[mythtv] Re: MythMusic Improvements

Chris Fleming me at chrisfleming.org
Fri Jan 7 11:19:42 EST 2005


Colin Guthrie wrote:

> Chris Fleming wrote:
>
>> Nick Parkinson wrote:
>>
>>>> 1. IPOD support, and for other portable devices
>>>> (USB)
>>>
>> Having just set up my iPod to work with linux yesterday evening. I 
>> started thinking about integration Mythtv. My current thinking is 
>> that the best way to do this is to build some  scripts around gnupod 
>> (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnupod/gnupod.html) to deal with the 
>> itunes database, it also has the capability to convert from ogg to 
>> mp3 format. So  initially I just plan to get some scripts working 
>> that will sync the tunes and playlists listed in mythmusic.
>>
>> My plan will then be to add a frontend plugin, however as a sync may 
>> take a long time, especially if we are converting to mp3's  the actal 
>> sync will run in the background and so the frontend will just be a 
>> means of checking the current status and mounting/unmounting the ipod.
>>
>> It will also need a method of dealing with situations where the iPod 
>> doesn't have enough capacity to store all of the music - I've not run 
>> into this situation yet, however the most likely solution will be to 
>> use a playlist to manage this.
>
>
> I filed a bug/enhancement for this in bugzilla (but 19 or 20 IIRC) and 
> was going to have a crack at this for my iRiver, but havn't finished 
> the other improvments I'm making yet, so not had time to get round to it.
>
> It would be really nice if anyone starts working on this code if they 
> can make it configurable for different media players. For example, my 
> iRiver uses a different database format to iPod, and it can play 
> Oggs/WMA directly without needing any form of conversion (can't do 
> FLAC tho'). So it would be nice if these parts of the sync process 
> worked in a flexible/configurable manner.
>
> As for playlist, I think it would be nice to be able to register one 
> or more playlists per device for sync'ing. It's not unfeasable that 
> two or three people would all want to sync their media devices to the 
> mythbox, and may want to have different playlists etc, even if they 
> have the same player. Would it be possible to read some from of serial 
> number from the device and somehow associate it with the different 
> playlist (in some cases it may be the same playlists of course).
>
> I'm looking forward to the day when some form of regexp based 
> playlists are integrated into MythMusic and when that happens 
> autosync'ing of playlists may get pretty sweet.
>
> I guess there would be no problem with writing a small "control" file 
> on the device too to track the sync process, to save it scanning the 
> whole disc, although even a full disc scan isn't too crazy so perhaps 
> not needed.
>
> I defo like the idea of a background process, perhaps with some form 
> of loose bandwidth limit to save it hogging all your network bandwidth 
> (if appropriate) to allow you to watch a movie or play more music if 
> that's what you want to do.
>
> Do you see this as a totally separate plugin or just integrated into 
> MythMusic. I had originally thought part of MM but your comments above 
> perhaps suggest you thought otherwise??

Agreed.

At the moment, I'm thinking that this will probably be a two/three stage 
process, I think that we do need a myth frontend to provide a GUI from 
which we can control mounting and un-mounting, as well as configuration. 
This will include data such as supported file formats so that we can 
perform. I'm not sure if this is better as a specific external player 
plugin or integrated into mythmusic.

A second stage is the background task that will allow updates to take 
place in the background. This task will perform any format coversions 
required and interface to the third stage which will effectivly be a 
device specific interface.

The ipod is the most complex device as it has a specific iTunes database 
on the disk that needs to be updated. I think most other devices are 
relativly simple - looking at some iRiver documentation the mp3's and 
oggs just need to be copied onto the disk probably in Album folders. The 
iRiver also has a on board database that seems optional but is needed 
for flexable navigations. Playlists are stored in .m3u format. 

I'll need to figure out how other players work, but I don't expect these 
to be much different.

Cheers
Chris





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