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Driver Type
Categories
- Recent Updates
- Access Control
- Amplifier
- A/V Receiver
- Climate and Pool Control
- Disc Player / Changer
- Display
- DSP
- DVR
- Irrigation / Sprinklers
- Lighting Control
- Matrix Switch
- Media Server and Player
- Multi-Room A/V
- Networking
- Power and Rack Management
- Security
- Surveillance
- Teleconferencing
- Training
- Tuner
- Utility
- Video Projector
BEQ Smart App (auto-load Bass EQ filters)
By: David Bowdler
Updated: June 15, 2026
Version: 1.3
BEQ Smart App
Bass EQ (BEQ) filters rebuild the low-frequency content that studios roll off in a film's theatrical mix — restoring the deep, room-shaking impact a dedicated cinema is built for. The catch has always been that every movie needs its own filter, and someone has to load the right one by hand before each title. The BEQ Smart App removes that step entirely: it watches what your media player is playing and automatically loads the correct BEQ filter onto your DSP the instant a film starts — matched to the exact title, release year and audio format — then clears it again when playback stops. Every movie gets its purpose-built low-end, with zero button presses and nothing for the homeowner to think about.
It is a true "smart app" driver: there is no AV device of its own to control. Instead it sits between your existing media-player driver and the community ezbeq engine, turning a plain now-playing title into a precision bass-management action. Point it at the players you already have and it simply works in the background, every night, for every film.
Key Features
- Fully automatic, hands-free: watches a media player's now-playing title system variable and loads the matching BEQ filter the moment a movie begins — no macros, no button presses, no homeowner training.
- Watches up to five players at once: point it at Apple TV, Kaleidescape, Kodi, Plex, R_volution — any source that reports a title — and it acts on whichever one starts a film. The filter is only released once every watched player has stopped, so switching rooms or sources never drops your bass mid-movie.
- 15,000+ entry catalogue: searches the community ezbeq database by title and release year. Year matching disambiguates remakes (Dune 1984 vs 2021, The Italian Job 1969 vs 2003) so you always get the filter built for the version you are actually watching.
- Preferred audio format: when a title has several BEQ entries, the driver picks the one that matches your room — Atmos, DTS:X, TrueHD 7.1/5.1, DTS-HD MA 7.1/5.1 or Dolby Digital Plus — and falls back gracefully when an exact match is not catalogued.
- Automatic clear on stop: when playback ends and the title clears, the driver releases the DSP slot automatically, so music and other sources are never left running through a movie's bass curve.
- Per-source year pairing: each of the five source slots carries its own optional year variable, so a mix of players with different metadata all match accurately.
- Manual override and direct control: a manual-override switch plus direct search, load and clear functions let you drive BEQ from a macro or button whenever you want full control instead of automation.
- Built-in Web Object: a polished browser control surface served straight from the driver — live connection status, the matched-entry card (title, year, audio format, filter count, author), manual catalogue search and load, and five colour themes. Works on iPad, RTiPanel and any browser.
- Hardware-remote Browse Menu: a list-widget control surface for ISR and T-class hardware remotes that cannot render Web Objects — drop a single tag to wire it.
- Rich two-way feedback: system variables expose the current matched title, year, audio format and filter count, the target ezbeq device and slot, connection reachability, last-search results, and full licence/trial status.
- Designed to pair with media-player drivers: the Smart Home Programming Kaleidescape, Apple TV, Kodi and R_volution drivers expose exactly the title and year variables this driver consumes.
- Robust by design: non-blocking HTTP, automatic reconnection to ezbeq, a telnet debug console for live troubleshooting, and an optional cloud-logging hook for support — off by default.
Requirements
- ezbeq (with minidsp-rs, or your DSP's ezbeq backend) running on a machine on the same LAN — typically a Raspberry Pi. Reached over HTTP, no special configuration.
- A DSP that ezbeq supports: miniDSP 2x4 HD, Monolith HTP-1, JRiver, CamillaDSP or Q-Sys.
- A media-player driver that exposes a now-playing title system variable (the SHP Kaleidescape, Apple TV, Kodi and R_volution drivers do).
- An RTI XP processor running Integration Designer 11.4 or later (minimum runtime 24).
How It Works
The moment your media player reports a new title, the driver searches the community ezbeq catalogue and finds the BEQ entry that matches the title, release year and your preferred audio format. It then instructs ezbeq, over HTTP, to load that biquad filter into the slot you have chosen on your DSP — the bass profile is live before the opening scene settles. When the title clears on playback stop, the filter is unloaded automatically and the slot is returned to neutral. Because the driver watches up to five players and only clears once all of them are idle, multi-source and multi-room systems behave exactly as you would expect.
Everything is observable and controllable: the built-in Web Object and the hardware-remote Browse Menu give you live status, manual catalogue search and one-tap load whenever you want them, while a full set of feedback variables drives your touch-panel pages. A free 120-minute trial runs without a licence so you can prove the whole chain on real gear before you buy.
BEQ Smart App RTI Driver
Version 1.2
What's New in v1.2
- Up to 5 source players. The Auto-Trigger section now has Source 1 to Source 5 title (and optional year) sysvar pickers. Point each at a different media player (e.g. Kaleidescape, R_volution, Apple TV, Kodi) and BEQ watches them all at once - it acts on whichever player starts a movie. Stopping one player no longer clears the filter while another is still playing; the filter only unloads once all watched players are stopped. Existing single-source setups are unchanged - Source 1 keeps its previous setting.
What's New in v1.1
- Manual override + active indicator. A new Auto-BEQ master switch lets you suspend automatic per-title loading so your manual choices stick (Auto-BEQ On / Off / Toggle). Plus manual BEQ On / Off / Toggle functions to apply or clear the filter by hand. For a single button that both SHOWS whether BEQ is active AND toggles it, bind the button's feedback Variable to FilterLoaded and its Command to BEQ Toggle. The Auto-BEQ state is remembered across processor reboots.
What's New in v1.0
- Auto-trigger reliability fix. The driver now reads the watched "now playing title" sysvar's live value directly when it changes, instead of relying on the change-notification's value argument (which RTI can deliver empty for a string sysvar owned by another driver). This was the cause of auto-load silently doing nothing on some systems even though the source driver was reporting titles correctly.
What's New in v0.8
- Year-aware matching. New optional "Source Year Sysvar" setting (Auto-Trigger category) – point it at the same driver's title-year sysvar (e.g. Kaleidescape's Title Year) and searches are qualified by year, so remakes match the right film (Dune 1984 vs 2021). If a year-qualified search finds nothing, the driver automatically retries with the title alone, so a stale or missing year can never block a load.
- Preferred-audio fix. When your Preferred Audio Type doesn't exist for a title (e.g. you prefer DTS:X but the catalogue only has an Atmos BEQ), the driver now correctly falls back to the best available entry instead of reporting no match.
What This Driver Does
Automatically loads the right BEQ (Bass Equalization) filter onto your DSP every time a movie starts, and clears the filter when playback stops. No more manually opening the ezbeq web UI on your phone before every screening.
What is BEQ?
BEQ filters restore the deep-bass content that film mixers roll off during post-production. The community-maintained catalogue at beqcatalogue.readthedocs.io has 15,000+ filters covering films from the last 30+ years. Originated in the AVS Forum "Bass EQ for Filtered Movies" thread (34,000+ posts, 1,700+ pages).
Required Setup
1. ezbeq running on your network. ezbeq is the open-source middleware that talks to your DSP. Install on a Raspberry Pi or any always-on machine. See ezbeq.readthedocs.io for install instructions.
2. minidsp-rs running on the same machine (only if your DSP is a miniDSP – HTP-1 / JRiver / CamillaDSP / Q-Sys are talked to directly by ezbeq). minidsp-rs translates ezbeq's HTTP commands to USB HID for the 2x4 HD.
3. A supported DSP:
- miniDSP 2x4 HD, Flex, DDRC-24, DDRC-88, HTx, SHD, 8x12 CDSP (via minidsp-rs)
- Monolith HTP-1 (direct WebSocket via ezbeq)
- JRiver Media Center (network API)
- CamillaDSP (WebSocket)
- Q-Sys (QRC protocol)
4. A source-driver sysvar to watch. The driver subscribes to a "now playing title" sysvar from another driver – typically the Kaleidescape driver from the RTI Driver Store, your Apple TV driver, Kodi driver, or any other media-player driver that exposes the current title as a string sysvar.
Setup in IDesign
1. ezbeq Connection: set Host = your ezbeq machine's IP, Port = 8080 (default), Device Name = "master" (default), Slot ID = "1" (default – uses miniDSP slot 1, leaves 2/3/4 for the user's room correction).
2. BEQ Selection: pick your Preferred Audio Type (Atmos / DTS:X / etc.). When a movie has multiple BEQ entries in the catalogue, the driver picks the one matching this audio type. Fall back to "(any)" if you don't care.
3. Auto-Trigger from Source Driver: pick the Source Title Sysvar from a dropdown. This is the sysvar the driver watches. When it changes, the driver auto-searches and loads. When it goes empty, the driver clears the filter slot. Optionally also pick the Source Year Sysvar from the same driver (e.g. Kaleidescape’s Title Year) for year-accurate matching of remakes.
4. Save and send to the processor. The driver auto-connects to ezbeq, lists available devices, and starts watching the source.
Manual Operation
You can fire searches from macros or panel buttons too:
- Trigger Manual Search: takes a title string (e.g. "Mad Max"). Searches + loads the best match.
- Trigger Manual Search With Year: takes title + year for unambiguous matching.
- Load Filter by Digest: takes a 64-char catalogue digest. Bypass search entirely.
- Clear Filter: unloads the current slot.
Manual Override (BEQ on/off button)
For a setup where you want to override the automatic behaviour:
- Auto-BEQ Off: stops the driver reacting to source-title changes, so it won't load or clear filters on its own – you're in full manual control. Auto-BEQ On resumes automatic loading. The state survives a reboot.
- BEQ On / BEQ Off / BEQ Toggle: apply or clear the filter by hand. BEQ On applies the filter for the title currently playing; if you've just toggled it off for the same title, BEQ On re-applies the exact same filter instantly.
- One-button active indicator + override: bind the button's feedback Variable to FilterLoaded (lit when a filter is active) and its Command to BEQ Toggle. Use FilterNotLoaded for "show when off" layers, and AutoEnabled/ AutoDisabled to show whether automatic mode is on.
Touchpanel Wiring – Web Object
1. Drop a Web Object on your panel.
2. Set the URL to http://<processor-IP>:9043/.
3. The Web Object shows the current filter (title, year, audio, biquad count), a manual search box, and connection diagnostics.
Touchpanel Wiring – Browse Menu (hardware remotes)
1. Drop a List widget bound to BrowseList sysvar.
2. Wire selection to Browse Select (index).
3. Wire BACK key to Browse Back.
4. Menu structure: Current Filter / Manual Load / Devices / Status.
Sysvars Exposed
- CurrentEntryTitle – current loaded filter's movie title (bind to a label)
- CurrentEntryAudio – audio type of current filter (e.g. ["Atmos"])
- CurrentEntryFilterCount – how many biquads the current filter contains
- FilterLoaded – boolean: is anything loaded right now? (BEQ active indicator)
- FilterNotLoaded – inverted FilterLoaded, for "show when off" layers
- AutoEnabled / AutoDisabled – boolean: is automatic per-title loading on or overridden?
- EzbeqReachable – boolean: is the ezbeq server responding?
- LastSearchTitle, LastSearchHits – diagnostic info from the most recent search
Events Signaled
- BEQ_LOADED – a filter was successfully loaded into the slot
- BEQ_UNLOADED – the slot was cleared
- BEQ_NO_MATCH – search found no matching filter (~50-70% of films don't have BEQ entries)
- BEQ_ERROR – the load failed (network issue, ezbeq down, etc.)
- BEQ_AUTO_ENABLED / BEQ_AUTO_DISABLED – the Auto-BEQ master switch changed
Debug Console (TCP 12518)
Telnet to processor:12518 for a JS eval console. Commands: status, devices, search TITLE, load TITLE, unload, beq on|off|toggle, auto on|off|toggle, refresh, version, mac, rlog, rlog test, plus any JS expression.
Remote Logging (Development)
Enable Remote Logging in Driver Properties for SHP to tail the live log at https://shpdrivers.services/dev-logs/beq/<your-MAC>/view. Off by default.
About Catalogue Coverage
Roughly 50-70% of typical Kaleidescape / streaming library titles will have NO matching BEQ entry. This is normal. The driver logs the no-match, signals BEQ_NO_MATCH, and leaves any previously loaded filter in place. New filters are added by the AVS Forum community every week.
Licence
The driver runs in 120-minute trial mode without a licence key. To purchase: smarthomeprogramming.com.au. MAC-keyed per-processor.
Support
- support@smarthomeprogramming.com.au
- smarthomeprogramming.com.au
Smart Home Programming
Australia
Free 120-minute trial. The driver is fully functional for 120 minutes after every processor restart, so you can install it, wire it up and prove the complete BEQ chain on real hardware before buying. During the trial all features work normally — automatic matching, filter loading, the Web Object and the Browse Menu.
Purchasing a licence. For permanent use, buy a licence key from smarthomeprogramming.com.au/store. The key is generated from your RTI processor's MAC address — shown in the driver's MAC For Key system variable — and is locked to that single processor. One key covers one processor. Enter it in the driver's Licence Key setting in Integration Designer.
Privacy & reliability. Licence validation is entirely local — the driver never phones home and needs no internet connection to run. After the key is entered the driver is permanently licensed on that processor. If the trial lapses without a key, the automatic BEQ filter loading pauses while live status and feedback keep running; entering a valid key restores full operation immediately.
Support. Setup help and troubleshooting are available from Smart Home Programming at smarthomeprogramming.com.au.