Pioneer VSX-1131 or 831 support

Hi again.

So it appears that port 60128 is the one being used by the iControlAV app.

The bad news: Those commands aren't standard Pioneer commands. They bear a strong resemblance to standard Pioneer commands, but are formatted very differently. For instance, the command "!1MVL82" resembles the standard volume change message "VOL082". The "ISCP$!1FLD..." commands resemble the standard "FL..." display data status update messages.

Since it's not using standard Pioneer commands, the plugin can't really be easily adapted to work with it. It'd be more than simply changing the telnet connection port. Plus, those commands aren't (yet) documented anywhere, so updating the extensive command list within the plugin would be a complete trial-and-error affair.

You might check to see if there's a firmware update for the 1131. I doubt an update would change the feature set, but you never know. If Indigo integration is important, you could use some kind of Indigo controlled IR blaster to send remote control commands to it. You could also do some packet sniffing between the iControlAV app and the 1131 to figure out the command format and responses, then write your own plugin (or heavily modify the Pioneer Receiver one) to work with it.

Or... you could downgrade to the VSX-1130 which still uses the standard Pioneer command set (based on their Custom Install online documentation anyway).

Damn you pioneer, you had to go ruin it didn't you? If I ever meet the manager who signed off on this change they're gonna lose their front teeth...

Indigo integration isn't absolutely essential for control as I already use a harmony elite with plugin to handle changing source, etc.. however it is very important to me to be able to read certain statuses such as volume level, which I could probably work out based on the current dumps of data but that's gonna be a lot of effort.

I'll investigate the option of a 1130 but as they seem to sell for more than a 1131 that'd be frustrating.

(Oh and it already installed the latest firmware when I did initial setup. Checked again and nothing else to add)

Hi guys,

Time to resurrect this zombie thread
It IS possible to communicate with the VSX-1131 receiver through the network.

The VSX-1131 listens (as you correctly assumed) on port 60128 by default. But here's the rub: They did change the protocol, and the 2016+ products now use a protocol called eISCP - it is a remarkably simple protocol, but it does require a bit of research. The Onkyo receivers use this protocol as well, and it may prove easier to find documentation on those rather than the VSX-1131.

You can connect to port 60128 through a standard raw socket - it works exactly as telnet has always done, it's just the header and command set that changed a bit.

Hopefully this can help you a bit further

See that's interesting, I did look into trying the yoko ono protocols for it but had no joy.

Either 1 - I'm an idiot

Or

2 - the EU variants are different

I suspect more likely option 1. I'll give it another look at the weekend.

Err onkyo. The Yoko Ono av receiver refuses to play Beatles songs.

Let me know how it works out for you - I have a client underway that talks just fine with the VSX-1131, so if you hit a dead end, maybe I can help out.

I found this thread while searching for information on exactly this problem, and figured I'd sign up and throw in my 2 cents now that I finally found a solution.
I don't know how you plan to/are interfacing with the AVR, but I have it running with C# in a Universal Windows application meant for Windows IOT (home theatre remote application)

To be fair you'd be better discussing such things with nsheldon if he's interested. My development abilities are exceptionally limited. I'd suspect he probably won't make much in the way of changes to the plugin until he gets a new receiver (perhaps I'll buy him one if I win the lottery some day

@reqpro: I'm afraid @durosity's insight is accurate. I don't really have the time (or motivation) to spend on rewriting the plugin to support a new communication protocol, and the only motivator likely to get me to find more time would be to get a new receiver that only worked with the new protocol.

The Pioneer Receiver plugin is published on GitHub, though, if you, or some Python developer you know, would like to contribute/rewrite it to work with the new "eISCP" protocol. I believe there's at least 1 plugin by another author on this forum for the Onkyo receivers. You might also see if you can get that plugin to work with the new Pioneer receiver.

I've found that the Onkyo plugin seems to work with my receiver (not tested it properly yet but the basics seem to work). Turns out it wasn't working before because for some reason it was taking the same IP address as my GC100.. some devices were seeing it, some weren't! Thanks for confirming that it did use the elSCP protocol