MediaPlayer Plugin/STV Import: Winamp Media Player Plugin

[deria]

Any luck with the version I sent you Gerry?

[deria]

I have released version 1.5 of this plugin:

1.5 (bug fixes) / 5-dec-2005

1. The mechanism used to load files has been changed. Due to the way Winamp functions (it does not block; if you tell it to load a file, it returns immediately even though the file is not yet loaded) the new plan is to load the file, mute the winamp volume, start playback, pause playback, restore the volume, and then repeatedly poll Winamp for the song duration (which will only result in a value >= 0 when the song is fully loaded and ready to go). Argh.

PROBLEM SUMMARY

So far people have reported problems falling into 3 categories:

1) general playback

There should be no issues with regard to general playback at this point. If you have any difficulty playing back a single song or a SageTV playlist, please contact me. This is the most critical aspect of the plugin, and it needs to be rock solid.

2) visualizations

Visualizations appear to work very well for most people. If you are having trouble with visualizations, contact me and I'll try to help you sort them out. There are some notes in the first post of this thread that will help you with visualizations.

3) specialized playback (.m3u / .pls playlists)

It is my understanding that the only way to work with these types of playlists is by importing them directly into SageTV (in which case they will be SageTV playlists). This should work at this time. If it doesn't work for you, please contact me. Please note that the only type of playlists that are expected to work are playlists that are imported into SageTV.

If you are experiencing a problem not related to one of the 3 above issues, please let me know because that would mean its not yet on my radar. I am hoping that this release will work much better for people than the 1.4 release did -- it certainly can't be much worse.

[Todd33]

How do you DL it from the DL page, I don't see any links or DL buttons. Is it disabled for some reason?

[deria]

Originally Posted by Todd33

How do you DL it from the DL page, I don't see any links or DL buttons. Is it disabled for some reason?

The link is at the very bottom. It says "download here" and its beneath the white text field, browse, and add image buttons. Thats just the way the download system is setup, but it took me a minute to find it myself the first time.

[Keith]

Deria -

Thanks again for your help offline.

Awesome. This is what it should have been from day one. I hope Sage compensates you for your great work.

For anyone else having trouble with visulizations - I had to make changes both to sage.properties and sageclient.properties to get them working.

[owilsky]

I don't get it.

1) Press Control+Shift+F12 to open SageTV Studio.
2) Click "File --> Import".
3) Import the "WinampHelperMenu.stv" file, which (in a default installation) is located in "c:\program files\sagetv\sagetv\stvs\sagetv3").
4) Scroll down to the "SongsbyArtist" menu and expand it.

Before and after importing I only see a menu "SongbyArtist" (without the "s"). I do not see a "SongsbyArtist".
I use the default STV, imported are the comskip.stvi, recpadding.stvi and the custom menus.stvi.

Is there anything I could have done wrong?

[deria]

Originally Posted by owilsky

I don't get it.



Before and after importing I only see a menu "SongbyArtist" (without the "s"). I do not see a "SongsbyArtist".
I use the default STV, imported are the comskip.stvi, recpadding.stvi and the custom menus.stvi.

Is there anything I could have done wrong?

No, I just mis-typed it in the documentation. I'll correct it. The menu in question is a pre-existing menu (ie: not added by the import) so its nothing to worry about. Just pretend that the documentation said "songbyartist" instead.

[deria]

I received confirmation from gplasky that the latest version (1.5) solved his issues that were preventing him from using this plugin with SageTV Client. All is well for him.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by deria

No, I jut mis-typed it in the documentation. I'll correct it. The menu in question is a pre-existing menu (ie: not added by the import) so its nothing to worry about. Just pretend that the documentation said "songbyartist" instead.

OK, now it works.

One more note:

8) Expand the "Visualize" menu item.

The menu is called "Visualizations" instead of "Visualize". Just for the beginners like me don't get confused

[deria]

Originally Posted by owilsky

OK, now it works.
One more note:
The menu is called "Visualizations" instead of "Visualize". Just for the beginners like me don't get confused

Ah, yes, so it is. I've corrected it in the documentation in the first post.

For those having trouble with visualizations in general, I've also updated the first post to include all the configuration settings that are currently believed necessary to make visualizations work reliably. If you are sitll having trouble with visualizations, try those settings and if it still doesn't work then please contact me and we'll keep looking at it.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by deria

Ah, yes, so it is. I've corrected it in the documentation in the first post.

For those having trouble with visualizations in general, I've also updated the first post to include all the configuration settings that are currently believed necessary to make visualizations work reliably. If you are sitll having trouble with visualizations, try those settings and if it still doesn't work then please contact me and we'll keep looking at it.

Me again still don't get it. I reread your new instructions on post#1, but I still have two problems.

1.
.ogg files are not shown by Sage. I inserted the "seeker/music_library_import_filename_extensions" line in both my Sage.properties and my SageClient.properties file (I use the service mode.) SageTV and the service were closed. I also tried "Refresh Imported Media" in Setup Menu.
Aren't they supposed to show up e.g. in Music/Artists ?

2.
My MP3s play fine, but I do not get a visualization when I select "Visualization". If I select left or right on my remote nothing happenes for some seconds until I select "back", I guess this is intended behaviour and a good sign. I followed your instructions regarding the settings of Winamp from your first post. I do not have to start the visualization plugin, just configure it, right?

Do you have any idea what's running wrong here?

Oliver

[deria]

Originally Posted by owilsky

1.
.ogg files are not shown by Sage. I inserted the "seeker/music_library_import_filename_extensions" line in both my Sage.properties and my SageClient.properties file (I use the service mode.) SageTV and the service were closed. I also tried "Refresh Imported Media" in Setup Menu.
Aren't they supposed to show up e.g. in Music/Artists ?

That isn't a function of the plugin, its a function of SageTV. If you've set the seeker/music_library_import_filename_extensions (after stopping both the service and the front-end) and then started both the service and the front-end and refreshed the media library, they -should- show up. That being said, I can't get my pre-existing Winamp playlists to be imported by SageTV. I think the refresh-my-library thing is a little broken, or maybe we're missing something. Perhaps someone else in the thread can comment.

Originally Posted by owilsky

My MP3s play fine, but I do not get a visualization when I select "Visualization". If I select left or right on my remote nothing happenes for some seconds until I select "back", I guess this is intended behaviour and a good sign. I followed your instructions regarding the settings of Winamp from your first post. I do not have to start the visualization plugin, just configure it, right?

I'm going to PM you my email address. Take a screenshot of your "General Preferences" section of the "Preferences" display in Winamp and also take a screenshot of your visualization configuration screen (the one that appears when you select a visualization and click configure). If you send me both, we'll see whats up.

[Keith]

The Sage screensaver kicks in while visualizations are playing. Is there a way to programatically kill the screensaver during visulizations and restore it otherwise?

[deria]

Originally Posted by Keith

The Sage screensaver kicks in while visualizations are playing. Is there a way to programatically kill the screensaver during visulizations and restore it otherwise?

That would be a function of the STV. If you're using SageMC, you might not need to worry about it because I think mlbdude was already working on a way around that in his STV.

In the default STV, I'll see what needs to be done to make that work correctly. Between the elasped time/duration and the screensaver thing, I'm probably going to have to write an STV import. I suck that at, though, so it might take a few days.

[Keith]

OK thanks. I'm using the default .stv.

For now I can just disable the Sage screensaver. I thought there might be a way I was overlooking.

[CyRex]

Well Deria, now when I select a playlist it starts playing in WinAmp, but Sage kinda hangs for a sec (the elapsed time never shows up) and then it stops playing the stream. Of course right now I have it configured so that the .pls and .m3u are imported as sound files, not as playlists. I will try making Sage see them as playlists, but I had problems with that before.

Getting closer though, at least they start playing now...

Gotta give you props on the work you've done so far, nice job! If I didn't spend all day at work coding I might have more motivation to work on some plugins myself...

-Dan

Edit: After reading your description of how you wait for WinAmp to load the file, it seems the problem with the playlist may be that there is no duration for the streaming audio. Do you only wait a certain length of time for WinAmp to load the file before giving up? If thats the case then I guess streaming audio won't work...

[deria]

Originally Posted by CyRex

Well Deria, now when I select a playlist it starts playing in WinAmp, but Sage kinda hangs for a sec (the elapsed time never shows up) and then it stops playing the stream. Of course right now I have it configured so that the .pls and .m3u are imported as sound files, not as playlists. I will try making Sage see them as playlists, but I had problems with that before.

Getting closer though, at least they start playing now...

Gotta give you props on the work you've done so far, nice job! If I didn't spend all day at work coding I might have more motivation to work on some plugins myself...

-Dan

If you've added .pls or .m3u as files for the plugin to handle, it will not work (and should not work). Basically you will need to rely on SageTV to see the object as a playlist, disect it, and pass the pieces to the mediaplayer plugin when it wants the mediaplayer to play them. You cannot pass a .m3u or .pls directly to Winamp.

I'm not sure how to get SageTV to import playlists. The documentation says that it can import .m3u and .pls playlists, but I created two and rescanned my import directories and they never appeared. I'm not sure what to do about that. But setting that aside, the only way it -can- work (by design) is if the playlist shows up in SageTV's playlists section.

[geogecko]

I'm not sure what Sage's problem is with playlists, but I can hardly ever get a m3u file to work with Sage. I have ONE playlist that was imported, but I can't get any others to come in. I'm using iTunes with a Smart Playlist, to generate a TXT file, then I have a little program that converts it from that to an M3U file. Only one playlist done this way has worked. I even tried a fixed playlist that only had one album in it, and it still would not import it... I think there must be some bugs with playlists and Sage right now.

[deria]

Originally Posted by CyRex

After reading your description of how you wait for WinAmp to load the file, it seems the problem with the playlist may be that there is no duration for the streaming audio. Do you only wait a certain length of time for WinAmp to load the file before giving up? If thats the case then I guess streaming audio won't work...

I'm not sure what you mean by streaming audio. Are you talking about using Shoutcast or something along those lines? Can you give me an example? Internet radio is certainly doable, but probably not in the context of the MediaPlayer plugin. It would be pretty easy to add something like that to the companion plugin though (the WinampHelper).

I think that I may just not be understanding what exactly it is that you want to do. We should probably move this to PMs though to avoid cluttering the thread. I'm definitely interested in making the plugin do as much as possible though, so I'm certainly interested in hearing what you have to say.

Also, thanks to you (and others) for the kind words regarding the plugin. Its nice to hear postivie feedback (especially after I botched 1.4 so badly).

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by deria

If you've added .pls or .m3u as files for the plugin to handle, it will not work (and should not work). Basically you will need to rely on SageTV to see the object as a playlist, disect it, and pass the pieces to the mediaplayer plugin when it wants the mediaplayer to play them. You cannot pass a .m3u or .pls directly to Winamp.

I'm not sure how to get SageTV to import playlists. The documentation says that it can import .m3u and .pls playlists, but I created two and rescanned my import directories and they never appeared. I'm not sure what to do about that. But setting that aside, the only way it -can- work (by design) is if the playlist shows up in SageTV's playlists section.

Alright, I got a false sense of hope when the streams actually started playing in WinAmp... I'll start thinking about writing a separate plugin to handle sending Internet Radio streams directly to WinAmp...