IComeFromTheNet.net

Having bought a very large LCD monitor last December a 26 inch LCD monitor that is and just regretting it a little upon finding that it was really a television not  an up close and personal computer screen but it was cheap and very appealing at the time. Well I just could not let such a large screen go to waste.

The project build a Jukebox for my bedroom,  its got use my existing components , have a remote of sorts and be quiet and low energy as possible.

Existing Components

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Vewsonic 26inch LCD Monitor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIA Mini-ITX ML 1000 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lian Li PC-9100

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Items

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Logitech diNovo Mini

 

 

 

 

1GB PC2100 Memory

 

 

 

 

 

Pioneer Slime Line DVD-Burner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATA 320Gb HDD

 

 

 

The Software

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There were 2 choices:

 

MediaPortal

 

 

 

 

 

My-HTPC

 

Media Portal, is large well featured and very pretty but it is build for faster machines, on my setup all menus were un-responsive and this kills the application for a jukebox. I chose to use my-HTPC, its a shareware application that ceased in 2003 however it is an excellent front end for media and since I use media player classic for movies and DVD's I don't need these integrated features anyway.  The drawbacks are no support for play-lists and some odd control behaviour and the big one its no-longer in development.

Before I start let me say this was the best of failures, I learn a-lot about  OOP Java-Script and Dom Scripting and using 3rd party library's , after working on the project I know 3 things, Java-Script is an extremely expressive language is a pain to debug but Is my firm favourite dynamic language. The second is don't use a 3rd party library that doesn't have excellent documentation its just not worth the pain.  Thirdly Active X objects are terrible way to integrate desktop applications into the web.

The Aim

• To develop a web based HTPC application that would list TV recordings and using MPClassic allow these files to opened and played.
• Display files based on there date in a number of lists and also a Calendar.
• Use Java-Script and Active X objects
• Use Internet Explorer as browser, and Active Desktop to host the web-page on a desktop. 
• Only be available on a local level. 

The Results

 

I was able to create a beta build using Active X file objects with the EXT Java-Script library to create  menus, based around weeks. This seemed appropriate as television shows tend to be grouped into weeks, I also build a Java-Script calendar that would show the shows recorded on that date. Using query String an another Active X object I was able to get MPClassic to load a particular file.

The bugs which were the killer, The calendar never quite worked correctly and the File list where to easily corrupted, I don't think any of these bugs where unfixable but I did not wish to invest the time , when I decided the Active X approach was not worth the effort. Since Fire-Fox does not support JScript Emulators the project was IE only.
  

File download of current Work: HTPCSite.zip (1.13 mb)

I plan to revisit the project in the future, and replace the Acitve-X objects with a .Net Web-Service and a JSON objects to pass the file information to the browser code, I will also like to change the Java-Script library to the YUI, as I found the Documentation to be easier on the brain :-).