ADAU1701 Output Level Detection over i2c

So .. what I am trying to do is read the output level of a channel on the 1701 over i2c and display a VU meter style bar graph on an LCD

I have tried adding a level meter to the schematic like so:

this is the "low MIPS" level indicator, which should be fairly light on DSP instructions ... except in the various output files, I can't find any reference to it.  Some other docs refer to the data capture register, but I am not sure if this is relevant.

So ... whats a good way to read level data out of the 1701 and display it on the LCD ??