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You are here: MacNN Forums > Our Archives > General Archives > Delicious Monster > Request: DVD Changer support

 
Request: DVD Changer support
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skydiver
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Sugar Land, Texas
Status: Offline
Jun 23, 2006, 08:27 PM
 
Would love to see a program that could control one of the 400 disk dvd multichangers, such as those made by Sony. There was a program called TitleTrack Jukebox that would allow your mac to control a Sony 400 disk CD changer. A solution for a DVD changer would make a great addition to your home theater. Seems like this would be a natural for Apple's Front Row and the Mac mini. Perhaps Delicious Library could get the jump on hardware support in this area. Is this possible, or contemplated?
     
Delicious Monster
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jun 2006
Status: Offline
Jun 24, 2006, 04:23 PM
 
When you take economics, you learn the concept of opportunity cost. Every dollar you spend, every hour you use, every avenue you pursue, comes at the expense of something else. When it comes to making Delicious Library the interface for disc changers, my analysis says the opportunity cost is too high.

What I mean is, while there are some technical issues involved, to be sure (It would require spending a lot of money on different units to test with, since there's no real standard for interfacing with these things) the bigger issue is that we just don't think this is the best way to spend our time when there are so many other more often requested features out there we need to be working on.

Now, bear in mind, that might change. When we get some other things done, this might become attractive, or some company might throw a bunch of money at us to support them, or we might be walking though Magnolia Hi-Fi and come across some shiny new must have and, like a celebrity who is diagnosed with a fatal disease, have our priorities suddenly adjusted.

But I wouldn't hold my breath. Sorry.

-Mike
     
weldon
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Status: Offline
Jun 25, 2006, 07:32 PM
 
I fully understand what you are saying about opportunity cost and I think you are wise to not try and do everything in version 2.

Of course, you could address the problem by developing a plug-in architecture (which would be useful for searching other data sources besides Amazon.com) or by allowing DL to fire applescripts on certain actions. That way someone else could develop the functionality for the user community and you wouldn't have to. DVDLobby (Windows) uses this approach to talk to hardware S-Link controllers and generic RS-232 drivers to control DVD changers.
     
Delicious Monster
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jun 2006
Status: Offline
Jun 25, 2006, 07:45 PM
 
You can actually link a URL to any media you have, and launch it from Delicious Library. I haven't actually tried using a file URL to an Applescript, but heck, maybe it would work?
     
Tedco
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Status: Offline
Jul 3, 2006, 05:46 PM
 
There's a little piece of software called "Say What" which will listen on a port on your Mac and run applescripts the correspond to a URL that you visit. (from any computer)

I actually use this in conjunction with home automation. When I say "I want to watch a movie", my lights dim to the desired level, the plasma and amp turns to the right input and delicious library opens (my PC sends a URL to my Mac which opens an applescript to launch Delicious Library) - however, it would be nice to have delicious library link to media when you click play (I'm starting to rip my DVDs to my server and stream them to my TV) - which I just found out you can do!! however, It would be nice if that URL button could correspond to a button in the interface like "Play Movie"

iTunes integration would be really sweet too!

Thanks,

<<edit: grammer>>
( Last edited by Tedco; Jul 3, 2006 at 07:10 PM. )
     
wineknow
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2006
Status: Offline
Aug 30, 2006, 01:56 PM
 
I have the same problem with Delicious Library, and I would like to develop a way to control my Sony DVD changer via D.Library (probably through IR), so I don't have to see or touch the DVD changer anymore.

If anyone is interested in helping -- hardware research, testing etc.
Let me know.
-kevin
     
Tedco
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jul 2006
Status: Offline
Sep 2, 2006, 10:31 AM
 
You can do that now. Purchase an IRTrans (with Ired) which is a USB, IR blaster - the applescript interface is really easy (1 line of applescript to fire a remote command) - combined with saywhat (see previous post) - you could make a URL which sends a parameter (like disk number) through http to a machine running ired and saywhat to blast that out to your Sony DVD player.

You can even bypass saywhat (if you have the IRed connected to the same machine) as they have a URL covention "ired://" which tells the app to fire the commands.

Does that help?

Ted
     
 
   
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