Slim Player (internet radio, mp3, wma, etc from SlimServer)

[koelec]

Originally Posted by pleyraki

Hi and thanks for your excellent plugin.

Please help me finding a way to use SlimServer without the use of the Sage TV output: I have a little two line LCD panel in my computer.

Option 1: Does your plugin work with Nielm's External Status Monitor Interface? That would be best for me! If not, please consider adapting your plugin to "send" the two line output of SlimServer to Nielm's interface (sorry if I am not writing this correctly, hope you understand what I mean).

Option 2: Where can I find the SlimServer interface, so that I could build a little program myself, to display the two line slimserver screen in the LCD?

Thanks in advance,

Hi pleyraki,

The way you want it is exactly the configuration I'm enjoying for over a year now.
I have a 4x20 lcd display connected to my server, which displays the two line output from slimserver, just like a real squeezebox. I use LCDSmartie to drive the display. I've written a simple plugin for lcdsmartie the get the text to display from slimserver. On my MCE remote I have a button dedicated to jump to the navigation screen of the slimplayer plugin in SageTV. From there I can navigate the slimserver menu by using the arrow buttons to start a song, select an internet stream (I use LastFM a lot) and so on. So, without turning on my TV, I can navigate the slimplayer, just using the remote.

If you want this setup then you do the following:
1. install LCDSmartie en make sure your specific LCD is supported and works OK (download from here: http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net/smartied.htm)
2. install my ssplugin.dll to show the two line softsqueeze output by following the directions here: http://forums.lcdsmartie.org/viewtop...highlight=slim
(ssplugin.dll is attached to this post)
3. import the slimplayer-1.1.stvi attached to this post (which fixes a problem with direct access to navigation screen by key press)
4. map a key on your remote to SageTV command "custom2" (setup/detailed setup/commands/link infrared/keystroke to SageTV command) so you have direct access to the slimplayer navigation screen from anywhere in the SageTV menu by pressing that key. Now you don't have to turn on the TV to start navigation the slimplayer!

- Chris

[banjo]

Hi,

Well i have tried to use the silm for SageMC, and found that it is not working with the new Squezzeserver version 7.

Is there any way to fix that?

Thanks
Banjo

[koelec]

Originally Posted by banjo

Hi,

Well i have tried to use the silm for SageMC, and found that it is not working with the new Squezzeserver version 7.

Is there any way to fix that?

Thanks
Banjo

Hi,
version 7 is still beta. I suggest you use the 6.5.
As soon as 7 is final I will update the slimplayer plugin to work with this

- Chris

[ernestshakleton]

I am using 7 and have everything working except for the Favorites and Playlists nothing shows up in these lists.

[mkanet]

Is 7 even out yet? I hopefully there's already work being done in this plugin and the SageMC version in preparation of it's release.

[pleyraki]

Is there a way for the plugin to display the elapsed/remaining time of the song/playlist now playing? That would be nice!

Thanks.

[koelec]

Originally Posted by pleyraki

Is there a way for the plugin to display the elapsed/remaining time of the song/playlist now playing? That would be nice!

Thanks.

Suppose it can be added for local content. For internet streams the timing info is not available.

- chris

[koelec]

I just uploaded version 1.2 of this plugin.
Just a minor update to have the plugin working with SlimServer 7 aka SqueezeCenter.
You can either download and install the zip file from the downloads section or just copy the attached slimplayer.jar file over the existing one in the JARS folder.
Of course you'll have to install SqueezeCenter to enjoy the new services it provides.

SqueezeCenter 7 adds a.o. support for online music services

* Slacker
* Pandora
* Rhapsody Direct
* MP3tunes
* Last.fm AudioScrobbler
is now included

cheers
- chris

[pleyraki]

Sure it can be done, are you going to make it happen? If so please post here. Thanks-

Originally Posted by koelec

Suppose it can be added for local content. For internet streams the timing info is not available.

- chris

Originally Posted by pleyraki

Is there a way for the plugin to display the elapsed/remaining time of the song/playlist now playing? That would be nice!

Thanks.

[briands]

Seeing Pandora on here got my attention...

However, even after adding my softsqueeze pin, I still get the popup saying "You do not have any players registered... Am I missing something?

[mkanet]

I've never been able to get that to work; and, as far as I got. If you figure it out I'd like to know too.

Originally Posted by briands

Seeing Pandora on here got my attention...

However, even after adding my softsqueeze pin, I still get the popup saying "You do not have any players registered... Am I missing something?

[briands]

Also.... kind of off topic, but is there any chance the spiffy duet would be able to control a softsqueeze player (and of course I mean running in Sage) That would be a sweet music controller when you dont want to fire up the TV for music selection.

[pleyraki]

Hi.

I am now an old user of the plugin, which is excellent. But after downloading ver 1.2, I have problems quite often:

While playing, the server (squeezebox) seems to lock: The display I have set up with LCDsmartie says "no server". After that the whole sage tv hangs.

If I kill sagetv and restart squeezeserver normally, then restart sagetv, everything is back to normal.

Any ideas? Mine is that, as I have a slow machine (fanless via 1.2GHz), the squeezeserver cannot cope, because maybe the plugin uses much more computer cycles than the previous version? Else maybe the squeezeserver has an option to "slow down" its work?

Thanks

[koelec]

Originally Posted by pleyraki

While playing, the server (squeezebox) seems to lock: The display I have set up with LCDsmartie says "no server". After that the whole sage tv hangs.

If I kill sagetv and restart squeezeserver normally, then restart sagetv, everything is back to normal.

Any ideas? Mine is that, as I have a slow machine (fanless via 1.2GHz), the squeezeserver cannot cope, because maybe the plugin uses much more computer cycles than the previous version? Else maybe the squeezeserver has an option to "slow down" its work?

Thanks

I suspect that squeezecenter uses more CPU cycles and for sure more memory. Make sure you have enough memory installed, to ensure the system is not swapping to disk. The LCDsmatie plugin polls the sqeeuzecenter and when that doesn't respond in time it starts showing the "no server" message.
Can you take a look at cpu and memory usage with windows task manager?

To find out the cause try using softsqueeze player or realplayer instead of slim player in sagetv (restart sagetv and don't go to slim player menu) and see if the problem still occurs. Monitor memory and cpu usage when you do this.

As a last resort you could setup a server somewhere in the basement connect both to a local LAN and offload you're little fanless machine by running squeezecenter and maybe some other apps on that machine instead.

- Chris

[koelec]

Originally Posted by briands

Seeing Pandora on here got my attention...

However, even after adding my softsqueeze pin, I still get the popup saying "You do not have any players registered... Am I missing something?

Seems it only works with a paid pandora account.
see this post on squeezecenter forum:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...ra+softsqueeze

- chris

[mkanet]

Chris, I just paid for a full year of the pandora account and also registered with Slacker hoping to use it with SageTV. After successfully getting it to work with SoftSqueeze 3.6, I just discovered a serious bug in SageTV with the current slimplayer.jar.

It does not handle the switching of music stations during playback from Music Services. I can listen to one station the very first time, if I try to play another station from Pandora or Slacker (while its still playing), the audio will start streaming for the new station but NO SOUND, or the audio starts jumping back and forth between to new radio station and the old one.

Again, this is very reproducable. I have no issues using the latest SoftSqueeze 3.6. Am I really the first person to try this??

Anyway Chris, could you please look into this?

Thanks!
Michael

[koelec]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Chris, I just paid for a full year of the pandora account and also registered with Slacker hoping to use it with SageTV. After successfully getting it to work with SoftSqueeze 3.6, I just discovered a serious bug in SageTV with the current slimplayer.jar.

It does not handle the switching of music stations during playback from Music Services. I can listen to one station the very first time, if I try to play another station from Pandora or Slacker (while its still playing), the audio will start streaming for the new station but NO SOUND, or the audio starts jumping back and forth between to new radio station and the old one.

Again, this is very reproducable. I have no issues using the latest SoftSqueeze 3.6. Am I really the first person to try this??

Anyway Chris, could you please look into this?

Thanks!
Michael

Since Pandora and Slacker are US only services I'm not able to reproduce the problem. The problem is that squeezecenter is not very consistent in handling commands from clients concerning different sources. I've time to look into the problem on friday night. I'll compare how softsqueeze switches stations and my own implementation and probably find a solution for this.
I hope I can count on you Michael to test a version before releasing it.

- Chris

[mkanet]

Thanks Chris, I'll assist you any way I can. If I'm not mistaken you're 9 hours ahead of me. I might be asleep by the time you start looking at the issue, since I have to wake up early to work the next day. But, I'll send you some more detailed information via PM along with my direct email address. Also, I'll have time on my Friday and the weekend, if you need to work with me real-time.

-Michael

Originally Posted by koelec

Since Pandora and Slacker are US only services I'm not able to reproduce the problem. The problem is that squeezecenter is not very consistent in handling commands from clients concerning different sources. I've time to look into the problem on friday night. I'll compare how softsqueeze switches stations and my own implementation and probably find a solution for this.
I hope I can count on you Michael to test a version before releasing it.

- Chris

[pleyraki]

Well, this is a followup:

I have located the source to the problem: The problem exists (the plugin hangs but can be revived if you stop the Slimserver) if and only if there are items (folder names, file names etc) that have accented characters!

I mainly have a problem because Greek are included in "accented characters", but I suppose that you could reproduce and correct the error by using a song with a filename that has an accented char in it (e.g. "Mario Bauza' and his orchestra").

The moment you try to navigate to this file from slimclient for sage, the revolving "wait" icon appears and you can only kill sage or stop the slimserver to get SageTV to work again.

Please note that SoftSqueeze doesn't have any problem with accented chars.

Would you please try to correct the bug? Thanks.

Originally Posted by koelec

I suspect that squeezecenter uses more CPU cycles and for sure more memory. Make sure you have enough memory installed, to ensure the system is not swapping to disk. The LCDsmatie plugin polls the sqeeuzecenter and when that doesn't respond in time it starts showing the "no server" message.
Can you take a look at cpu and memory usage with windows task manager?

To find out the cause try using softsqueeze player or realplayer instead of slim player in sagetv (restart sagetv and don't go to slim player menu) and see if the problem still occurs. Monitor memory and cpu usage when you do this.

As a last resort you could setup a server somewhere in the basement connect both to a local LAN and offload you're little fanless machine by running squeezecenter and maybe some other apps on that machine instead.

- Chris

[koelec]

pleyraki,
I tried to reproduce this, but did not succeed. The plugin just displays a rectangle character instead of the accented character, which is of course wrong but doesn't hang sage. I'll try to correct this, and maybe this will cure you're problem as well. In the mean time you could help me if you could enable debug logging for the plugin and send me the resultat log file.
In the file log4j.xml change the value attribute from INFO to DEBUG:

<category name="nl.cmkprojects.sage" additivity="false">
<priority value="INFO" />
<appender-ref ref="SageAppender" />
</category>

restart sage
reproduce the problem
send me the zipped log file sagetv_0.txt (PM message)
(maybe you have to enable sage debug logging in sage.properties file)
Don't forget to change log level to INFO again afterwards.

- Chris