Jinx! protects itself by checking the validity and ownership of the code signing certificate on every start. This step has been necessary, because people started to patch out copyright strings and tried to use Jinx! in an illegal way. So since I sign my binaries, you can be sure that the software your are using is from me and didnt get patched or manipulated in any way.

So if the check on startup fails, it may have two reasons. First of all, the binary has been patched or modified by a human beeing or a computer virus. So make sure you use a clean version directly from my website.

The second reason the check may fail is an outdated root certificate database inside windows. Until XP you have to download (or use windows update) the last root certificate package from microsoft and install it inside your windows. Since Windows Vista the root certificates inside windows gets updated automatically. So if you have Windows Vista or newer, be sure your computer have an internet connection on the first startup of Jinx!. If windows dont have the correct root certificate it will automatically download it from the Microsoft servers (be sure your firewall dont blocks the windows update server http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/) and install it inside your local certification store and Jinx! should start without any problems. After that you dont need any internet connection on your PC to start and use Jinx!, because the updated root certificate resides inside your local certification store.

This has nothing to do with Jinx!, its the way the Microsoft certificate store works since Vista. Jinx! itself never use any internet connection.

The Capture Webcam engine will use wdm/direct show based devices, which normally means a local connected (usb) webcam. If your ip camera is able to produce mjpeg (most cameras are able to do this) you can use a small and free direct show filter written by Roman Ryltsov to turn you ip device into a direct show device. You will get more info and the download option on Roman Ryltsov blog: http://alax.info/blog/1216

The AVI Player inside Jinx! depends on the Video for Windows API, so you need to install the needed VfW codecs for your AVIs. The best starting point ist to install the ffdshow codecs: http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/

Be sure to activate the „VfW Interface“ while installing to get the VfW codecs. After installing the codec start the VfW configuration. Here you can activate a lot of codecs which will not get activated automatically. Choose the decoder tab, click in the left pane on codec and you can simply choose a right click in the right pane and select „set all stable formats to libavcodec“. This will activate nearly all codecs you will ever need to get your AVIs running within Jinx!

When you try to get the VfW Codecs into Windows 8(.1) you should use an older release, because there is a bug in the newer releases from ffdshow:  ffdshow_rev4499_20130104_clsid.exe

As always, try to contact me. Im open for new ideas. If you miss an output protocol or a specific output device like a USB2DMX converter, ask me. If its interessting and makes sense, I surely will think about implementing it.

Jinx! will record the default capturing device which is activated within your windows installation. You can control this inside the sound/audio options in the windows control panel. If your audio source is within the same pc (e.g. you are playing your music with winamp/media player or whatever on the same pc) you have to activate a loop back on your sound card to capture the master out. Not every soundcard (driver) has such an option, if your sound card doesnt support this you have to use a additional software like vb-cable: http://vb-audio.pagesperso-orange.fr/Cable/

Screen capturing within Windows is very cpu intensive, windows has to synchronize the whole display with all visual effects before it can take the screen shot which will be used by Jinx! (or any other application that uses screen capturing). With active desktop effects like windows aero the time a single screenshot/capture needs is extremly high. So if you want to use screen capturing without getting a too high cpu load or timing problems, be sure to switch off the desktop effects (especially aero) within your windows.

Because a few generators will break if the matrix only has 1px in a direction, the minimum allowed pixel size is 4. But that doesnt really matter, if you want to control a stripe with 100 LEDs you can size the matrix inside Jinx! to 100 x 4 pixel and simply only patch one of those 4 rows to your interface. If you further activate the „Use Patch State for Pixel drawing“ switch inside the Matrix Options, you will only see this single row inside the previews.

No, Jinx! is a native windows application and depends directly on the win32 API without any crossplattform framework in between. It also uses some specific windows functions, like GDI(+) and VfW, so there will be no port available for any other system.

Whatever you want to tell me, feel free to contact me via email or inside the led-styles.de board. I’m always happy to get some feedback and I’m always open for new ideas and thoughts. But please do me a favour and try to contact me in english if you dont speak german. Dont try to translate your mother language into german with the help of online translators, mostly the result is so crappy that I am not able to understand it 😉

If you like Jinx! and use it, its already a big donation for me. Jinx! is a spare time project and I dont want to earn money with it, thats why I dont accept money based donations. If you like Jinx!, I’m simply happy to get some words by mail maybe with some pictures or vids of your installations.