I've figured out the basics of remotely controlling Winamp from an NAD A/V Receiver.  The PC (running Winamp) is connected to the NAD A/V Receiver via serial.

The NAD A/V Receiver's infrared remote controls Winamp playback.  The A/V Receiver displays Winamp track title information on its front-panel display, and on the LCD TV connected to the A/V Receiver.  With a bit of work playlist generation/nav should also be displayed on the LCD TV as well.

Search YouTube for 'NAD Winamp' to see the above in action.

I'm pretty new to Amarok/Linux dev, but does Amarok support a similar API (or otherwise) so that it may be controlled via serial?  The NAD appears to offer a VT-100 terminal mode over its serial port.  In this mode, the LCD connected to the A/V receiver is the 'console' and the A/V receiver is the 'keyboard'.

Like Linux, and would like to switch to Amarok...

J.

We have a DCOP interface, which you can use to control Amarok from other applications. I'm not quite sure about your requirements, but maybe this is helpful:
http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/DCOP_Functions

Here's some info on using an remote control with Amarok using the above functions:
http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/RemoteControl