From: Andreas Stemmer <Andreas.Stemmer_at_web.de>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 16:54:15 +0200

> The problem with that is that it would require the remote to
> 'poll' the Archos for screen updates, even when there are
> none. This would drain the battary in the remote.

Yes that's true, but I think it's the best way, because it is very
simple and doesn't need many changes in the archos firmware. The
jukebox's remote commands have to be extended a little bit, because most
of us want to have every function remote controlled and we need one
command for data request. The whole thing would be compatible to the
standard remotes from archos, just extended.

If you try to send data from the jukebox to the remote without the
remote knowing, you'll get problems if you use the standard remote
control from archos or any other solution that doesn't expect data to be
transmitted.
One could think of a "tell me if something changed" message as well,
which should be transmitted in a very short time, reducing the traffic
(and power consumption) if there are no changes.

With the data-request commands, you'll have the advantage of being
totally free concerning the type of data beeing transmitted. I have a
sony car stereo for example which can display only one line of text.
Most of the time, this should be the song title, of course, but I can
imagine I want to have the album title or artist sometimes. The car
stereo has got a button "display" for that, which cycles through
different settings (a cd with cd-text displays artist - album - track
title). When connecting my archos to the car stereo, I mostly need the
song title and nothing else. This could be done perfectly with
data-request commands. If the next song starts and the display doesn't
change instantly would not be a big problem for me but could be solved
with shorter polling times.

Andreas Stemmer
Received on 2002-10-03