Next project? Mini display…
Retrieved an old 4×20 LCD display I had for a previous project, so my next project is to try and hook it up to Mediaportal!
The Scott Electronics BPP 420VY display is a very simple serial driven device (as all the electronics for controlling it are on the display itself) so it basically requires 3 wires, +5v, gnd and SER. The one I have is the “yellow on blue” backlit inverse model. Pic:
The ideal end result for me is as follows:
If MediaPortal is on the ‘home’ screen, to display the weather in the top line(s) and then scrolling along the bottom have the RSS ticker (the StreamedMP Skin i’m using has both of these on the home screen so hopefully it’s do-able). Then, if I go into the “Music” page, it can show scrolling through the lists and perhaps info on the current track when playing. The idea of this is so that Music can be browsed/selected without having to have the TV on!
For the rest of MediaPortals’ screen I will ignore the display for now, as… well, if the TV is on there’s not a lot of point 
Although if coding it is easy enough, I could always scroll through the current program/movie information. Any other ideas?
Have you managed to get the mini-display working? How did you configure this to work, did you set it up as a 2nd Monitor?
February 4th, 2010 at 3:12 pmActually - no, I never got it working properly with MP. But you’ve reminded me I have it, so I might see if I can write a .NET library to talk to it and use it from WMC for “now playing” as I tend to listen to music with the TV turned off… Thanks!
May 25th, 2010 at 4:04 pm