[mythtv-users] IMON LCD backlight

[Jarod Wilson]

On 12/11/2009 09:42 AM, Ronald Frazier wrote:
>> I'll have to reexamine things.  I hooked up everything they said to in
>> the instructions - I guess I thought that any connection to the PWR pin
>> was prewired between the imon and the power switch.  (One of the Antec
>> Veris line, approx 1 year old.)
>
> On my case (a Thermaltake DH-101 with iMon LCD),  from what I recall
> the power button is tied into iMon's circuit board, and the cable that
> goes to your motherboard's power switch connector comes from that
> circuit board. Thus, the iMon should be able to turn on the system
> from the remote any time that the power button would be able to turn
> it on (assuming the iMon is getting +5V through USB at the time).

You recall correctly.

>> Will the imon only turn it on with an imon remote?
>
> I've been under the assumption that any Windows Media Center remote
> would be able to power it on or off,  but not other remotes (though
 > I've not verified).

Yep, only works with the iMON remote (or a universal programmed to 
emulate one), so far as I can tell. Just tried getting mine to power on 
with an MCE remote, no dice. Powers on just fine with my usual remote 
though.

 > The iMon's IR receiver is quite limited. It
> doesn't pick up IR signals from a lot of remotes (including my
> preferred remotes...I personally hate the layout of the iMon's Pad
> remote).

It picks up other IR signals, it just ignores them. The iMON devices do 
signal decoding in hardware, and are only wired up to decode two 
different (and very specific) protocol sets -- whatever the one the iMON 
remotes use, and the RC-6 command set the Windows Media Center Edition 
remotes use. And it can only do one or the other at a given time, it 
can't do both.

> Thus, on my system I actually have a separate IR receiver
> hooked up and completely disregard the iMON's one.

Yeah, the PAD isn't the best remote around. I actually use a Logitech 
Harmony 880 with my iMON receiver. Any universal that can programmed 
either as an iMON remote or as an MCE remote should be viable.

> All in all, I'm more disappointed than not by the iMon LCD. I can't
> use it to turn on the system via remote like I hoped (since the remote
> sucks IMHO). The backlight doesn't turn off when the system shuts
> down. The LCD's contrast actually sucks pretty badly, such that it's
> hard to read the LCD from any reasonable distance unless the text is
> full height (which really limits how much text you can display at
> once). The fixed set of status icons has quickly become dated (options
> for video format are mpeg, xvid, divx, and wmv). All in all, I thought
> it would have been a really cool toy, but I've lost a lot of my
> enthusiasm for it. About the only way it comes in very handy for me is
> that I have it setup (using my own custom software to control it and
> interface with myth) to display myth's playback progress using one of
> the iMon's progress bars, so I can quickly glance at it and see a show
> is about halfway done (convenient when my wife has control of the
> remote...easier than asking her to hit the button to check).

Someone posted a patch in the mythtv wiki a while back that partially 
implemented icon support, which I fixed up, extended a bit, and 
committed to svn trunk a month or two ago. Doesn't support the iMON 
LCD's native progress bars though, that would be cool to add support for...

However, yeah, its really more a toy than a useful thing most of the 
time (apart from the fact I do use the IR receiver). I'm actually 
thinking of swapping out my LCD for my VFD that is more readable at 
distance... (I got both to play with).

> Sorry about the rant...this thread has just touched on too many of the
> devices sour points and I felt the need to vent. :-)

Its all good, I don't disagree with (at least most of) your rant. :)

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com