Control your PopcornHour NMT with Android & iPhone?

Don't you just hate it all these RC's lying around? Offcourse you could invest your money in a Logitech Harmony remote and program all your remotes into it. Recently though I found a cheaper solution and maybe you like it even more compared to the logitech solution. However befor I continue I must admit I got a Logitech harmony... argh... there goes credability . Anyway controlling your popcorn media centre with your Android phone or Iphone does have some benefits. For example if you want to listen to some music you don't have to turn on the TV to scroll through your play list.

So how does it work?

Well you have to install some software on your popcorn media centre. Then you can use the webbrowser (with Wifi connection) on your android device or iphone to acces the remote control program installed on the popcorn media centre.

Requirements:

• Popcorn media centre with Wifi or Wired LAN
• Android or Iphone with Wifi switched on
• Wlan router
• NMT Community software installer  (Windows or linux version here, Mac OSX (Intel based) version here)

Installing the NMT Community software

Be for you start installing the community software you need to check the following depending on the OS you use.

• If you run Windows you must have Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 and up or Mono 2.4 installed. If that's not the case you can download it here.
• If you run Mac OSX you must have Mono Framework 2.4 and X11 installed installed. If that's not the case you can download it here & here.

Right if you got that down then installing the NMT Community software should be like a walk in the park. The only info that you need to enter is the IP adres from the Popcornhour in your network i.e. 192.168.1.11 and the FTP login, the default account info for a popcornhour is username: ftpuser pass:1234. Then keep on clicking next until it says completed and finish installation.

Using the NMT Community software and installing the Mediatankcontroller tool

The NMT Community software actually is a portal where NMT developers upload their apps, themes and custom build webservices too. One of the tools is the Mediatankcontroller app. However I can stronly recommend to look in the other apps and themes aswell. Just to give you a hint I prefer the "Tune HDD for silence" app and "lighttpd". Here are some screenshots from the interface.

Now when you've started the NMT Community software go to the tab "applications" from the list select "MediatankController 1.0" and click on next. Follow the instructions and the tool will be installed. Now the fun part starts.

Start the browser on your iphone or android phone. Then type in the following adres:

http://[IP address]:9999/MediatankController_web/
Make sure that you use the IP adres from your popcornhour media centre.

Now you should see the MediatankController program in your browser like so:

So there you have it, your own Iphone or Android device as a wlan mediatankcontroller for you popcornhour media centre. Please don't thank me but thank the genius who actually build this nice app! He is Niels Leenheer and you can find him on the wonderfull NMT forum.