Chieftec Hi-Fi HM02 - iMon VFD will not work with DVBViewer

[12die4]

Hi there,

a couple of days ago I built my own HTPC with a Chieftec Hi-Fi HM02 casing. It has an iMon VFD Module (with two knobs: volume + navigation) at the front. I had already done some research about how to get the display working with DVBViewer, with is the center for all HTPC functions. Luckily, there is an iMon VFD/LCD plug-in for DVBViewer available, so I thought the job would be easy. However, the plug-in won't work. I have deactivated the iMon FrontView feature, so the two programs wont interfere with each other. I also tried starting the plug-in before iMon. The result remains the same: The plug-in says that no iMon VFD was detected.

I already read about SoundGraphs decision to remove the plug-in mode feature of iMon software, which frankly is a pretty crappy decision, to say the least, but apparently there are a couple of users, still able to use the iMon plug-in for DVBViewer.
So why doesn't it work on my HTPC? Is there maybe a trick to get it working? Which software and firmware version does work and where can I find it? Is it possible to flash other firmware onto the module in order to enable the DVBViewer plug-in?

Some additional information:
- iMon Manager ver 7.85.0222
- iMon Firemware ver 0x360201 VFD HID OEM

[12die4]

Can no one help me? I have tried copying the SG_VFDU.dll in the iMon folder into the folder containing the DVBViewer iMon plugin. The plugin now states, that it detected the iMon VFD. But I still can't display any program information!?!

Can someone tell me what changed in the latest firmware and iMon software releases? Maybe there is a way to reactivate the plugin functionality...

[johnny.hur]

Dear 12die4,

As I said in your other thread, we released VFD Plug-in API 5~6 years ago and it works with old iMON product. And the current models use the different driver (HID Composite Device driver) and regret to say, there is no way to make it work with old VFD Plug-in API.

We added this issue to our “To Do List (http://www.soundgraph.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45)”. But currently the schedule for this feature is not fixed. If we make a fixed plan for it later, we’ll revise “To Do List”. Please check it later.

Regards,
Johnny Hur

[12die4]

Hello,
I just want to give you a little update. The iMon plug-in still won't work with my iMon VFD. However the developer of the DVBViewer plug-in was able to get a little closer to a functioning display. It seems the plug-in uses the original DLLs of FrontView (in my case SG_VFDU.dll), so he suggested I could overwrite the DLL included in the latest plug-in version with the original Soundgraph DLL of my iMon Software. Now the plug-in is able to detect the VFD. However, as I already wrote, displaying information still won't work. The display stays blank. Do the latest versions of iMon use a special charset or could anyone of you tell me what changed in the recent releases? Obviously the new DLL handles the VFD differently to the older versions. My guess is, the DLL architecture has changed in a way that the subroutines of the plug-in are unable to access all of the DLLs features. The question is: How?

[johnny.hur]

Dear 12die4,

The current SG_VFDU.dll is the different version of SG_VFD.dll for VFD API. There are lots of changes and SG_VFDU.dll can’t work with VFD API call. Please wait for a while. We’ll deeply consider offering this feature in the near future.

Regards,
Johnny Hur

[12die4]

Hello, I noticed that display support for XBMC (and some other) was added in the latest beta release. From hereon it should be an easy job to add DVBViewer support aswell. Are you guys working on that? Here is a link to the current solution, created by another DVBViewer user. Unfortunately, as mentioned above and unlike for most other users, this plug-in won't do the job on my iMon VFD. Obviously you guys must have made some changes.

http://www.dvbviewer.info/forum/index.php?showtopic=12164

[johnny.hur]

Dear 12die4,

In order to support DVBViewer information, DVBViewer should have the feature sending information to the external application like Media Center, Winamp, XBMC and MPC-HC. First of all, we need to check this. If DVBViewer supports this feature, we’ll add it “To Do List (http://www.soundgraph.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45)”. Please check it later.

Regards,
Johnny Hur