mccoy178

28th November 2005 18:33 UTC

Sending out song name to a betabright sign
I am not sure if I'm in the right place. I was wondering if anyone had a working visualization that would send either sound bars or song info to a beta bright sign. Take a look at my arcade machine below to see what I mean. If someone could develop a plugin, they would be a hero to many people in our little arcade community!

http://www.ohiostate.photosite.com/M...de/?topFrame=1 :D

^..^

28th November 2005 18:59 UTC

First of all welcome to the forums. :)

Actually i don't think that this part of the forum is the right place for your request. Cause you obviously need a plugin that reads the title information from the playing song (simplest would be as text) and then converts it so that your led-sign can display it. I'm pretty sure that there already are plugins that extract the current title infos, but you still need to know how the interface of your sign works. :confused:

So after all i'm not sure if AVS or any other visualisation is the thing you're looking for. I mean, they are just visualisation plugins, producing nice music-reactive graphics. So all you would ever get from this kind of plugin (as sort of output) are running pictures...

jheriko

28th November 2005 21:26 UTC

you need to provide a LOT more info.

firstly what are you running that will output to that screen, if its windows then maybe someone can help you... maybe.

if you know how that thing is programmed it would help too...

does that sign ever output anything which depends on the game? because if it doesnt you are basically screwed, because it likely cant be fed from external data and is just hardwired to scroll some text

JFASI

28th November 2005 22:31 UTC

That's an interesting idea for a preset, though...

^..^

28th November 2005 23:11 UTC

There already are a few presets like that (or similar). But unfortuantely i'm too lazy (and tired) to search for them... ;)

JFASI

29th November 2005 01:16 UTC

I could make one, but...I'm too lazy too.

mccoy178

29th November 2005 07:02 UTC

Thanks for the nice welcome. There are programs out there to send the name of the game to the beta bright. Here is the key numbers to send a signal to the beta bright: 9600,n,1,8. I am using windows xp. I know that someone had a very basic code for this before, but it was over my head how they made it work.

I can't stress enough how big a deal this would be if someone could make something the village idiot could plug and play with. I would be willing to share my knowledge of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulation) and all the I have on other machine emulation and share all that I have.

www.byoac.com is a good source for arcade emulation. If you fellas want to know something, I'll find the answer, so get your lazy asses moving!:D

http://www.ohiostate.photosite.com/~...4320000000.jpg

jheriko

29th November 2005 08:34 UTC

Is it connected via a network connection?

Or USB/PCI or something like that?

If you can find out how the interface works in code then I can prolly help you if its winxp.. like, does it provide an API, or do you need to do some low level assembler hax?

Also, do you want a winamp plugin? Or... a stand alone exe?

mccoy178

29th November 2005 17:46 UTC

mama cita this is exciting. I don't have everything in front of me, but I will tonight. I will post all the info I have on this. I know that for what we use, the beta bright is connected via comm1 and uses the setting 9600,n,1,8. Also, a text is sent to the beta bright with certain characters in front of the message and in the back to tell the sign when to start and when to stop. But again, I will post all the info I have later.

Thanks a ton,
McCoy178

StevenRoy

29th November 2005 21:15 UTC

"9600,n,1,8"

Yup, those are serial port connection settings. In fact, those are "the" serial port connection settings; the standard settings that are almost always used for this sort of thing.

It should be an extremely simple matter to write a WinAmp plugin that will connect to the serial port and send information to the sign. The only challenge will be determining what data needs to be sent, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if a Google search finds us all the information we'd need in order to do that.

("Google search: The next best thing to knowing stuff!")

I'm sure it's also possible for an AVS plugin (an "APE") to do this, but I think it's a task much better suited for a stand-alone WinAmp plugin.

(It would be really cool, though, to be able to send some actual AVS output to such a sign. Considering the interface, though, I doubt that's supported. I guess that's what the monitor's for, huh?)

JFASI

29th November 2005 21:18 UTC

Hold on, do you want to emulate an arcade machine on a PC, or get the sign on top to display song name? Cuz I'm just a bit confused...

StevenRoy

29th November 2005 22:49 UTC

I think the intention is to have a PC running WinAmp inside an arcade case (like the one in the photo above). While a visualization is being displayed on the monitor, the LED sign above can show the name of the song being played.

This is quite similar to what (I assume) is in that photo: The MAME arcade machine emulator displaying the name of the current game on the LED sign, while the game itself is displayed on the screen, ready to be played by anyone with quarters.

Now you've almost got me wanting a system like that.

mccoy178

30th November 2005 05:38 UTC

Here is a pic of the inside of the cabinet. It is just a regular computer with multiple machine emulation. Tell me what info you need for the beta bright stuff, and I will provide it. I started to think about it tonight, and I have no clue what you need.

http://www.ohiostate.photosite.com/~...4696016000.jpg

jheriko

30th November 2005 07:32 UTC

Does it already have a driver? Or does someone need to make one? If so... what does the driver provide..., if not, do you know what messages need to be sent to make it work?

I could write something to turn the screen (serial port) on and off... but thats about it atm :P

JFASI

30th November 2005 22:27 UTC

Hmmm... That is pimpin'.

jheriko

3rd December 2005 13:53 UTC

btw, if you want to test it out try using debug to send stuff to the screen.

jgildert

22nd May 2006 09:48 UTC

TS did you ever sort this out, as I might be able to help you.

Basic knowledge of VB is advisable (as per myself :P)

JG

:cool:

jheriko

24th May 2006 03:04 UTC

he disappeared

lol, basic knowledge of vb...

PAK-9

24th May 2006 13:06 UTC

Originally posted by jgildert
Basic knowledge of VB is advisable (as per myself :P)