SlimPlayer Internet Radio plugin

[mkanet]

I'm not going to give up that easily. What we need to find out is why I am able to switch to a different slimplayer client without any issues. I only have one extender and several placeshifter clients. I'm not sure if that makes a difference. They all use loopback, so they can't be too different. The good news is the behavior youre experiencing doesnt seem to be reproducable; so, we can narrow down/pinpoint what specifically is causing the problem.

The only significant difference I can see between our setups is you have a headless server. I have squeezebox server running "Automatically at login". I'm not sure if that makes a difference or not. You definitely shouldnt get any kind of freezing of any kind in the SageUI. You might try disabling all plugins except for slimplayer for testing purposes (since your sageUI is freezing under the circumstance you described). There's a menu option under the plugins setup to disable all plugins.. you can then enable only slimplayer while testing. You'll have to then manually enable all the plugins that were disabled.

-Michael

Originally Posted by PiX64

so if i completely power off the extneder and try loading on nother extener i get the same result as mentioned before. slimplayer acts as it is working, no audio, no recording symbol. when "stopping" using the stop button on the remote it completely freezes the sageui. when using power off it will shut it off only it will take an EXTREMELY long time.

I think what you said is accurate. It seems as though the slimplayer loopback channel is tied to 1 and only 1 extender..

I tried your experiment and was not successful. same result and described in the past few posts :-/

i really appreciate your help though in trying to figure this out!

[PiX64]

K...Ill try some trouble shooting to see if i can figure anything out and let ya know.

thanks again!

[war10ck]

I am having the exact same issues as pix64. I too was hoping to use this plugin on multiple extenders.

My setup is slightly different than pix64 since I am running the sage server on a win7 64 bit machine. Also, I am able to get this plugin to work on multiple extenders but it takes some work. Powering down the extender and restarting the sage service does it for me.

If I try to just turn the "Power" off in the slimserver plugin on one of my extenders then go to another extender it will show all song data but when i push play it starts audio back on the original extender. Only way to fix is to power down extenders and restarting the sage service.

A little tweaking and this could be a really cool plugin.

[KarylFStein]

I installed this today to see if I could retire my Roku player (with the "SlimServer" firmware update) in the living room. Great work! Once I actually figured out that the "Navigate" option was more than just an informational pop-up about how to move around the screen, all was golden...almost.

I'm using hardware loopback through a spare Hauppauge card's analog input—hey it was there and "free." It works, but the volume is really low on the extender. I used the Squeezebox Server's web interface to bump up the volume to max, but it didn't affect anything except when listening on the server. I seem to remember something about being able to increase volume levels on specific Hauppauge tuners, but haven't found that reference—any ideas on how to balance things more without affecting other tuners?

Oh, and if you could make the interface more like the Squeezebox Touch and SqueezePlay on my desktop, that'd be great .

[mkanet]

Hi Karyl, sorry for the late response, yes, there's a way to get the analog input volume higher for Hauppauge tuners last time I checked. However, it requires you to install the "full CD" install software for your Hauppauge card, then open up their TV app (while sageTV isnt using the hauppauge), then "tune" into the analog input channel (video/audio) under Channel Manager and change the analog input volume there. There used to be a Hauppauge "tweak" utility floating around on the internet which would directly modify this same setting without having to install Hauppauge apps. If I remember right, a few years ago, I had searched for "low analog audio volume Hauppauge registry setting" (or something similar) and found a forum post somewhere which told me exactly which registry setting to modify to max out the audio input volume. If all else fails, the Hauppauge software will do it.

I definitely prefer softsqueeze compared to squeezeplay or any other logitech hardware/software Squeezebox client in general because of overall functionality and convenience; at least, in respect to the way I use Slimplayer. Im guessing you might be specifically referring to the inability for Slimplayer to have a SB navigation menu that has more than 3 lines; not the overall interface as a whole; as Slimplayer has many features which other software/hardware clients dont have; such as displaying Internet-rich content for artists/bands, and playing youtube music videos for these artists; and, best of all... SageTV integration; so, you can use the same TV, remote control, and speakers you do for watching TV without having to switch audio/video inputs and switching remote controls.

The only other major weakness in Slimplayer is only being able to use 2 different clients at one time (one of them being the server itself) and its a pain to switch between SageTV extenders.

Unfortunately, Slimplayer depends on old-school softsqueeze technology for core functions. The creator of Slimplayer, "Koelec" from our forums hasn't found a way to use new-generation technology which removes these limitations; or, he would have done it a long time ago. Who knows, he may find a way sooner or later.

-Michael

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

I installed this today to see if I could retire my Roku player (with the "SlimServer" firmware update) in the living room. Great work! Once I actually figured out that the "Navigate" option was more than just an informational pop-up about how to move around the screen, all was golden...almost.

I'm using hardware loopback through a spare Hauppauge card's analog input—hey it was there and "free." It works, but the volume is really low on the extender. I used the Squeezebox Server's web interface to bump up the volume to max, but it didn't affect anything except when listening on the server. I seem to remember something about being able to increase volume levels on specific Hauppauge tuners, but haven't found that reference—any ideas on how to balance things more without affecting other tuners?

Oh, and if you could make the interface more like the Squeezebox Touch and SqueezePlay on my desktop, that'd be great .

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Hi Karyl, sorry for the late response...

Yeah, with all the money I'm sinking into a support contract for this software, I expect better than a day and a half turn around!

I did manage to find the registry stuff to bump up the volume and matched it well enough with the TV playback. My problem now, (which was a problem before playing around with the volume levels, but was focusing on one thing at a time), is I'm getting what I can only discribe as high distortion. BTW, I'm testing with local MP3 files and not Internet radio and everything is hardwired. Anyway, I won't be able to play with it more until next week, but will plug some headphones into the server to see if the signal coming out the back is clear and if so swap the 1/8" to RCA cable and then if necessary the tuner. Or, maybe I'll just switch to the virtual cable approach.

Originally Posted by mkanet

I definitely prefer softsqueeze compared to squeezeplay or any other logitech hardware/software Squeezebox client in general because of overall functionality and convenience; at least, in respect to the way I use Slimplayer. Im guessing you might be specifically referring to the inability for Slimplayer to have a SB navigation menu that has more than 3 lines; not the overall interface as a whole; as Slimplayer has many features which other software/hardware clients dont have; such as displaying Internet-rich content for artists/bands, and playing youtube music videos for these artists; and, best of all... SageTV integration; so, you can use the same TV, remote control, and speakers you do for watching TV without having to switch audio/video inputs and switching remote controls.

Yes, I'm only refering to the menu interface. The pictures and bio/news type stuff that pop up in SlimPlayer are really neat and work well, (I think there was one song during my testing that didn't have any info, but no big deal--I can see my kids really digging this feature if/when I get it working well enough to show them).

Hm, maybe a lyrics screen too? I know I have some plug-in for WMP that does the lyrics, (not from ID3 tags--no idea what or how it queries for lyrics, but if SlimPlay can do something similar for bios, pictures, etc., it seems like it could for lyrics too).

I used to use Softsqueeze on my desktop, but tried SqueezePlay after my last refresh and like it better for how *I* use it, (having options is great). My only hardware device is a Roku M1001. I'd like to get some more hardware devices, but hasn't been a major priority. (I've been using the server-side since IIRC it was called SlimServer--a while in other words--thinking I'd get some hardware players, so it may *never* become a priority . I just like that all my favorites/playlists are accessible centrally from different computers/devices.)

Originally Posted by mkanet

The only other major weakness in Slimplayer is only being able to use 2 different clients at one time (one of them being the server itself) and its a pain to switch between SageTV extenders.

I did read about the multiple extenders, but for now I only have one, so it's not a big deal.

There were a few times when testing that audio would stop working on the extender. "Now Playing" would show that it was playing something and if I went down to the server, I could see it pumping out audio, but nothing was heard on the extender. In those cases, I ran SageTV on the server and pressed the "power" button in SlimPlay. Then I could go back up to the extender, select a Favorite and things were good. Next time I play with this I'll come up with a better description of what led up to that condition. Probably just user error .

Originally Posted by mkanet

Unfortunately, Slimplayer depends on old-school softsqueeze technology for core functions. The creator of Slimplayer, "Koelec" from our forums hasn't found a way to use new-generation technology which removes these limitations; or, he would have done it a long time ago. Who knows, he may find a way sooner or later.

Well, I'm just playing with this to see if I can remove my Roku hardware player. It uses old-school technology too, so if/when the audio kinks get worked out, I'll still be ahead using SlimPlay.

[mkanet]

Great. Sounds like you've narrowed things down to a sound quality issue. You're already checking the right stuff for troubleshooting that. Over-modulation/under-modulation of the source audio might be the problem. I dont think you can just crank up all the way the audio input level on your hauppauge's analog input. You should actually adjust it while listening the the audio on the extender... keeping in mind the buffer/delay. I'm using the Hauppauge 950 USB tuner which has decent analog recording. The end result is pretty decent audio quality on my extender. I dont hear any extra noise; and, sounds very similar to the source. Another thing to look at is the bitrate you've set your hauppauge tuner at in sageTV. I think it defaults to "good", not sure. I've set mine to, "Best". You can do this under SageTV Detailed Setup/Multimedia/Recording Quality.

Lyrics... It's not as simple as you might think. I'm guessing its relatively easy to pull up the lyrics for each song.. its knowing how to synch the words to the the timeline of each song. Unless a lyrics feature gets added to Squeezebox Server and Softsqueeze, I dont think you're going to see that feature. In fact, I doubt you're going to see any significant new features in slimplayer; as it's already pretty much maxing out the limits of sageTV/softsqueeze. If you're the type of person who primarily listens to radio stations, I think you'll be fine.. as long as you figure out what's causing the static in the audio on your setup.

Good luck,
Michael

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

Yeah, with all the money I'm sinking into a support contract for this software, I expect better than a day and a half turn around!

I did manage to find the registry stuff to bump up the volume and matched it well enough with the TV playback. My problem now, (which was a problem before playing around with the volume levels, but was focusing on one thing at a time), is I'm getting what I can only discribe as high distortion. BTW, I'm testing with local MP3 files and not Internet radio and everything is hardwired. Anyway, I won't be able to play with it more until next week, but will plug some headphones into the server to see if the signal coming out the back is clear and if so swap the 1/8" to RCA cable and then if necessary the tuner. Or, maybe I'll just switch to the virtual cable approach.



Yes, I'm only refering to the menu interface. The pictures and bio/news type stuff that pop up in SlimPlayer are really neat and work well, (I think there was one song during my testing that didn't have any info, but no big deal--I can see my kids really digging this feature if/when I get it working well enough to show them).

Hm, maybe a lyrics screen too? I know I have some plug-in for WMP that does the lyrics, (not from ID3 tags--no idea what or how it queries for lyrics, but if SlimPlay can do something similar for bios, pictures, etc., it seems like it could for lyrics too).

I used to use Softsqueeze on my desktop, but tried SqueezePlay after my last refresh and like it better for how *I* use it, (having options is great). My only hardware device is a Roku M1001. I'd like to get some more hardware devices, but hasn't been a major priority. (I've been using the server-side since IIRC it was called SlimServer--a while in other words--thinking I'd get some hardware players, so it may *never* become a priority . I just like that all my favorites/playlists are accessible centrally from different computers/devices.)



I did read about the multiple extenders, but for now I only have one, so it's not a big deal.

There were a few times when testing that audio would stop working on the extender. "Now Playing" would show that it was playing something and if I went down to the server, I could see it pumping out audio, but nothing was heard on the extender. In those cases, I ran SageTV on the server and pressed the "power" button in SlimPlay. Then I could go back up to the extender, select a Favorite and things were good. Next time I play with this I'll come up with a better description of what led up to that condition. Probably just user error .



Well, I'm just playing with this to see if I can remove my Roku hardware player. It uses old-school technology too, so if/when the audio kinks get worked out, I'll still be ahead using SlimPlay.

[foobysmacker]

Been using slimplayer for a while now and recently upgraded from v6 to v7 for SageTV. Love, love, love slimplayer for Pandora and other internet radio feeds. Had some troubles in Sage v6, upgraded to v7 and things seemed to work okay, but now having some specific troubles I'm hoping someone can help me with or at minimum confirm as bugs vs. something I'm doing wrong.

Pandora stream stops and won't start up again
I have a single Pandora station that is popular with all the listeners in the house, and it often stops without being able to start again. When this happens, switching to another favorite doesn't work - although it does change the slimplayer 'buffering...' display and often shows another song title queuing up - still no sound. Even selecting to power off/on the slimplayer interface doesn't get audio back. However, if I completely close SageTV and restart it from the Windows desktop I can go back and select from any of my favorites and things work again. When the audio DOES stop it appears to be at the end of one track and the player doesn't seem to ever get to the next track (which I can confirm by occasionally opening the squeezeplay web interface on port 9000).

Options to turn off artist ticker and images won't persist across restarts
When I turn off artist ticker and artist images from the options screen, it seems to work fine. Once the machine is restarted the next day the artist images and ticker are back.


My setup
Standalone SageTV box with hardwired audio output to my stereo receiver
Windows 7 pre-SP1, latest patches otherwise applied
Windows firewall is turned off
SageTV v7 running Slimplayer plugin 2.3.5 + a few other small plugins like NoDefaultAction in Main Menu and Custom Main Menu
Squeezebox Server on same machine, v7.5.3 - total players recognized=1
Other software on the machine - Carbonite online backup
Hardware - Atom N330 dual core 1.6GHz / 2GB RAM

Not sure what other details would be relevant.

Please help!

thanks in advance,
Cliff

[mkanet]

Hi Cliff, have you already tried to change the audio setting to proxied instead of direct for your squeezebox client (under SBS settings for your player)? Pandora doesnt work for me unless I set my client (aka player under SBS) to proxied. I could be wrong, but I think that's one of the suggestions mentioned in the first post for no audio issue on some Internet radio sites.

-Michael

Originally Posted by foobysmacker

Been using slimplayer for a while now and recently upgraded from v6 to v7 for SageTV. Love, love, love slimplayer for Pandora and other internet radio feeds. Had some troubles in Sage v6, upgraded to v7 and things seemed to work okay, but now having some specific troubles I'm hoping someone can help me with or at minimum confirm as bugs vs. something I'm doing wrong.

Pandora stream stops and won't start up again
I have a single Pandora station that is popular with all the listeners in the house, and it often stops without being able to start again. When this happens, switching to another favorite doesn't work - although it does change the slimplayer 'buffering...' display and often shows another song title queuing up - still no sound. Even selecting to power off/on the slimplayer interface doesn't get audio back. However, if I completely close SageTV and restart it from the Windows desktop I can go back and select from any of my favorites and things work again. When the audio DOES stop it appears to be at the end of one track and the player doesn't seem to ever get to the next track (which I can confirm by occasionally opening the squeezeplay web interface on port 9000).

Options to turn off artist ticker and images won't persist across restarts
When I turn off artist ticker and artist images from the options screen, it seems to work fine. Once the machine is restarted the next day the artist images and ticker are back.


My setup
Standalone SageTV box with hardwired audio output to my stereo receiver
Windows 7 pre-SP1, latest patches otherwise applied
Windows firewall is turned off
SageTV v7 running Slimplayer plugin 2.3.5 + a few other small plugins like NoDefaultAction in Main Menu and Custom Main Menu
Squeezebox Server on same machine, v7.5.3 - total players recognized=1
Other software on the machine - Carbonite online backup
Hardware - Atom N330 dual core 1.6GHz / 2GB RAM

Not sure what other details would be relevant.

Please help!

thanks in advance,
Cliff

[foobysmacker]

Thanks for the quick reply, Michael. I do have the player setup as proxied.

I've been listening all morning and have some more updates -

Slimplayer just stopped on me again while playing my normal Pandora station, and when I open the squeezebox server web page on port 9000 I see the webplayer showing SoftSqueeze (as it normally does when showing slimplayer now playing information) and the current track is shown with title and cover art but the playback timer keeps looping with the first 3 seconds or so - as if the player is starting a song but gets no audio. In other words, the playback timer shows 0:00, counts up a couple of seconds of silence, then reverts back to 0:00 over and over again. This level of detail doesn't show in slimplayer of course, so slimplayer is just sitting with no audio. It ONLY seems to happen at track boundaries - ie right when one track finishes but the next one doesn't start. Not sure if that might indicate some problem while pulling metadata updates for the next song.

Interestingly enough when this happens - from the squeezebox server web interface I can then try to play my other pandora favorites and it seems to respond just like slimplayer does - ie. select a station and claims to fetch song details but doesn't ever switch away from the one track that the player seems stuck on.

It seems like there's a problem where slimplayer is somehow stuck in some interaction with squeezebox server, because using power off/power on from the slimplayer interface seems to do nothing, and the squeezebox server web interface starts complaining even more after I try to do that.

It seems the only way to recover from this scenario is to close the SageTV app and relaunch from the desktop. Open SageTV, navigate to slimplayer, select a *different* pandora stream and it starts up, then I can go back to the one that got 'stuck' with no audio and it seems to play okay... then after some arbitrary number of tracks (sometimes an hour of playback, sometimes only ONE track) I get the problem again.

Here's another crazy observation - it seems to happen more frequently on one station (created using Hans Zimmer as the artist) than my other ones. Hard to say definitively since that station gets played a lot in the house, but if I'm trying to reproduce the issue I definitely seem to get it to fail faster than on other Pandora stations.

[mkanet]

Hi Foobysmacker, what really helps fix weird issues is setting up an automation on my server to delete the entire cache folder on the server daily and restart the SBS service. I have this automated at 3:30am every morning. Try this manually first to see if it helps. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do things; but is makes things fast, stable, and predictable. The folder I delete (and all it's contents) is:

C:\ProgramData\Squeezebox\Cache

I'm not sure if it's in a different place for you. Good luck!
Michael

Originally Posted by foobysmacker

Thanks for the quick reply, Michael. I do have the player setup as proxied.

I've been listening all morning and have some more updates -

Slimplayer just stopped on me again while playing my normal Pandora station, and when I open the squeezebox server web page on port 9000 I see the webplayer showing SoftSqueeze (as it normally does when showing slimplayer now playing information) and the current track is shown with title and cover art but the playback timer keeps looping with the first 3 seconds or so - as if the player is starting a song but gets no audio. In other words, the playback timer shows 0:00, counts up a couple of seconds of silence, then reverts back to 0:00 over and over again. This level of detail doesn't show in slimplayer of course, so slimplayer is just sitting with no audio. It ONLY seems to happen at track boundaries - ie right when one track finishes but the next one doesn't start. Not sure if that might indicate some problem while pulling metadata updates for the next song.

Interestingly enough when this happens - from the squeezebox server web interface I can then try to play my other pandora favorites and it seems to respond just like slimplayer does - ie. select a station and claims to fetch song details but doesn't ever switch away from the one track that the player seems stuck on.

It seems like there's a problem where slimplayer is somehow stuck in some interaction with squeezebox server, because using power off/power on from the slimplayer interface seems to do nothing, and the squeezebox server web interface starts complaining even more after I try to do that.

It seems the only way to recover from this scenario is to close the SageTV app and relaunch from the desktop. Open SageTV, navigate to slimplayer, select a *different* pandora stream and it starts up, then I can go back to the one that got 'stuck' with no audio and it seems to play okay... then after some arbitrary number of tracks (sometimes an hour of playback, sometimes only ONE track) I get the problem again.

Here's another crazy observation - it seems to happen more frequently on one station (created using Hans Zimmer as the artist) than my other ones. Hard to say definitively since that station gets played a lot in the house, but if I'm trying to reproduce the issue I definitely seem to get it to fail faster than on other Pandora stations.

[foobysmacker]

Michael -

So... the cache cleanup has helped improve performance and was a good general tip, thanks.

Still having trouble with the stalled audio, though. I have done a bunch of testing and I believe the problem may be content specific for Pandora.

The problem ONLY seems to happen on ONE station - one I created using "Hans Zimmer" as the artist. This station generally plays soundtrack compositions from popular films like Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pearl Harbor, etc. When I play other stations (three or four other ones ranging from adult contemporary selections to classic rock songs as station seeds) I can play for hours without any trouble whatsoever. When I switch to Hans Zimmer, however, I'm lucky to get 3-4 songs played before the audio stalls on one of the songs. Often it's on the 2nd song played. No real patter to which song it stalls on, and I know it has stalled on songs that have otherwise played fine in the past.

Here's more info on testing that I've done that makes me believe it's still a slimplayer issue. I tested 3 software players against the same squeezecenter server -
1. slimplayer within SageTV on the same box (localhost)
2. softsqueeze from another PC
3. squeezeplay from another PC


Player-->___1_____2_____3______
Hans Zimmer STALL works works
Jason Mraz_ works works works
Tom Petty__ works works works

So, I only have the problem on my Hans Zimmer station when played on slimplayer/Sage. Argh... the one place I always play my music from, and the one station that gets played the most (until it stalls out, of course).

Once the player stalls, the only way to get things working again is to close SageTV completely and re-launch it. Just powering off and on the slimplayer does nothing by itself.

Looking at my results, I have yet to test softsqueeze or squeezeplay from the sagetv box via localhost. My results have been so strange yet reproducible that I wanted to post in hopes that this would help figure something out.

And believe me, I've tried a lot of things you might try to eliminate variables - I've deleted and recreated the station. I've tried to play the same songs constructed from a Slacker station with no issues. Only Pandora, only Hans Zimmer seems to be a problem. I'd switch to Slacker but I still prefer the Pandora model and algorithm over Slacker (not to mention I've already paid for Pandora One).

Thoughts??

[mkanet]

Hi foobysacker, here are my thoughts:

1. Replace the softqueeze.jar from your Sagetv\jar's directory with the latest one from the 3.9b2 zip file. Restart everything and try again.

2. I have a feeling you will have the same issue using softsqueeze if you could install and play it on your server. I cant remember if you have a headless server or not, but you can try installing the latest version of softsqueeze on your server using the windows installer version to see if the problem is with softqueeze's source.

3. See if you can find anything unique about the Hans Zimmer station than all other stations. Make some other stations for practice. I'm curious what's triggering that. It's obviously not the name.. maybe something like abnormally long songs or songs that are back to back (gapless). Try completely different genre's to see if you can get a to do the same thing.

6. I dont know if this will make any difference, but do you have the latest java version and Java MP3 Plugin installed on your sever?

7. If all else fails, I would try deleting the Hans Zimmer station completely and use another artist/song that uses similar characteristics to Hans Zimmer. As you know these songs are all picked based on genre, tempo, instruments used, etc. So you might be able to get the same type of songs, Hans Zimmer included without it skipping. If it happens again you might have a better idea what's triggering that problem.

I dont think it would do much good to report this very specific issue on the Softsqueeze support thread; mainly the issue needs to be reproducible. I dont think the primary developer can even legally listen to Pandora since I dont think he's in the United States. That's the reason he gave me for an issue with Sirius Radio (internet). I dont think they have available in other countries either.

Good luck,
Michael

Originally Posted by foobysmacker

Michael -

So... the cache cleanup has helped improve performance and was a good general tip, thanks.

Still having trouble with the stalled audio, though. I have done a bunch of testing and I believe the problem may be content specific for Pandora.

The problem ONLY seems to happen on ONE station - one I created using "Hans Zimmer" as the artist. This station generally plays soundtrack compositions from popular films like Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pearl Harbor, etc. When I play other stations (three or four other ones ranging from adult contemporary selections to classic rock songs as station seeds) I can play for hours without any trouble whatsoever. When I switch to Hans Zimmer, however, I'm lucky to get 3-4 songs played before the audio stalls on one of the songs. Often it's on the 2nd song played. No real patter to which song it stalls on, and I know it has stalled on songs that have otherwise played fine in the past.

Here's more info on testing that I've done that makes me believe it's still a slimplayer issue. I tested 3 software players against the same squeezecenter server -
1. slimplayer within SageTV on the same box (localhost)
2. softsqueeze from another PC
3. squeezeplay from another PC


Player-->___1_____2_____3______
Hans Zimmer STALL works works
Jason Mraz_ works works works
Tom Petty__ works works works

So, I only have the problem on my Hans Zimmer station when played on slimplayer/Sage. Argh... the one place I always play my music from, and the one station that gets played the most (until it stalls out, of course).

Once the player stalls, the only way to get things working again is to close SageTV completely and re-launch it. Just powering off and on the slimplayer does nothing by itself.

Looking at my results, I have yet to test softsqueeze or squeezeplay from the sagetv box via localhost. My results have been so strange yet reproducible that I wanted to post in hopes that this would help figure something out.

And believe me, I've tried a lot of things you might try to eliminate variables - I've deleted and recreated the station. I've tried to play the same songs constructed from a Slacker station with no issues. Only Pandora, only Hans Zimmer seems to be a problem. I'd switch to Slacker but I still prefer the Pandora model and algorithm over Slacker (not to mention I've already paid for Pandora One).

Thoughts??

[foobysmacker]

Updated the softsqueeze.jar and it seems to be working now. Need to put some more hours on it to be sure, but the problem station has been working for about an hour and a half now - way longer than it would ever work before on that station.

Thanks again for all the support!

Cliff

[foobysmacker]

Ugh. Scratch that last post. I guess I just got a lucky run of an hour or so. Station has stalled out a couple more times.

EDIT: Turns out the other software players have the same stalling issue when playing from the same machine as the server and connecting to localhost.

EDIT: Changed audio settings to use JLayer and Java Sound Audio Engine and it's working as far as I can tell. Been playing a film score station all night and still going.

For my setup, I'm officially calling this plugin "works GREAT" and the best thing that ever happened to SageTV!

Thanks again to mkanet and others for support.

[rwc]

Since there's a link for "favorites"--is there a way to search by artist/album? (Or browse by artist/album) via the plugin.

I know I can use the standard "MUSIC" interface in sage, or via the simulated simplayer on the top of the window; but I was curious if there was a more "user friendly" way to do it...

THANKS!

[mkanet]

Slimplayer seems to be ideal for any kind of radio station playback. I would stick to the builtin SageTV support for any kind of local music playback.

Originally Posted by rwc

Since there's a link for "favorites"--is there a way to search by artist/album? (Or browse by artist/album) via the plugin.

I know I can use the standard "MUSIC" interface in sage, or via the simulated simplayer on the top of the window; but I was curious if there was a more "user friendly" way to do it...

THANKS!

[mkanet]

Well glad you found a solution. When you break things down, if you dont care about fanart and visual special effects a whole lot, I agree, this is the best useful single feature added to sageTV right next to playon. A nice surprise was seeing all our local FM radio stations added conveniently to my favorites list without having t do anything. What radio stations do you listen to? I have sirius radio, Slacker, Pandora, Napster Radio, local FM stations, and misc radio stations I've found on the Internet.... all nicely listened in a universal list with music artist info, pics, videos, etc.

Originally Posted by foobysmacker

Ugh. Scratch that last post. I guess I just got a lucky run of an hour or so. Station has stalled out a couple more times.

EDIT: Turns out the other software players have the same stalling issue when playing from the same machine as the server and connecting to localhost.

EDIT: Changed audio settings to use JLayer and Java Sound Audio Engine and it's working as far as I can tell. Been playing a film score station all night and still going.

For my setup, I'm officially calling this plugin "works GREAT" and the best thing that ever happened to SageTV!

Thanks again to mkanet and others for support.

[KarylFStein]

An update on my "distorted audio" and "low volume" problems...

I finally had some time to play with this again. To start, I plugged headphones directly into the server and, well, everything sounded great. I then plugged things back into my capture card and got ready to spend an afternoon debugging things further. However, when I fired it up on my extender, everything just worked--no distortion and the volume levels were good with the default settings, (the Hauppauge registry changes were reverted after the last failed attempt). The only thing I can think of is that the cable from the MB to the capture card wasn't seated all the way the first time I tried this--even though I could have sworn that that was one of the first things I checked.

So, chalk my issues up to user error .

[dlevey]

I installed the simplayer plugin, but it shows as disabled. When I click "enable plugin" I get the following error message. " Plugin cannot be enabled. A required dependancy may be missing or the plugin is broken. Try removing and reinstalling the plugin." I've tried removing and reinstalling, restarting sagetv, and everything else I can think of. I can't find any logs that may help. Could someone suggest what to try? this is on sage 7.

Thanks