Introduction

["Mark Gardner" <prontoman@xxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I've been a lurker on this list for 18 months or so, and have decided it's
time to de-lurk.

I'm keen to develop my home automation when time, money and swmbo allow,
and have ideas / ambitions in the areas of security, lighting, curtains and
gate / garage door control.

To date my efforts have been in the area of home cinema, and whole house
audio. My WHA approach is a HTPC (kind of - keen to try some quietpc.com
components in this box) with line level feeds to local amplifiers. Rooms
covered so far are lounge, TV Room, study and the garden (using a pair of
Bose Freespace speakers - recently mentioned on the list).

My main effort to date has been in the development of an IR remote control
system to allow one touch album playlist selection from my Pronto. This
involves a Xantech IR distribution system (including a receiver in the
garden), Pronto (the original 1mb version), CCF Tools, Girder, IRMAN, MS
Access (to generate Pronto CCF and Girder GML files), Exact Audio Copy /
LAME mp3 encoder, and about 11,500 MP3s/WMAs organised in approx 800
albums. I'm pretty happy with this system, but am also looking at using
Vinyl (pocketwerks.com) from a wireless enabled iPAQ to provide track level
remote control.

Other interest areas which have come up on the list include satnav using BT
enabled iPaq, Socket BT GPS receiver and TomTom Navigator - excellent
package, shame about the map faults....

TTFN
Mark





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