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
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
Kaleidescape Player / Server
By: David Bowdler
Updated: June 14, 2026
Version: 1.4
Kaleidescape Player / Server
Bring the full Kaleidescape movie experience to any RTI touch panel or hardware remote. This two-way driver controls the entire Kaleidescape line — Strato, Strato C, Strato S, Encore and Premiere players plus the Compact Terra server — over the published Kaleidescape System Control Protocol, with rich now-playing metadata and cover art delivered the instant a movie is selected.
Key Features.
- Auto-programs the RTI Media Player template: drop the template on a page and the now-playing title, cover art and transport buttons wire themselves — no manual tagging.
- Rich now-playing metadata: title, year, rating, runtime, genres, cast, director, synopsis, aspect ratio and country, fetched automatically on every on-screen selection — no polling.
- Cover artwork: standard and high-resolution cover-art URLs for hero panels.
- Full transport & navigation: play, pause, stop, skip, scan and replay, plus a complete on-screen d-pad, OK, cancel and menu.
- Browser jumps: one-tap Now Playing, Movie Covers, Movies list and Disc Vault.
- Web Object UI included: a polished single-page control surface served from the driver itself — cover-art hero card, transport, d-pad and status, with five themes plus a custom palette.
- Browse Menu for hardware remotes: a list-widget menu mirroring the Movie Covers view for ISR / T-class remotes that cannot render Web Objects.
- Live time & progress: elapsed, remaining and 0–100 progress system variables for both title and chapter.
Requirements
- RTI XP processor (XP-8 or compatible); Integration Designer 11.4+ with runtime 24+.
- A Kaleidescape player or server reachable on the local network (System Control Protocol over TCP port 10000).
- The driver and the Kaleidescape on the same subnet.
How It Works
The driver connects to the Kaleidescape over plain TCP and arms its event feed, so power, play state and full content metadata stream in real time. Bind the system variables to your UI — or simply drop RTI's standard Media Player template and let it auto-program — then add the Web Object for a complete control surface, or the Browse Menu for hardware-remote integration. It also pairs with the Smart Home Programming BEQ driver: the live title and year variables drive automatic bass-EQ profile loading as each film starts.
Kaleidescape Control Driver
Version 1.4
Supported Devices
- Kaleidescape Strato, Strato C, Strato S
- Kaleidescape Encore
- Kaleidescape Premiere players (M-Class, M500, M700, M-Box)
- Kaleidescape Compact Terra Server
- Any Kaleidescape player or server speaking the published System Control Protocol on TCP port 10000
The driver communicates via plain ASCII TCP on port 10000. No authentication required - the Kaleidescape protocol is open on the local LAN. Make sure the RTI processor and the Kaleidescape are on the same subnet, or that your router permits the 10000 TCP traffic between them.
Setup
1. In Driver Properties set the Kaleidescape player or server IP address.
2. Leave TCP Port at 10000.
3. Leave CPDID at 01 unless your installer specifically reconfigured it on a multi-device serial chain (the protocol spec says the device responds to 01 regardless of its configured CPDID, so 01 always works).
4. Save and send to processor. The driver auto-connects, sends ENABLE_EVENTS, and the device starts pushing state.
What's Special About This Driver
- Auto-fetches movie metadata - on every HIGHLIGHTED_SELECTION push from the player, the driver immediately issues GET_CONTENT_DETAILS for that handle. By the time the user presses Play, the Title, Year, Rating, Runtime, Genres, Actors, Directors, Synopsis, and Cover Art URLs are all populated as sysvars.
- Cover art ready for image widgets - the CoverArtURL and HiResCoverArtURL sysvars are written with the IMGURL type, so any RTI image widget bound to them auto-refreshes whenever a new title is highlighted.
- Web Object - browser-based control surface at http://<processor-IP>:9044/ with a Now Playing hero card showing the cover art, title, metadata, and synopsis. Plus power, transport, d-pad navigation, browser jumps, status, and 5 colour themes plus a custom palette.
- Browse Menu - hardware-remote-friendly list UI for ISR-4 and other remotes that don't render Web Objects.
- BEQ-ready - the TitleName and TitleYear sysvars are designed to be watched by the SHP BEQ driver for automatic ezbeq filter loading. The driver also signals a CONTENT_DETAILS_READY event whenever a complete metadata burst arrives.
Playback & Location Events (wire a macro to each)
The driver signals both umbrella events and discrete per-transition events. The umbrella events PLAY_STATE_CHANGED and MOVIE_LOCATION_CHANGED fire on every relevant update. The discrete events below fire only when the value actually changes, so you can wire one macro per transition without testing a sysvar.
- Playback State: PLAY_PLAYING, PLAY_PAUSED, PLAY_STOPPED, PLAY_FAST_FORWARD, PLAY_REVERSE.
- Movie Location: LOCATION_MENU, LOCATION_MAIN_CONTENT, LOCATION_INTERMISSION, LOCATION_END_CREDITS, LOCATION_DISC_MENU.
Example: drop your house-lights-up macro on LOCATION_END_CREDITS and lights-down on LOCATION_MAIN_CONTENT; or dim on PLAY_PLAYING and raise on PLAY_PAUSED.
Important Behaviour
No Wake-on-LAN needed. Unlike many AV devices, Kaleidescape players keep their network stack alive in standby. The LEAVE_STANDBY command works over TCP from any power state - no MAC address or WoL configuration required.
No authentication. The Kaleidescape protocol has no password or token system. Anyone on the LAN can issue commands, which is by design - Kaleidescape positions this as installation-time security (you control LAN access, not protocol access).
Multi-line metadata responses. GET_CONTENT_DETAILS returns one CONTENT_DETAILS_OVERVIEW line stating the row count, then N CONTENT_DETAILS rows. The driver accumulates these before writing sysvars in one batch, so widgets don't flicker between partial states.
URL-escaping in the wire protocol. Kaleidescape escapes colons and slashes inside URL fields (Cover_URL arrives as http\:\/\/...). The driver un-escapes these before writing to the IMGURL sysvars - your image widgets see clean URLs.
Multi-value fields use embedded CR. Fields like Actors and Genres are emitted with literal CR characters between values. The driver joins them with ", " for display sysvars.
Multiple clients are fine. Kaleidescape broadcasts state to every connected client. You can run this driver alongside the Kaleidescape iOS app and the in-room IR remote without conflict.
Touchpanel Wiring - Web Object
1. In Integration Designer, drop a Web Object widget on your panel.
2. Set its URL to http://<processor-IP>:9044/ (where 9044 is cfgWebUIPort).
3. Optionally bind the widget's visibility to the WebObjectVisible sysvar so a panel button can open and close it. Use the Show Web Object / Hide Web Object / Toggle Web Object exported functions to drive it from macros.
Touchpanel Wiring - Now Playing Hero Card
1. Drop an Image widget on your panel. Bind it to the HiResCoverArtURL sysvar. Set the widget's image source to "system variable" and select HiResCoverArtURL.
2. Drop text labels bound to TitleName, TitleYear, TitleRating, TitleRuntime, TitleGenres, TitleDirectors, TitleActors, TitleSynopsis as desired.
3. The labels auto-update whenever the user highlights a new item in the Kaleidescape UI.
Touchpanel Wiring - Browse Menu (for hardware remotes)
1. Drop a List widget on your panel and bind it to the BrowseList sysvar.
2. Wire the list's selection action to the Browse Select (index) function. Pass the selected list index as the parameter.
3. Wire your remote's BACK / EXIT key to the Browse Back function.
4. The menu starts on Home with categories: Power, Transport, Navigation, Now Playing, Browse Menus, Status.
BEQ Integration
1. In your BEQ RTI driver, set the Source SysVar field to TitleName from the Kaleidescape driver (Driver Properties picker, type=sysvarstring).
2. Optionally also watch the CONTENT_DETAILS_READY event to trigger an explicit BEQ search at a deterministic moment.
3. The BEQ driver's existing prefer-year / prefer-audio-type logic combined with TitleYear gives you precise filter selection without needing TMDb lookups.
Debug Console (TCP 12519)
A telnet-style debug console is built into the driver. Connect any telnet client to your processor on port 12519 (configurable). Commands: status, connect, play, pause, stop, next, prev, up/down/left/right/sel/cancel, menu, details <handle>, tx <raw>, version, mac, rlog, rlog test, plus arbitrary JavaScript evaluation. Useful for live state inspection without needing TraceView.
Remote Logging (Development)
For SHP to fault-find issues remotely, the driver can stream its log output to shpdrivers.services. Set Enable Remote Logging to true in Driver Properties. SHP can then view the live log feed at https://shpdrivers.services/dev-logs/kaleidescape/<your-MAC>/view
This is OFF by default - only enable when explicitly requested by SHP for diagnostics.
Licence
The driver runs in 120-minute trial mode without a licence key. To purchase: visit smarthomeprogramming.com.au and select the Kaleidescape driver. The licence is keyed to your processor's MAC address (one licence per processor). Paste the 32-character hex key into the Licence Key field in Driver Properties, or apply it via the Web Object's Status panel.
Port Defaults
- TCP Web Object: 9044
- TCP Debug Console: 12519
If you run multiple SHP drivers on one processor and these ports clash, change them in Driver Properties. The other SHP drivers use: Christie 9040/12515, Trinnov 9041/12516, Lumagen 9042/12517, BEQ 9043/12518.
Support
- support@smarthomeprogramming.com.au
- smarthomeprogramming.com.au
Smart Home Programming
Australia
This driver is licensed per RTI processor. A built-in 120-minute free trial runs on every load, so you can install it and prove it on your own hardware before buying.
To purchase, copy the processor MAC address from the driver's MAC For Key system variable and buy a licence key from the Smart Home Programming store. The key is tied to that processor's MAC — no internet connection or cloud account is required for the driver to validate it.