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Matthew Holder edited this page Dec 27, 2019 · 2 revisions

About BridgeCmdr

BridgeCmdr was created to help retro-gamers who use professional A/V matrix switches and broadcast or professional monitors by handling the channel and tie changes of these devices when getting ready to game. It was created for and currently only released for the Raspberry Pi running Raspbian and equipped with a touchscreen.

A sample setup may contain several game consoles connected to an Extron Crosspoint matrix switch that routes output to a Sony BVM or PVM series monitor. These setups can require lots of tie changes on the switch and selecting the right channel on the monitor. This can be even more complicated if the audio must always go to a single output channel separate from the video output channel.

Installation

Installation is really easy. After setting up your Raspberry Pi with Raspbian, you will need to download the latest installation package from the releases section. Once the download is complete, you can install via either by double-clicking the file on the Raspberry Pi desktop, or open a terminal on the Raspberry Pi and running sudo apt install bridgecmdr_1.0.0-8636_armhf.deb -y.

Setup

How you setup up BridgeCmdr with a Raspberry Pi will mostly personal preference but, you must have a touchscreen attached to the Raspberry Pi. I would recommend the official touchscreen. You will likely also want a case for your setup that can hold both the Raspberry Pi and the touchscreen. For that, I would recommend the SmartPi Touch if you are using the official touchscreen.

You will also need some additional devices to connect you Raspbeery Pi to the swtiches and monitors. You will need to read the setup documentation for the device from Switches and Monitors

First Run

Once you've install the program, you can run it from the terminal with bridgecmdr. Once it starts, it will ask if you to automatically start it with your Raspberry Pi. After that, you configure the BridgeCmdr, you are good to go.

Configuration

Configuration of the program is handled under the Settings screen. You can access this by tapping or clicking the wrench/spanner button on the main selection button screen.

For more information,

  • Switches; for the switches and monitor to be controlled.
  • Sources; A/V sources connected to the switches and monitor.
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