HD Radio support in linux/nGhost?

miatacarpc · 01-14-2008, 01:31 AM

Anyone interested in getting HD radio working under linux?

I'm currently working on a perl script (not finished) that can be used to contol a Viseon HDZ300 or the Direction equivalent box. Both of these can be picked up cheap on ebay at the moment. Mitchjs has created RS232 cables (see: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/road...light=HD+radio) that can be used to control the boxes and has a front-end component that runs on .Net, but I'm running LinuxICE on my early not-yet-ready system, so I want to see if I can do it with something a little less heavy-weight (i.e. not Mono).

I'm looking for someone to create a UI piece that can either call the perl script or use the perl as a starting point. It would be ideal if we could integrate it into nGhost, since that's what I'm planning to run on the carpc.

Anyone have the expertise and/or motivation to make it work?

UPDATE: Nearly there - HalNineThousand has been hard at work to code up a C++ control library - I've been testing it and it's working well. There's a few glitches to iron out, and some decisions to make about APIs and format, but it will be ready soon! I'll be adding an announcement when we've got something people can try out on their own.

2L_SS · 01-14-2008, 08:53 PM

If you could do that it would be pretty awesome, I wanted to use the Visteon with Linux ICE as my OS. I would love to help but I have absolutely no knowledge of programing at all.

kev000 · 01-14-2008, 11:35 PM

With the proper serial codes I can help whoever make a plugin for nghost. I've already created a serial port plugin that we can mod if necessary. The nghost interface part would be really easy. We would just need to have the button's action match the code we are trying to send.

If anyone is willing to do the initial ground research, I'll help with the rest.

P.S. I'm referring to an nGhost2 (which is still in development) plugin.

miatacarpc · 01-15-2008, 12:49 AM

I've got the hex codes for most of the actions. I'm now just trying to figure out the starting and termination codes, then I'll be done.

Kev000 - can you PM me with the specifics about codes that you're looking for?

HalNineThousand · 01-26-2008, 10:08 PM

I'm very interested in a project like this. I have a few ideas I've been looking into for a Linux based system and the major block I have is a way to control any receiver from Linux. Maybe others have gotten it to work, but I'm still looking into it. This is one of the few links I've seen with a reference to actually controlling a receiver through Linux (other than a few small FM only receivers).

Would it be possible to control it by connecting it to a USB port?

miatacarpc · 01-27-2008, 10:40 AM

Yes, it should be controlllable over USB using a USB<->Serial cable. I'm doing exactly that from Windows right now.

Kev000 and I have been discussing the feasibility offline and have come to the conclusion that this is not likely to be properly supported until linuxice2/nghost2, but I'm working on a way to at least support tune+/-, seek+/- from the icepanel, as well as display the current frequency.

If anyone has any experience writing serial control scripts or programs, let me know. I can send you the protocol description I've put together. It's probably 80% complete at this point.

miatacarpc · 01-27-2008, 11:08 AM

given that native linux support is still a way off, I'm going to see if it's possible to run the windows app I've got under Mono, since it's a .NET app.

A bit heavy-weight, but if it works, I'll take it for now.

HalNineThousand · 01-27-2008, 11:34 AM

When you say Linux native support, just how much support are you talking about?

From your earlier comments, it seemed you had a Perl script communicating with it under Linux. Is that right? Do you have all the control codes and response codes now?

I don't have one yet. I've been waiting to see info on what could be made to work with Linux before buying whatever looked promising. If you find it's possible to communicate with it under Linux with Perl, to set the frequency and read it, then I would think it's not going to take much more to read other display info.

Do you know where the control pinouts are listed?

HalNineThousand · 01-27-2008, 11:55 AM

I posted a reply that seems to have been lost.

When you're talking about native Linux support, just how much support do you mean? Are you looking for full support, as in a complete GUI program, or just the ability to communicate with the device?

You mentioned a Perl script. Were you able to control it at all from a script and did you get info back? If so, then that tells me it can work well enough that I'd want to buy one and find out what you've got so I can see what I can do. I'm not worried about it being integrated with anything else yet because I can always write my own GUI interface for it. I just want to be sure that I can communicate with it on Linux and would eventually, even if it takes work, read the "extra" data long song info.

DarquePervert · 01-27-2008, 01:32 PM