Peripherals settings

 

Applies to the DSOS players, except DiVA (see the “Peripherals settings on DiVA” page for details).

Description

The "Peripherals" page of Control Center allows configuring settings related to the serial port and the USB ports. It contains the following sections:

• Serial
• Serial Port Automation
• USB
• Capture (HMP400/W and iBX players only).

Serial

 

This feature requires the WIDGETS Feature Set or higher on the compatible DSOS players.

Peripherals → Serial

This section contains settings related to the serial port of the player.

• Enable serial port

  Enable/disable the usage of the serial port. Default: enabled.

• Device (added in DSOS 4.9.0)

  Select from the list of serial devices connected to the player. Defaults to “Any USB-to-Serial Adapter” for HMP400/W and “Built-in Serial Port” for iBX players.

• Baud rate

  Set the baud rate/speed of the serial communication. Default: 9600.

• Data bits

  Set the number of data bits per character. Default: 8.

• Parity

  Set the parity bit in each character. Default: none.

• Stop bits

  Set the number of stop bits per character as 0, 1, or 2 (added in DSOS 4.9.0). Defaults to 1.

Serial Port Automation

This section allows configuring whether a serial port protocol file should be used by the player when communicating over the serial port. Different settings are displayed depending on the value selected from the drop-down box labeled "Settings", as following:

• Disabled

  Select this to disable the usage of serial port protocol files.

  Note that if the serial port is enabled, it is still possible to send and receive RS232 data using the JavaScript COM API.

• Simple (added in firmware 4.0.1)

  Select this to be able to enter one or more simple commands for screen control, to be sent over the serial port.

• Advanced

  Select this to be able to enable the usage of serial port protocol files.

Note:

To schedule the execution of the "PowerOn" & "PowerOff" commands, go to Display & Audio → Power page.

Simple settings

Automation - Simple

After selecting "Simple" from the drop-down box labeled "Settings", you can enter one or more simple commands for screen control, to be sent over the serial port, as following:

1. Enter the name of the command.

   It could be "PowerOn", "PowerOff", "MuteOn", or "MuteOff" (these are compatible with the screen control widgets from Elementi), or another custom name depending on the screen specification.

2. Enter the command data string to be sent to the screen.

   See the note below for more details about the string syntax.

3. Optionally, click the "Add" button to add another entry in the list of commands. To remove a command, click on the orange x button next to the command you want to remove.
4. Click the "Apply" button to apply the new serial port commands.

Note:

This setting requires a Feature Set to be activated on the player.

Any character in the command data string can be escaped using its hex-encoded character code, prefixed with \x, as following:

• The end of line symbol ('\n') has character code 0A in hex, so it must be written as '\x0A'.
• The byte string '7E 50 4E 0D' must be written as '\x7E\x50\x4E\x0D'.
• XML notation (like 
), single character escape sequences (like '\r') and FSM %c{...} notation (like %c{13}) are automatically converted (for instance to '\x0D').
• Printable ASCII chars can be used without encoding ( i.e. 'PowerOff\x0A' ).

See the complete documentation for the protocol string syntax.

Custom commands are triggered using sendComPort() JavaScript function.

Advanced settings

 

Applies to HMP350, HMP400/HMP400W, and iBX players. It requires SYSTEMS Feature Set.

Automation - Advanced

After selecting "Advanced" from the drop-down box labeled "Settings", you can enable the usage of serial port protocol files, as the following:

1. Click the "Add Protocol File" button and upload your custom protocol file.
2. Select the radio option under the "Active" column, next to the desired protocol file.
3. Click the "Apply" button to apply the changes.

Notes:

• The player comes with four built-in protocol files (prefixed with "[sys]"): three for LG LF65, Panasonic plasma, and Sharp Aquos screens, and one for GPS data integration with devices compatible with the NMEA-0183 standard.
• If some commands were added using the simple settings described above, then these commands are added into a protocol file called "simple".
• The custom serial port protocol files can be removed from the player by clicking on the orange x button, from the "Delete" column, next to the protocol file you want to remove.

USB

This section lists the USB devices connected to the player.

Peripherals - USB

At the top of the section, there are two checkbox settings, both disabled by default:

• USB I/O API

  Enable/disable the USB I/O API support on this player. This API allows interacting with USB HID class devices (such as general purpose I/O devices, thermometers, relays, sensors, modern game controllers and joysticks, exercise machines, telephony devices, audio controls, medical instrumentation, etc.) from the JavaScript code. This option requires a SYSTEMS Feature Set on DSOS players.

• Use external USB drive to store content

  Enable/disable using connected USB drives to store content, either for plug & play or as as permanent player storage. This option no longer requires a SYSTEMS Feature Set starting with DSOS 4.7.4.

All USB storage devices connected to the player are listed underneath, each “USB Device # n” cell showing information about how the player is using that device, the USB storage size, and a few action buttons.

Used as	Details
Not currently in use	This appears when the USB device is detected, but is not used.
Updates	This appears when the USB drive is detected to contain firmware update files.
Local Storage	This appears when the USB drive is FAT32 and used in plug & play mode. The following message is also displayed: “USB storage must be specially formatted to use it as writable local storage, otherwise it is used as read-only”.
Local Storage, Streaming Captures	This appears when the USB drive is ext4 and used as permanent writable local storage.

The buttons have the following effects:

Button	Action
Format	Click this button to format the USB storage.
Disconnect	Click this button to disconnect the USB device from the player, before physically removing it. This is highly recommended, as the the USB storage device is in write mode.
Publish USB Content	Click this button to copy the content present on the USB device to the player's internal storage.
Copy to USB	Click this button to copy the content present on the player local storage to the USB storage device.

Format the USB storage

Formatting the USB storage device clears any existing data and turns it into a permanent writable local storage. Its file system format is set to ext4, natively supported on Linux; for other operating systems, there are tools like GNOME Partition Editor, EaseUS Partition Master, Paragon Hard Disk Manager, Ext2Fsd, Explore2fs, etc.

The process is as follows:

1. Plug the USB device into the player and wait for it to be detected.
2. Press the Format button.
3. A message will be shown indicating the format is in progress. Wait for the formatting to be completed (the duration depends on the size of the USB storage). For instance, for a 250 GB drive the duration is approximately 4–5 minutes.
4. Unplug and re-plug the formatted USB storage device for the change to take effect. Alternatively you may restart the system for the change to take effect.
5. Refresh the page in your browser.

Note:

The maximum supported size of the external USB storage device is around 2 TB for HMP350 and HMP300.

Capture

 

Applies to HMP400, HMP400W, iBX410, iBX410W and iBX440.

Peripherals → Capture

Whenever a video capture device is connected to an HMP400/W or iBX player through USB, it will appear under this section. Since multiple such devices can be plugged in the same time, for instance through a USB hub, it's recommended to assign them a numeric index, this way each capture device can be referenced through that index when using the video-in layer in Elementi.

Note:

After an index has been assigned, the capture device will remain in the list, even when the device is no longer connected. To avoid that, remove its index, click "Apply", restart the player, and the device will disappear from the list.

See also

• Control Center
• Peripherals settings on DiVA
• Serial port, Serial port protocol file
• Storage
• USB port
• Content Settings 3.x, I/O Automation for legacy players