RS-232, IP and other control methods for AV gear

[STC]

[Split thread from http://thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtop ... 686#p15043 - STC]

Does your amp have IP barnabas?

[barnabas1969]

>Side question off topic> Does your amp have IP barnabas?

No, I'm using RS-232 to control my amp. But the one I want has both RS-232 and IP control.

My amp is an old Sony STR-DA2ES. It actually uses S-Link or Control-A1. I bought a little adapter that converts RS-232 commands to S-Link or Control-A1. The one I want is the Yamaha RX-A2000 (or 2010 or 3000 or 3010).

Why do you ask?

[STC]

Why do you ask?

Just to see what transport mechanism and language you use to control the AVR externally. You answered my question.
I too would really have to see some sort of implementation for this app to be able to flag or trigger a control that in turn lowers and raises the AVR volume, rather then just mute it. Muting would loose a lot of the magic for me.

[barnabas1969]

Why do you ask?

Just to see what transport mechanism and language you use to control the AVR externally. You answered my question.
I too would really have to see some sort of implementation for this app to be able to flag or trigger a control that in turn lowers and raises the AVR volume, rather then just mute it. Muting would loose a lot of the magic for me.

Ah. Well, the commands on S-Link are a bit of a mystery. There was never any "official" documentation of the protocol from Sony. Some people figured it out by using an oscilloscope and made adapters like the one I have. The commands are all strings of hex, which gets translated to binary when sent out on the S-Link or Control-A1 bus. There are a few sites with some commands listed, and most of them work for me... but doing anything other than what is listed on those sites takes a lot of patience and experimentation. I wrote a little program that cycles through a series of hex strings. I used it to discover some of the things I wanted to do with my AVR. Even doing it that way takes time.

On the other hand, the commands for the Yamaha receiver that I want are well-documented. Yamaha has a program that you can download and run on Windows to communicate with their receivers, and several folks have written apps for iPhone and Android phones too. The Yamaha receivers have built-in Pandora, last.fm, and other services that can all be controlled from those apps... so it makes an ideal whole-house audio system that can be controlled by your phone.

EDIT: I just thought I should mention that I control my TV via RS-232 also. I have one un-used serial port in the PC that I would like to use in the future for a projector.

EDIT2: In case anyone wants a device to control a Sony component via S-Link or Control-A1, here's the link where I bought my SAVR3 device.

[bobbob]

yeah, all my hardware is RS-232, it just seems like another thing i need to learn whereas the harmony remote does it all at the moment. whats a good resource to read up on this?

[barnabas1969]

I'm currently using IR Server Suite (IRSS), but I plan to move to Event Ghost. Both will allow you to send RS-232 commands. You'll need to find out what commands each of your devices supports though.

The nice thing about RS-232 control is that it doesn't require line of sight between your remote control and the device you want to control (which is a problem when someone walks between you and the device while your remote control macro is running). Also, you can make your computer do things when it wakes from sleep, goes to sleep, etc.

For example, I use MCE Sleep Timer... and when the sleep timer expires, I want my TV and AVR to be turned off when the PC goes to sleep.