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[ffd97glx]

I'm re-engineering my home media system.  MC is fantasic!  I've searched high and low and can't find an answer - is there a way to spawn/shell and Windows command from MC when a 'play' command is executed?  Or is there a plugin?  When I start playing music or video/movie, I'd want MC to turn on my receivers for the audio.  I can write my own BAT or VBS commands to interface with the sound system, but I need the trigger to fire the code.  Any thoght?  TIA

[MrC]

Plug-ins are here:

   http://accessories.jriver.com/mediacenter/accessories.php

but the majority have not been updated in years.  I have no idea which ones work w/MC19.  But maybe they'll give you some ideas, depending upon your needs, or at least prompt additional questions.

There are no trigger events (which could be very useful) outside of plug-ins.  The MCWS service can be used to poll for changes, but I suspect this is really too late to start turning-on equipment.

Let's see what others have to offer...

[glynor]

There are no trigger events (which could be very useful) outside of plug-ins.

COM can raise events, including upon playback.  They can be listened to both in-process (via an Interface plugin) and out-of-process (a separate, standalone application like the ones I've done).

It would be a reasonably simple matter to listen for a Play "started" event, check what Zone it happened on, and then launch a particular shell command in response.  You'd have to be a developer, of course, but it wouldn't be rocket surgery.

If you feel like you might be up to this task, and you know C# decently well, yell and I can give you a copy of my wrapper class.  The event listening support in it is pretty rudimentary, but it works.

[MrC]

I suppose I used the term "plug-ins" too broadly, but you stated better what I meant.

This seems like a nice opportunity to create an interface plug-in that can be configured to launch programs based on various triggers.

[ffd97glx]

I can spin circles around the best in SQL (and serveral dead languages).  I can crawl VBscript.  But I can't spell C?.  Before I start up that learning curve, would COM give me events for volume control as well?

[glynor]

Before I start up that learning curve, would COM give me events for volume control as well?

Yep.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Automation#Basics

Please note, this:

Event Handling and Zones

The events MCC: NOTIFY_TRACK_CHANGE and MCC: NOTIFY_PLAYERSTATE_CHANGE contain the zone where the change occurred. Media Center, however, will only notify changes in the currently active zone. If a track changes in the non-active zone, there will be no event. Only track changes in the active zone will have events.

[ffd97glx]

Thx!  This will give me a good place to start.