

Jamie, your last point is not well supported by MainLobby. Being a client /server application, the client application should be running on the PC that you are viewing from. You can use an RDP / LogMeIn app so that over the net you can view a client running inside of your home's LAN (which is what I am doing right now :lol: ). At some point down the road, we will continue thining down the Mainlobby client (remove the Designer from it) so that it can be viewed via the MainLobby Server Webserver via the Net. I still won't recommend this for primary areas in the home, because of all of the media things we do now like streaming audio and video directly into the MainLobby Client for seamless presentation.

Hope that answers your questions. Feel free to post more! Thanx for the consideration.

 

[royalj7]

Ok, so in addition to the items I listed above, I would need to get:

TheaterTek / MLTheatertek Plugin Bundle - $80

Bringing the grand total to - $470
Plus the plug in for the thermo if/when that is complete. I know this is a future item, but any idea on price/availability?

The sound right?

Thanks!

 

[DavidL]

Speculation, but a thermo plugin would be around $39.99.

Update, there may be an update on web access in a future release of MainLobby Server. Too early for details.