MediaPlayer Plugin/STV Import: Winamp Media Player Plugin

[deria]

Originally Posted by 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.

Well, thats certainly possible. I sure can't get playlist importing to work. I'm pretty sure that my next plugin is going to be a java class that reads an .m3u file and creates a playlist out of it. I'm not sure what the playlist issue could be -- I've tried relative paths, absolute paths, all of the different text encodings, removing comment lines... you name it. It just absolutely refuses to see them. I've even tried putting the playlist in the root directory of my music folder, in subdirectories. It works for some people (it must) but not for me. It hates me.

[deria]

Originally Posted by CyRex

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...

No need for that. I can add a function called PlayExternal() or some such that will let you lauch a stream outside of SageTV. The only caveat would be that SageTV wouldn't be aware that it was playing.

[steingra]

If you mentioned it so far, sorry I didnt see it. I have the registered edition of the current Winamp 5.1 surround sound edition. Just wondering if your plugin will work with that edition?

Thanks

I cant wait to try this out. Sounds just like something I have been wishing for.

PS how long should a typical installation take for this?

[deria]

Originally Posted by steingra

If you mentioned it so far, sorry I didnt see it. I have the registered edition of the current Winamp 5.1 surround sound edition. Just wondering if your plugin will work with that edition?

It will work with any version 5.x Winamp. Free, paid, doesn't matter.

Originally Posted by steingra

PS how long should a typical installation take for this?

5 minutes? I haven't timed it, and it really all depends on how proficient you are with using SageTV Studio, but its a step-by-step thing so it shouldn't really take all that long.

[yoyoman]

wow !!! Thanks


'cept for 1.4

[deria]

I have released version 1.6 of this plugin. It supports filenames with international characters, and vastly improves the visualization support.

1.6 (bug fixes) / 6-dec-2005

1. The plugin now handles filenames with special international characters (thanks to forum member rydberg).

2. The visualization focus auto-recovery functionality (which is designed to detect situations where the visualization exits without returning control to SageTV) is now only activated after the visualization has been running for 8 seconds. This was necessary to prevent a race condition in which the visualization would be told to start, but the GUI would check whether or not the visualization was running before it even had a chance to start and decide that it had exited and consequently try to "recover" (which would, when all was said and done, leave you with a visualization running and no easy way to stop it).

3. Added a bunch of direct winamp control functions to the WinampHelper class for a possible future project.

[coppit]

Here's a feature request: if sendmessage to Winamp fails, try to get the handle to Winamp again. As things are now, if Winamp happens to get restarted after Sage is started, nothing works until you also restart Sage.

(Even better would be to somehow use Winamp as a hidden component via a dll or something, but I don't think that's possible...)

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by coppit

Here's a feature request: if sendmessage to Winamp fails, try to get the handle to Winamp again. As things are now, if Winamp happens to get restarted after Sage is started, nothing works until you also restart Sage.

(Even better would be to somehow use Winamp as a hidden component via a dll or something, but I don't think that's possible...)

I'd like to see something that would allow Sage to open and close Winamp. I have a VFD that monitors if Winamp is open, so that it can pull song info, and display that on the screen, but the way it is now, it always displays that screen, because Winamp is always open, even if it isn't playing a song...but this should be low priority, because it doesn't bother me that much...

[mkanet]

Sorry if I missed this in an earlier post. But, is there a way to play AOL's free XM radio streaming? I saw the below ad on Winamp's webpage:

Listen to XM Satellite Radio for FREE now through Winamp!
AOL Radio featuring XM is now available through Winamp. Once Winamp 5.1 is installed, open up the Media Library, and start listening to AOL Radio Featuring XM today!

[deria]

Originally Posted by coppit

Here's a feature request: if sendmessage to Winamp fails, try to get the handle to Winamp again. As things are now, if Winamp happens to get restarted after Sage is started, nothing works until you also restart Sage.

(Even better would be to somehow use Winamp as a hidden component via a dll or something, but I don't think that's possible...)

Yes, I'm aware of this issue. I'm trying to figure out a reliable way of determining whether or not a window handle is still valid. I may just brute force it and get the window handle every time since Winamp only allows one instance of itself to be running at a time anyway.

[deria]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Sorry if I missed this in an earlier post. But, is there a way to play AOL's free XM radio streaming? I saw the below ad on Winamp's webpage:

Listen to XM Satellite Radio for FREE now through Winamp!
AOL Radio featuring XM is now available through Winamp. Once Winamp 5.1 is installed, open up the Media Library, and start listening to AOL Radio Featuring XM today!

Listening to streaming audio will not work at this time, no. I'm thinking about expanding the WinampHelper part of the plugin to allow for listening to streaming audio independent of SageTV but I haven't settled on an approach yet.

[deria]

I have released 1.7 of this plugin. This release is mainly aimed at adding intelligent diagnostic messages to the plugin and providing a real troubleshooting guide to help people that are experiencing difficulties with the plugin.

1.7 (bug fixes) / 7-dec-2005

NOTE: The STV has not changed. To upgrade, simply unzip the new package into your SageTV installation folder (typically c:\program files\sagetv\sagetv) while Sage TV is -not- running (close it completely; do not use sleep mode).

1. The .class files have had improved diagnostic messages added to them to make troubleshooting easier.

2. Added a troubleshooting section to the documentation.

[CyRex]

I'm guessing that this is not an issue caused by your media plugin deria, but since I noticed the problem after installing your plugin, I was hoping that someone else experienced it too...

After adding the mediaplayer plugin, any m4a files that I have in my music directories are showing up in 'My Videos'. Anyone else seeing this?

And, because I'm sure you're already thinking it, my music import directory is set to only import music, and likewise my video import dirs are set to only import videos. Also, in my properties files, the only place that .m4a is listed is under "seeker/music_library_import_filename_extensions" as expected.

Possible Sage bug?

-Dan

[geogecko]

Haven't had a chance to use 1.7 yet. I might get the chance tomorrow, if the weather keeps up, and I stay home from work!

One "correction," I think...

WinampPlugin.class
WinampHelper.class
WinampPluginJNI.dll
WinampHelperJNI.dll

Should be:

WinampPlugin.class
WinampHelper.class
WinampJNI.dll
WinampHelperJNI.dll

In your first post instructions...

[mkanet]

Dan, I have seen this problem as well. However, this isn't related to the Winamp Media Player Plugin. I can make this happen without it installed and only changing the Properties config file to support .mp4 using SageTV's builtin media player. I just shrugged off this bug since the built-in media player still wasn't able to play the mp4 files anyway.

When I took out the .mp4 support from the properties file, the problem went away.

Originally Posted by CyRex

I'm guessing that this is not an issue caused by your media plugin deria, but since I noticed the problem after installing your plugin, I was hoping that someone else experienced it too...

After adding the mediaplayer plugin, any m4a files that I have in my music directories are showing up in 'My Videos'. Anyone else seeing this?

And, because I'm sure you're already thinking it, my music import directory is set to only import music, and likewise my video import dirs are set to only import videos. Also, in my properties files, the only place that .m4a is listed is under "seeker/music_library_import_filename_extensions" as expected.

Possible Sage bug?

-Dan

[mkanet]

Originally Posted by deria

Listening to streaming audio will not work at this time, no. I'm thinking about expanding the WinampHelper part of the plugin to allow for listening to streaming audio independent of SageTV but I haven't settled on an approach yet.

I haven't had a chance to install this plugin yet, but what would happen if you were to playback an .m3u file? Couldn't you have a directory full of .m3u files with all your favorite Shoutcast streamed audio stations?

[deria]

Originally Posted by CyRex

I'm guessing that this is not an issue caused by your media plugin deria, but since I noticed the problem after installing your plugin, I was hoping that someone else experienced it too...

After adding the mediaplayer plugin, any m4a files that I have in my music directories are showing up in 'My Videos'. Anyone else seeing this?

And, because I'm sure you're already thinking it, my music import directory is set to only import music, and likewise my video import dirs are set to only import videos. Also, in my properties files, the only place that .m4a is listed is under "seeker/music_library_import_filename_extensions" as expected.

Possible Sage bug?

-Dan

Hmmm... could be. Definitely not a feature of the plugin though; library management and importing and all that stuff is handled by Sage. The media player only comes into play when you actually try to play the content.

[deria]

Originally Posted by geogecko

Haven't had a chance to use 1.7 yet. I might get the chance tomorrow, if the weather keeps up, and I stay home from work!

One "correction," I think...

WinampPlugin.class
WinampHelper.class
WinampPluginJNI.dll
WinampHelperJNI.dll

Should be:

WinampPlugin.class
WinampHelper.class
WinampJNI.dll
WinampHelperJNI.dll

In your first post instructions...

Doh. You're right. I was pretty tired when I wrote that. I'll correct it. Thanks for pointing it out.

[deria]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I haven't had a chance to install this plugin yet, but what would happen if you were to playback an .m3u file? Couldn't you have a directory full of .m3u files with all your favorite Shoutcast streamed audio stations?

No, this is not possible (for several reasons).

In SageTV, a mediaplayer does not understand the concept of a playlist. The "playlist" is created, maintained, and processed by SageTV. The mediaplayer itself only plays individual files. Playlists are handled entirely by SageTV (which can import .m3u and .pls and .asx playlists) -- it reads the playlist, disects it, and sends the instructions to the mediaplayer module. It is important that the mediaplayer only deal with individual files because it has to be able to report the status back to SageTV (time elapsed, total duration, play state, information about the file being played, etc.).

[owilsky]

I could have sworn that I already posted this yesterday, but I don't find it anymore.... maybe some forums are irritated now about my post which should got posted here but wasn't...

Anyway, back to the topic:

Would it be possible to change the volume while WinAmp's visualization is active as I am able to do with the default media player with my rc's left/ right buttons in an upcoming release of the plugin?

Thanks,

Oliver