2011-01-03, 13:16
Because of the external interfaces that XBMC exposes (like the JSON-RPC API), it's easy to get at information like "What's playing now?" or "What menu am I navigating?".
Displaying this information on a character LCD is somewhat harder, requiring the use of a PIC or similar controller. While I'm using a PIC, I might as well add a infrared receiver to the circuit, to be able to use my Xbox remote to control XBMC.
This will be a high-level overview of how to do it/how I did it.
Firstly, I want it to connect via USB (serial is dead). Which brought me to Simon Inn's site here.
I also want to program it using C#, so I'll be using destriktiv's JSON-RPC library.
That gave me the basic circuit layout, as well as the USB connection part with HID drivers :
(this is on a 16x2 character display. Waiting for delivery of 20x4, blue backlight)
Next step... add the infrared hardware. The Xbox uses a 56Khz carrier frequency. Off to the shops!
Displaying this information on a character LCD is somewhat harder, requiring the use of a PIC or similar controller. While I'm using a PIC, I might as well add a infrared receiver to the circuit, to be able to use my Xbox remote to control XBMC.
This will be a high-level overview of how to do it/how I did it.
Firstly, I want it to connect via USB (serial is dead). Which brought me to Simon Inn's site here.
I also want to program it using C#, so I'll be using destriktiv's JSON-RPC library.
That gave me the basic circuit layout, as well as the USB connection part with HID drivers :
(this is on a 16x2 character display. Waiting for delivery of 20x4, blue backlight)
Next step... add the infrared hardware. The Xbox uses a 56Khz carrier frequency. Off to the shops!
