STV Import: SlimPlayer 2.0 - Slacker, Pandora, Sirius,... on Extenders

[gplasky]

Seem to be having an issue. I used the Squeezecenter 7.4.2660 for WHS as the install on my WHS server. I installed Slimplayer 2.0, VAC and the UNE zip and configured everything according to the directions. I tested Softsqueeze installed on the WHS and configured the audio for VAC. I even made VAC the default audio on the WHS server. But on the extender when I go into Slimplayer and hit the Info button it always says it is using the Primary driver and jlayer. (I also installed the java mp3 plugin) At this point I'm not sure where else to look to troubleshoot this. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Gerry

[mkanet]

Gerry, I dont know if this will help; but, this is what I did on mine:

Make sure all the registry settings under here:
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs\org\titmuss\softsqueeze]

...use the same values that are specified under the respective HKEY_USER location (linked to your Windows user account), ie, mine was here: [HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1398756273-3036586278-4160252452-1000\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs\org\titmuss\softsqueeze]

You should do this after you've selected VAC as the audio mixer and the Java MP3 plugin as the MP3 Decoder in softsqueeze's preferences.

This will make sure that you're getting the same preferences no matter what user account you end up using.

Originally Posted by gplasky

Seem to be having an issue. I used the Squeezecenter 7.4.2660 for WHS as the install on my WHS server. I installed Slimplayer 2.0, VAC and the UNE zip and configured everything according to the directions. I tested Softsqueeze installed on the WHS and configured the audio for VAC. I even made VAC the default audio on the WHS server. But on the extender when I go into Slimplayer and hit the Info button it always says it is using the Primary driver and jlayer. (I also installed the java mp3 plugin) At this point I'm not sure where else to look to troubleshoot this. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Gerry

[Brent]

Originally Posted by koelec

The extender support works with either hardware loopback or software loopback. For software loopback UNE (universal network encoder) together with VAC (Virtual Audio Cable) is used. Start playback in the slimplayer menu will start playback of the stream from squeezecenter and let SageMediaPlayer tune into the channel simultaneously (you don't have to go te EPG and start watching a channel).

Just to be clear, I'm using windows so this software loopback channel sounds appealing. Is there anything special I have to do to make it work beyond starting up the slimplayer? sorry for being dense here.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Gerry, I dont know if this will help; but, this is what I did on mine:

Make sure all the registry settings under here:
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs\org\titmuss\softsqueeze]

...use the same values that are specified under the respective HKEY_USER location (linked to your Windows user account), ie, mine was here: [HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1398756273-3036586278-4160252452-1000\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs\org\titmuss\softsqueeze]

You should do this after you've selected VAC as the audio mixer and the Java MP3 plugin as the MP3 Decoder in softsqueeze's preferences.

This will make sure that you're getting the same preferences no matter what user account you end up using.

Thanks Mike. That took care of the vac issue for me.

Gerry

[koelec]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

So someone finally took my method of using the Virtual cable for the Pandora plugin, and extended it. Glad it could be of help .

Yes, I guess I owe you a lot for this. I've put you to the credits list.

Now if we could just figure out how to make it work with Netflix and not need a tuner card at all, we'd be in business .

Sounds like a proposition. What's the problem when using it for netflix?

Just as a FYI, the graph your using in UNE may not work on every system (I know I had issues with mine between my test box, and my production Sage machine, virtually the same software setups, but for whatever reason the graphs I made on the test box didn't always work on the production box). I also didn't notice (haven't delved into this ones configuration much yet) if you have everything working with service mode setups (there used to be an issue with Pandora, but the creator supplied a work-around that seems to work great).

*EDIT* Looks like service mode/non-service mode is a non-issue since it's pulling the audio from SqueezeCenter, so should work for everyone . Also might want to add that the virtual audio cable software isn't free ($30): Virtual Audio Cable

Thanks for the info. I guessed it was something like that for putting the user through creating their own GRF file. Guess I got lucky. the GRF file I created worked right on when I supplied it to my beta tester, mkanet. Maybe it uses absolute file paths and can only work correctly when unzipped in the same location as orginally created.
Concerning VAC being non-free, I added a remark on this in my orginal post.
Thanks.

Now were talking. When I started using UNE I used the watchLive SageTV api call, used by SageTV for Live previews solely. This was working fine with the hardware loopback solution and had fast start time of only a couple of seconds (UNE takes 10..15 secs), but failed when using UNE. Do you know of a limitation in UNE that restrict it to recorded files only, i.e. not working with MPGBUF?

[heffe2001]

I had that problem with UNE on a Vista based machine, for whatever reason I always had to do it from a WinXP machine (but it also works fine on my current WHS-based server). It would work great for RECORDING, but live TV for whatever reason would play for a few seconds (if at all), and then stop, like the buffer was empty. From a XP machine, it works perfectly fine. I have a feeling it's something to do with whatever filters you're using it your graph, as it was very dependent on my old setup having the correct filters in the graph.

The only problem with doing Netflix is the video. You'd need some way of breaking into the graph created by the Netflix viewer so you could output it to the saved .mpg file, otherwise you'll get the audio in Sage, and the video on the screen of the server PC. Unless there's a real-time screen capture that'll run at the full speed needed to keep up with the audio...

I did notice that sometimes the graph saved from another PC won't load, but if I manually created the same, exact graph on the target PC, it would work then. I attributed it to a pathing thing between Vista and XP, or the filters being called slightly differently between the OS versions.

You can also use an animated GIF file for the video portion, but I would highly suggest against it.. It plays it at full-speed (one frame of the GIF file right after another, with no transition, nor delay). If you create a larger animated GIF file that has frames added for delay (the same image over, with say a transition between), it looks great in Sage, but you'll quickly bring the machine to it's knees (UNE ends up using a MASSIVE amount of memory, was up to over 2gb used in a 5 or 10 minute stream last time I tried it). If I could get a small mpeg to use as the video, and make it loop in graphedt, that'd be perfect, but never could get that to work right (need to look at this again).

[koelec]

Hi,
I uploaded the newest version of SoftSqueeze v3.9b1 to the plugin's project home (http://code.google.com/p/slimplayerplugin/). Unfortunately I packed an old SoftSqueeze version (CVS_BUILD) with the v2.0 main distribution zip file.

You can check which version is installed from the SlimPlayer main menu by invoking the info command, i,e. info button on remote or ctrl-i on keyboard.

Main bugs fixed
* Non-MP3 streams not being played or require play/pause/play to start.
* Two files/streams playing simultaneously at start.
* Some Podcasts (e.g. BBC) not playing
* Sounds & Effects loop.
* hiccups at start of stream
* LastFM plays one song at a time

installation:

1. stop sagetv(service)
2. unzip the "Slimplayer 2.0 - SoftSqueeze update.zip" file into the SageTV base folder (i.e. where sagetV.exe is located), making sure you get the OK to overwrite? dialog popped up.
3. start sagetv(service)
4. check SoftSqueeze version = 3.9b1 (on slimplayer main menu info button on remote)

- Chris

[koelec]

Originally Posted by Brent

Just to be clear, I'm using windows so this software loopback channel sounds appealing. Is there anything special I have to do to make it work beyond starting up the slimplayer? sorry for being dense here.

You mean during initial setup? Or while using the plugin? Or do you experience a specific problem to get this running?

After installation you have the following programs running on the server:
- sagetv service
- squeezecenter server
- VAC
- UNE

To start music you just go to slimplayer menu and press play button or choose from the favorites list.
Just to give an idea on CPU usage. On my AMD Athlon 3000 server the CPU usage was around 7% during playback and streaming to Placeshifter.

[Brent]

I might need a little help with this. I have attempted to follow all of the install instructions and it all seems to be working except that I'm not getting any sound. The audio repeater shows the "bars" moving as if there is sound going through, but I get no sound when I play on my HTPC server or on the extenders even though it looks like the stream is playing.

Any thoughts on where I messed up? Does the audio repeater need something selected on "wave out"?

[jm9843]

As a big proponent of Slimdevices' products this looks great; especially the extender support with the software loop-back option.

Are there any plans for a forthcoming SageMC version of the import? I'm one of the probably growing number of users that almost exclusively use extenders with SageMC.

[koelec]

Originally Posted by Brent

I might need a little help with this. I have attempted to follow all of the install instructions and it all seems to be working except that I'm not getting any sound. The audio repeater shows the "bars" moving as if there is sound going through, but I get no sound when I play on my HTPC server or on the extenders even though it looks like the stream is playing.

Any thoughts on where I messed up? Does the audio repeater need something selected on "wave out"?

The audio repeater is only for monitoring and not necessary for having sound on the extender. You can use it to verify that the skimplayer plugin's sound output is properly working when fed into the virtual cable. For the wave in choose "Virtual Cable 1" and for wave out choose a physical sound output device and turn on the speakers connected to this device. Verify you hear the music from slimplayer on the speaker set.

Next thing to check is that SageTV creates a new mpg file on your video folder which is growing (after 10..15 sec after the initial start of playback).
Verify this both in the debug window of UNE and in the filesystem.

It you still have problems repeat the start of playback with SageTV logging turned on and send me the log file so I can examine it.

- Chris

[koelec]

Originally Posted by jm9843

As a big proponent of Slimdevices' products this looks great; especially the extender support with the software loop-back option.

Are there any plans for a forthcoming SageMC version of the import? I'm one of the probably growing number of users that almost exclusively use extenders with SageMC.

Yes, and you're not alone in waiting for this. I've invited morgan the creator of SageMC to do this, but don't know the status of this...

[kha]

Hi,

I would like to start SlimPlayer automatically when Sage starts up (just start it and not play anything). Currently until I manually go to SlimPlayer page in SageTV, the player does not show up in the list of controlled players in the SqueezeCenter. Is there an associated Javaclass that I can add to the "load_at_startup_runnable_classes" line in Sage.properties, that would force SlimPlayer to start automatically and be visible in Squeezecenter?

Regards,
Michael.

[mkanet]

For anyone using Internet radio stations; you an use the latest Squeeze Center with Softsqueeze/Slimplayer; however, you need to change the setting in SC player/audio/mp3 streaming method=proxied streaming. This is true for SC version 7.3.x and newer. SC version 7.2.1 and older, you can still keep this setting at the default (mp3 streaming method=direct streaming).

[koelec]

Originally Posted by kha

Hi,

I would like to start SlimPlayer automatically when Sage starts up (just start it and not play anything). Currently until I manually go to SlimPlayer page in SageTV, the player does not show up in the list of controlled players in the SqueezeCenter. Is there an associated Javaclass that I can add to the "load_at_startup_runnable_classes" line in Sage.properties, that would force SlimPlayer to start automatically and be visible in Squeezecenter?

Regards,
Michael.

Michael,
Currently this is not possible. Using a runnable startup class will not do the job in all configurations. Slimplayer needs the UIContext at startup, which is normally passed from STV code to the slimplayer instance. Tomorrow I can look into this to see if I can use an STV listener for this. I will let you know..
- Chris

[Fuzzy]

Back to the loopback options, Would it be possible to create a dummy vid-stream to be a video source in the graph to UNE, and bring the audio from a sound card input? This should allow for using loopback without the need for a video capture device.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by koelec

Yes, and you're not alone in waiting for this. I've invited morgan the creator of SageMC to do this, but don't know the status of this...

This looks like a really cool plugin. I also am using nothing but SageMC on all my extenders.

Anything in the rumour mill yet on having it in SageMC?

[koelec]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Back to the loopback options, Would it be possible to create a dummy vid-stream to be a video source in the graph to UNE, and bring the audio from a sound card input? This should allow for using loopback without the need for a video capture device.

Yes, this is already realised by the software-only loopback channel configuration (as described in the installation instructions), which uses a still picture for video and audio is reproduced by a virtual audio cable device. If you want to use a spare audio device instead of the virtual audio cable (not free) you could create such a graph using graphedit.

- CHris

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by koelec

Yes, this is already realised by the software-only loopback channel configuration (as described in the installation instructions), which uses a still picture for video and audio is reproduced by a virtual audio cable device. If you want to use a spare audio device instead of the virtual audio cable (not free) you could create such a graph using graphedit.

- CHris

Excellent... of course now I've realized another limitation that may be more significant for me.. I don't run a headless server (server and primary client are same box), so I don't think I'd be able to use loopback for extenders, as they would both be trying to playback on the same machine.. unless of course there can be multiple instances of slimplayer running, with different output settings... and have Local sage control one, and extender control another...

[kha]

Hi Chris,

Thank you very much for looking into this.

Best Regards,
Michael.