blog/data/2018-06-26-kodi-projector.txt

   1 Title: Add-on to control the projector from within Kodi
   2 Tags: english, video, multimedia, kodi
   3 Date: 2018-06-26 23:55
   4
   5 <p>My movie playing setup involve <a href="https://kodi.tv/">Kodi</a>,
   6 <a href="https://openelec.tv">OpenELEC</a> (probably soon to be
   7 replaced with <a href="https://libreelec.tv/">LibreELEC</a>) and an
   8 Infocus IN76 video projector.  My projector can be controlled via both
   9 a infrared remote controller, and a RS-232 serial line.  The vendor of
  10 my projector, <a href="https://www.infocus.com/">InFocus</a>, had been
  11 sensible enough to document the serial protocol in its user manual, so
  12 it is easily available, and I used it some years ago to write
  13 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/infocus-projector-control">a
  14 small script to control the projector</a>.  For a while now, I longed
  15 for a setup where the projector was controlled by Kodi, for example in
  16 such a way that when the screen saver went on, the projector was
  17 turned off, and when the screen saver exited, the projector was turned
  18 on again.</p>
  19
  20 <p>A few days ago, with very good help from parts of my family, I
  21 managed to find a Kodi Add-on for controlling a Epson projector, and
  22 got in touch with its author to see if we could join forces and make a
  23 Add-on with support for several projectors.  To my pleasure, he was
  24 positive to the idea, and we set out to add InFocus support to his
  25 add-on, and make the add-on suitable for the official Kodi add-on
  26 repository.</p>
  27
  28 <p>The Add-on is now working (for me, at least), with a few minor
  29 adjustments.  The most important change I do relative to the master
  30 branch in the github repository is embedding the
  31 <a href="https://github.com/pyserial/pyserial">pyserial module</a> in
  32 the add-on.  The long term solution is to make a "script" type
  33 pyserial module for Kodi, that can be pulled in as a dependency in
  34 Kodi.  But until that in place, I embed it.</p>
  35
  36 <p>The add-on can be configured to turn on the projector when Kodi
  37 starts, off when Kodi stops as well as turn the projector off when the
  38 screensaver start and on when the screesaver stops.  It can also be
  39 told to set the projector source when turning on the projector.
  40
  41 <p>If this sound interesting to you, check out
  42 <a href="https://github.com/fredrik-eriksson/kodi_projcontrol">the
  43 project github repository</a>.  Perhaps you can send patches to
  44 support your projector too?  As soon as we find time to wrap up the
  45 latest changes, it should be available for easy installation using any
  46 Kodi instance.</p>
  47
  48 <p>For future improvements, I would like to add projector model
  49 detection and the ability to adjust the brightness level of the
  50 projector from within Kodi.  We also need to figure out how to handle
  51 the cooling period of the projector.  My projector refuses to turn on
  52 for 60 seconds after it was turned off.  This is not handled well by
  53 the add-on at the moment.</p>
  54
  55 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  56 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  57 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>