TV Control challenges

[english_1969]

Hi,

I have a challenge in setting up control for my various wall mount TV located throughout my house.

All of my TVs are wall mount LCDs/Plasmas. I am using a 16 zone Avatrix to provide source material. I am using Cinemar's Mainlobby as the control system for the whole house.

My goal is to allow Mainlobby to know the status of all the TVs and be able to control them (on/off).

I have 2 spare Cat5s running to each TV location. I've been playing around with the Global Cache GC100 and it seems like it (well, several) will do the job, but I will need to have some way of doing a video or current sense at each TV location and then alse have an IR path back to the TV. While this could work, I'm not sure this is elegant.

What I seem to really need is a very small device that can be connected via cat5 (either using the wiring or via ethernet/IP) that can be installed at the TV location and do the job. Since these are wall mount TVs, I am limited on space around the TV so something like the GC100-06 at the location wouldn't work and could be overkill anyway.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks,
W

 

[DavidL]

I assume the TV's aren't serial or TCP controllable for status and control functions?

Hi,

I have a challenge in setting up control for my various wall mount TV located throughout my house.

All of my TVs are wall mount LCDs/Plasmas. I am using a 16 zone Avatrix to provide source material. I am using Cinemar's Mainlobby as the control system for the whole house.

My goal is to allow Mainlobby to know the status of all the TVs and be able to control them (on/off).

I have 2 spare Cat5s running to each TV location. I've been playing around with the Global Cache GC100 and it seems like it (well, several) will do the job, but I will need to have some way of doing a video or current sense at each TV location and then alse have an IR path back to the TV. While this could work, I'm not sure this is elegant.

What I seem to really need is a very small device that can be connected via cat5 (either using the wiring or via ethernet/IP) that can be installed at the TV location and do the job. Since these are wall mount TVs, I am limited on space around the TV so something like the GC100-06 at the location wouldn't work and could be overkill anyway.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks,
W

 

[Sacedog]

I assume the TV's aren't serial or TCP controllable for status and control functions?

Sry to hijack...who makes a TCP controllable TV? I'm interested.

 

[FrankMc]

Hi

I designed my own cat5 based system which monitors the ON/OFF status of my tv,s dvd players etc using my led and video probes...You can also conect Dallas temp sensors to it...
http://www.armaghelectrical.com.au/page9.html

HTH
Frank

 

[english_1969]

David - Only 1 of the TVs is capable of serial control and no IP capable units.

Frank - that's pretty impressive. How many units/sensor could be attached and does this have a HomeSeer or Cinemar plug-in of sorts?

I've thought about using 1-wire devices and I think Michael Mcsharry has written something on how to do this, however, I'm not quite ready to start soldering items.

What about using something like the Insteon or UPB input devices?

I am working on getting Insteon up and running and do have a small 1-wire network running.

Seems like a voltage or current sensor attached to the 1-wire device would work well.

 

[FrankMc]

Hi

>Frank - that's pretty impressive. How many units/sensor could be attached and does this have a >HomeSeer or Cinemar plug-in of sorts?

Each zone box (max 8 zones) can take up to 6 probes two of these probes can be Dallas ds18s20 temp sensors......

No it does,nt have a Homeseer or Cinemar plugin.......

Frank

 

[SteveQ]

Hi,

My goal is to allow Mainlobby to know the status of all the TVs and be able to control them (on/off).

I have 2 spare Cat5s running to each TV location. I've been playing around with the Global Cache GC100 and it seems like it (well, several) will do the job, but I will need to have some way of doing a video or current sense at each TV location and then alse have an IR path back to the TV. While this could work, I'm not sure this is elegant.

Thanks,
W

W, If you are using IR to control the TVs, you can send discrete IR codes to turn OFF any or all TVs that are ON. Do you really need to know if the TV is ON or OFF?

Steve Q

 

[jac7788]

Most TVs have an RCA video out port, which you could connect a video sense probe to, use 1 pair of the cat 5 to each tv for the sense probe and another pair for the IR flasher, and put a GC-100 where the cables terminate.

http://www.smarthome.com/8119.html