HD led on chassis as record light? (1 Viewer)

DarkWader

Portal Pro
October 3, 2006
270
6
46
Home Country
Norway Norway
Started on: 2007-02-18
last update: 2007-02-18

Summary:
I dont use the HDD led on any of my HTPC boxes.
Its just too anoying to watch that blinking light, and I guess most ppl here will agree to that.

Then It just suddenly stroke me, what if there was a plugin that activated this light ONLY when a recording is running?
I have no idea if such a "hack" is possible, but it would be a neat solution to actually use that led for something usefull in a HTPC.
 

synthdood

Portal Pro
March 9, 2007
88
15
Home Country
Netherlands Netherlands
It is said that a lot of great inventions in history were done simultaneously in different parts of the world. I guess that applies to us too. I was thinking the exact same thing as you :)

A few days ago I changed my HTPC from the built-in TVE2 to a single seat TVE3 system and decided that I would like some visual feedback from the system so I can see if it is recording, just like every other VCR/HDD recorder in the world. Using a red LED would be the way to go! If your htpc case has a HDD led you could use that. My case (Dign/Origen H5) does not have a hdd light, but I am sure I would be able to fix a small red led somewhere behind the display window. The actual display is smaller than the window so there should be space. Another option would be to use a 2-colour power led that is blue or green when powered on and red while recording (would require some extra electronics I presume).

Remains the issue of actually controlling a led from MP. For those of you that speak Dutch, I ran across this post: LEDSdriver – Opname LED voor MCE/VMC
It is a solution for MCE that uses a COM port to switch one or two LEDs. Would a solution like this be viable for MP? I guess a plugin for TVE3 that switches the RTS and/or DTS lines on a COM port depending on the recording state should be possible.
 

meq123

Portal Pro
February 1, 2008
51
1
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
Now available as a plugin, see: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...er-app-controls-leds-attached-com-port-44948/

For more info on how to connect your HDD LED for use with this plugin, see: http://www.degroeneknop.nl/forum/index.php/topic,4855.0.html (Note: this page was written for use with the driver that synthdood linked to which does not work with MediaPortal, however the hardware setup is the same as with using the plugin above)

Obviously, this requires that your motherboard has an onboard serial port (or one on the back panel that you can wire up an extension to your HDD LED)!
 

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