The first xLobby client for the Pasadena B & O store was installed and is on display. Richard Kim the owner had an open house on Thursday February 28 and several hundred people attended the event. There was food and drinks, prize drawings for LCD TVs as well as several demo rooms running B & O technology with other manufactures product lines. The show room is nicely decorated and tailered to a very professional environment for customers to listen and watch various products interact with each other. xLobby was well received as we ran demo’s of the software for 3 hrs on a 50″ pioneer elite plasma display. This store will become an authorized reseller and authorized installation company for xLobby products.

Thanks to Richard Kim and his staff for there support of xLobby and a memorable evening. Pictures of the store and xLobby systems will be posted here at a later date.

The store is located at:

Bang & Olufsen Old Pasadena
169 West Green Street
Pasadena, CA 91105
United States
Tel: 626-449-5172
Fax: 626-449-5182
Website: http://www.bang-olufsen.com/sw5809.asp

Wes Black \ Calrad

Defrag has created a really cool plugin and I wanted again to show appreciation for his hardwork and to all the individuals that continue to make Xlobby what it is.

Download: http://www.xlobby.com/files/defrag/xWOL.zip

Forum Post:

 http://xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5676&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Screen Shots:

Wes Black \ Calrad

Andy finished his latest skin and is available for download. Thanks for sharing another Skin with everyone.

Download Here: http://www.mediafire.com/?xjgvmlcfwzn

Forum Post: http://xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6192

Some Screen Shots:

Wes Black \ Calrad

As we work towards xLobby Ver 3.0 more information on certified xLobby installers and distributors will begin to appear on the xLobby website. I wanted to also show some screen shots of a Skin that Samson Lov from Custom Castle is working on, there offices are located in the L.A. area and are a certified xLobby installation company with numerous client server based xLobby installations. There support has been an important asset to xLobbies continued growth. Below are samples of Custom Castles screenshots.

Menu View Pictures

Menu View Movies

Menu Icon View

Menu List View

Multi-Zone Menu

Movie Library Menu

Music Library Menu

Music Artist Overlay

Spa Menu

Pictures Menu

Wes Black \ Calrad

xLobby uses SHOUTcast Radio Ip Addresses for our online IP Radio.

You can use WinAmp to detect any of the SHOUTcast radio stations by clicking on the SHOUTcast station (Tune In) to launch WinAmp this will open and locate the URL file location, start by selecting View File Info from the File tab in Winamp, copy the URL address. Replace or make a new Radio Station event in xLobby, next create or edit a Stations name in the IP Radio Menu. Now copy the new file address into xLobby’s IP Radio address location in the Events, Skin, IP Radio, Play File.

Example Stream Address:

http://86.105.231.99:8008

Shoutcast Website:

http://www.shoutcast.com/

Wes Black \ Calrad

This is available to paid only xLobby users from there My xLobby accounts. We have created a basic control structure for our newest partner in DVR CCTV security products, Infinity CCTV. You can now control and view infinity DVR products inside xLobby. More advanced control and communications with there products will be available over the next few months when we will have full RS232 2 way communication and a solid API in place. We have released another Ver 2.0  of xLobby with live Infinity  demo’s accessable right from the xLobby interface, this new build also has a few bug fixes.

Infinity is a Los Angeles based company with a strong presence in the CCTV market. There website is at www.infinitycctv.com .

You must first go to this website in internet explorer and install an active x control in order to use the demo inside xLobby.

Goto this web address and install the active x when prompted, you only need to do this once.

Click Here to vist the live CCTV Cams to Install the activex control

You are now ready to use the CCTV demo from the main xLobby menu under more.

Note, selecting individual cameras are only available by selecting Camera Views (1) first then select individual cameras 1-16. The live website DVRS are as follows, number 1 is a 4 channel unit, number 2 is a 8 channel unit and number 3 is a 16 channel unit. The CCTV menu is optomized for a resolution of 1024 x 768. If you use other resolutions the Camera window may not be scaled properly. Also the remote control to the left will only work if you have the real DVR installed in your home or office.

The remote to the left is works directly with the DVR by using a usb-uirt. We have also included the ir codes under the skin folder WACI ir files for controlling the recorders using the WACI-NX or the WACI-POD.

All types of pan tilt and zoom fuctions are possible, this current demo does not have these features shown or included, but they do work if needed.

Wes Black \ Calrad 

Saturday February 2nd will be the last release of xLobby Ver 2.0, with beta releases of Ver 3.0 scheduled for the end of February. Below is a list of some of the final fixes + features in Ver 2.0.

All of the features listed below will also make it into xLobby Ver 3.0 .

1. Fixed Database Plugin issues. See post:

http://xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=43585#43585 

 2. IP Radio and Traffic interfaces are working better and are not holding the menu or events hostage.

3. Video size\scaling feature added to the Media Player for movies, works for 16:9 widescreen playback only, 4:3 is not adjustable at the moment. Presss F5 five times, while in media player full screen, to increase vertical height keep pressing F5, to shrink Vertical Height press F6, Decrease Horizontal Width press F7, Decrease Horizontal width press F8 to increase width, F9 Zoom in, F10 Zoom out, F11 will Reset back to factory default. Restarting xLobby will save the new video size settings.

4. New DVD copy Plugin Ver 1.80, Support for DVDFab HD Decrypter Ver 4.0

5. Added simple support for lock or unlock of touchscreen from the Controls overlay the button press events can be shown or hidden when pressed depending on the type of button selected for the number images. Ver 3 will have a set value field of the an access code and buttons can be assigned a  ID to reference each number in the sequence. Default Code is (1492).

6. Clean Touchscreen Button under controls overlay menu for cleaning Touchscreens without triggering events.

7. F2, Under (Misc), Touchscreen (Hide Mouse Cursor) will now hide the mouse cursor if enabled.

8. F2, Under (Misc) Play Button Sounds can now enabled or disable button sounds.

9. New menu layouts showing some new integration progress for (1) ELK  products like Security, HVAC. Several Russound interface Menu’s. Calrad’s 40-965M 8 x 8 Component Video Matrix Switcher example Menu.  Irrigation Sample Menu using Rain8net or other RS232 products.

http://www.wgldesigns.com/rain8pc.html

10. Added Actor and Director under Search,  Filters menu in Movies.

11. Several improvements to Movies media playback engine.

Licensed xLobby users can access the new release under My xLobby 

Steven will upload the new build sometime Saturday afternoon. If I left anything off of this list I will amend this post. So you may want to look at this page again for changes.

Thanks for everyones continued support of xLobby.

Wes Black \ Steven Hanna \ Calrad

I just wanted to take a moment to thank Andy for sharing his skin with everyone on the forum, Nice job. See the link below.

Also thanks to all the active members on the forum who contribute there valuable time, share information and post cool plug-ins they have created as well as there support to help others on the xLobby website.

Black & Silver Skin

xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6134

Wes Black \ Steven Hanna \Calrad

Below is some valuable Information on how xLobby renders DVD video playback externally, by using a program called Graphedit you can create specific filters based on different codecs, using these graph files can provide consistant and reliable playback everytime you use xLobby. xLobby enables users to be able to select these external filters like the AC3 Filter to support many different codecs and use the one you want to render video or audio.

xLobby uses a directshow based media player engine and thus Xlobby’s media player can use external graph files that support the direct show player to process and render different Audio & Video codecs. xLobby Ver 2.0 hardware currently uses Versions of Cyberlink Power DVD5, 6 codec for reliable DVD Audio-Video playback. By selecting F2, then Media Player different graph files can be selected. By selecting default, xLobby will use the current default codec that windows is currently using and not use xLobbys graph files to render video playback. We are creating different graph files for users to select from. We have created a few using the AC3 filter available for download below. Users who are interested in creating there own graph files to insure proper playback in xLobby using a certain codec installed on your system can download the graphedit software to experiment and modify or create your own.

Cyberlink Ver 6.0 + AC3 Filter Graph file for xLobby: cyberlink-powerdvd6-ac3filter.grf

AC3 Filter Download: http://ac3filter.net/projects/ac3filter

Screenshot of the AC3 Filter interface, Written by Alexander Vigovsky

More Information on Graphedit:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33792569

Graphedit Information From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GraphEdit

Graphedit (Free Version) Download:

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/showsoftware_graphedit_141.html

Graphedit Plus (Commercial Pro Version) Download:

http://www.thedeemon.com/GraphEditPlus/

Screenshot of the Graphedit interface

For further discussions on this topic please post them in the forum thread below. If you create a filter to work with a certain codec and would like to share, you can post them here as well.

http://xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6150

PowerDVD7+AC3 Filter Graph file: cyberlink-powerdvd7-ac3filter.grf

Here is a couple of helpful utilities that might help users to determine which codec your os is really using.

For XP:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=de1491ac-0ab6-4990-943d-627e6ade9fcb&displaylang=en&Hash=anNrhazsSKte0oaBPMDDmxCHk6aeVypKWvkP9y06EIhfo7v6BzEpHcORGMlirhijhhF1xtopL0wRfZzTPhQffA%3d%3d

For Vista:

http://mediacenterexpert.blogspot.com/2006/07/vista-media-center-decoder-utility.html

Wes Black \ Calrad

Here is some pictures of the new protype RF based remote we are working on that has a 3.5″ touch screen and programmable – illuminated hard buttons. This unit can act as a universal remote with learning capabilities and can also transmit IR signals straight from the remote or from the remote to the RF wireless receiver to 4 discrete IR ports, 1 RS232 serial port. The first model is Zigbee and the second version will be 802.11 wi-fi with a build in webbrowser and yes it will work with xLobby xnet. Both the remotes also play sound files and speech files for touchscreen events and hard button events. The remote also has a built-in media player so you could stream stereo music content right to the remote.

The remote has auto power shut-off when not in use and the remote automatically turns on when you pick it up. All skinning and setup of the device is done thru a mini USB interface cable that connects it to a PC or Laptop for editing or uploading files to the remote using the xLobby Remote design suite software.

This image shot with no flash

This image shot with flash

More details will be available after CES. We are demonstrating the remotes live at the Calrad booth in the south hall, booth number 22019.

Wes Black