Motherboard HTPC header

[liteswap]

I recently revamped my entire hardware platform (see the sig) but am frustrated still by the sheer paucity of information about Intel's HTPC header with its recording LED. I've tried LEDSdriver but it doesn't seem to work - has anyone seen or found any other way to get this feature on my shiny new motherboard to light up an LED when recording?

Thanks

[mvallevand]

Does NextPVR even support the events the same way WMC does?

Martin

[pBS]

they do have code available to make the software to signal it..
"or those who are interested in the RECORDING_LED’s simple on/off status indicator LcdWriter supports it currently."
"General-purpose signal output to indicate when an event is triggered by the operating system. TA transistor amplifies the signal. Intel can provide sample code for customers who want to write their own applications leveraging this signal."
from http://www.intel.com/support/motherboard...034631.htm
Download for WMC https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/22034

[liteswap]

Any thoughts on whether it could be made to work using eg events from NScriptHelper.exe along with eg LcdWriter (which seems to me to more akin to LCD Smartie - ie writing to multi-pixel displays)?

[pBS]

with some 'sample code from Intel' i'm sure it would be trivial to make something up..
there already exists a plugin for LcdWriter, so i'm pretty sure nothing else would be needed..
but a nice small standalone util would be better..
there is a bit of wiring needed in addition to the led, a small resistor should be all i believe...

[liteswap]

I have LEDs by the score, even more 1k-Ohm resistors, soldering skills and a chunk of veroboard. All I need is the code to make it all work, something I don't feel competent to do (BASIC & AutoIt are my limit)...

[pBS]

if you get a code sample from intel, i'm sure someone would help with it..
may even be doable in autoit..

[liteswap]

I've found a workaround for this, using the existing power LED and the serial port, together with LEDSdriver - which does work.

Here's how: connect the LED plug to pins 3 & 5 (Tx & GND) of the serial port header, making sure you have the polarity correct - Tx is the positive terminal or anode) configure LEDSdriver to use device LED 3 and use nPVR's parallelprocessing.bat and postprocessing.bat to enable and disable respectively a userevent, which in turn switches the LED on while recording, off when finished.

I've yet to set it up to handle two tuners (as in my setup) so that one recording that finishes before another simultaneous recording doesn't switch off the LED, but that should be trivial using nScriptHelper.exe.

Mission accomplished.