Smart Home Blog

IOGEAR has released its new 4 Port Automatic HDMI Switch – GHDMIAS4. It allows to connect up to four HD outputs into one input. Moreover, thanks to Iogear’s patented HDAS automatic switching technology, the GHDMIAS4 can detect when device is power on and switch to the appropriate output automatically. If you don’t satisfy such intelligent you may use remote control at any time.

The switch supports 1080p and HDMI 1.3 and it’s available at $189.95 with 6-foot HDMI cable as a bonus.

[via Engadget]

It seems that Pluthome fork – LinuxMCE is going to take up its parent project Plutohome. Possible that might happen because Kubuntu is a modern system and grows faster then Debian. Another good opportunity can be splitting home automation system and operation system to give consumers to have only one PC for automation and other tasks. That integration is gonna be nice because LinuxMCE will appear as additional KDE desktop.

Anyway, since I use Plutohome I’m going to pay more attention to the LinuxMCE. Because it might replace Pluthome completely in the near future.

Yesterday I installed LinuxMCE RC1 on my home PC. Unlike previous version Beta 2 it was installed without any problems. IP was not lost during installation. The process of configuration became more pictorial. Each step is illustrated by video. So, you can get useful information without reading manual direct from your TV.

LinuxMCE is really run as separated KDE desktop. To switch back to KDE from the Orbiter there is a specified button. Stop, start and manage LinuxMCE properties can be via its control panel.

So far, LinuxMCE works fine except one strange thing. If LinuxMCE run my USB hub LEDs are blinking. It seems that USB port power is OFF and ON continuously.

HDHomeRun – a networked digital television receiver with two tuners, provides a simple way to bring HDTV on your media center. Here is detailed instruction how to install it in your system and configure to work together with MythTV. Since Plutohome and LinuxMCE uses MythTV to provide PVR functionality this document is also actual for those systems too.

The instruction includes a lot of screen-shots which should help you to configure MythTV. For more information about configuration HDHomeRun with MCE, BeyondTV or SageTV you may visit SiliconDust site.

Plutohome offers a few different methods to control A/V equipment. One of them is using of infrared commands. Only a small part of TVs, receivers and players has RS232 or Ethernet port. So, the easiest way is to attach IR transmitter to the core of media director, learn IR codes in case of missing of your device in the Plutohome database and send appropriate commands to your TV or receiver. Plutohome supports following IR transmitters:

• GC-100
• IRTrans USB
• Tira Remote Control Receiver/Transmitter
• USB-UIRT

GC-100 is the best solution if you don’t have media director near A/V equipment. In that case you can use it to send IR commands over LAN and then transmit them via IR sensors. Moreover, GC-100 includes one or more RS-232 and relay ports.
The rest devices can just transmit IR signals. They are good if you need to control your TV from the media director.

In my installation I’m going to control receiver Marantz 5600 placed in separate audio zone via GC-100 using its RS-232 port. Use instructions from wiki to know how to add Marantz to the Plutohome and how to configure GC-100.

P. S. Those devices can be used the same manner in LinuxMCE as well.