[mythtv] Myth music enhancements

Tim Harvey tharvey at alumni.calpoly.edu
Sat Jan 17 21:39:09 EST 2004


> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org
[mailto:mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org]
> On Behalf Of Daborg
> Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 10:15 AM
> To: mythtv-dev at mythtv.org
> Subject: [mythtv] Myth music enhancements
> 
> First,
> 
> Excuse the long email.  Just want to make sure that I do not waste
mine or
> anyone else's time before going forward with the following.  This is
not a
> wish list, but rather a scope definition that I have already begun
work
> on.
> 
> I have been a long user of MythTv and quite happy with most aspects of
it.
> However, the music plugin is not quite the home theater app I would
like
> to
> see it turn into.  I have been looking into this and would like to see
it
> have the following features:
> 	1)  Be able to continue to play music when out of the plug in.
I.e.
> Could
> be selecting programs to record, could be looking at the weather, at
an
> extreme even being able to watch tv, but listen to music.  At present
> music
> play stops as soon as one exits the plugin.
> 	2)  Be able to send music to alternate or multiple sound cards
at
> same
> time.  For example in my setup I would like to be able to watch tv,
but
> also
> send music to my second amp feeding whole house audio via a second
sound
> card.  (Can Linux do this - do'nt know yet - will be adding 2nd sound
card
> to my test box this week sometime).
> 	3)  Be able to remotely (From other computers) control the music
> (Play,
> pause, rewind, change playlist, etc).  Most likely via very thin music
> clients
> 
> 	4)  Ultimately be able to play music playlists for the myth
gallery
> plugin,
> even different sound tracks for different directories (i.e., wedding
> pictures play wedding music, kid pictures play kid stuff, etc).
> 	5)  Better categorization and smart list features.  Tie-in with
Mood
> logic
> would be cool.  Tivo supposedly has this feature now.  Ratings on
music
> would also be a neat feature.  Right now I have a lot of comedy tracks
> that
> are funny as heck, but just not appropriate for kids.
> 	6)  Better, easier navigation of library and playlists.  Current
> setup to
> me is just cumbersome.  Really would like to see creating playlists
> easier.
> Add a feature like smart lists that automatically add new songs that
meet
> the smartlist criteria.  Mythweb might be the right way to do this...


I'm also very much interested in all of these things.  I 'think' Thor's
mfd takes care of 1) but I really don't quite understand the details of
mfd yet myself.

I'm planning on 'someday' doing some major enhancements to MythMusic
that would incorporate these (if somebody doesn't beat me to it as I
don't have the time right now).  I want to setup my system with multiple
sound cards designated for specific areas of the house (Theater,
Kitchen, Porch, etc) then from the interface be able to toggle on/off
and change volume of each and every one of these.

Be patient, I'm sure the day will come.

> 	7)  AAC, mp4 mpa (pick your favorite) decoders so I can play AAC
and
> in the
> future - itunes files (that I own) with Myth.
> 
> 	Those are the major features I would like to see.  Before
proceeding
> any
> further with this just wanted to get some ideas about whether these
are
> features others see a benefit to and whether my general approach will
> work.
> 
> 	My general thought at this time is to break the music plugin
into
> two
> separate processes.  One would be the playlist selection and gui
aspect of
> the music process.  The other would be a completely separate spawned
> process
> that sits in the background and plays music.  It takes commands from
the
> sockets that tell it to play, pause, skip, etc.  Also what soundcard
to
> use,
> etc.  It then returns information such as current track information,
where
> in the track it is at, etc.
> 
> 	Thus, a user can come into myth music select a playlist, start
> playback and
> then exit and go do other things all the while music still plays.  Or
I
> could be in my study, select a playlist and start playback for the
whole
> house audio, all the while someone might be in the basement / media
room
> watching live tv on the myth box.
> 
> 	Obviously on single sound card setups there has to be checking
by
> MythTv
> and Music to make sure the sound card is not being used and obviously
> provide a prompt to override or not.
> 
> 	I have taken current CVS from a few days ago and already broken
the
> gui
> process from the music playing piece.  I already have the skeleton of
the
> player piece working.  Have a custom frontend right now that I test
with.
> Still a lot of work to go, but the basic piece is there.  One thing I
had
> a
> bit of debate about was whether to pass the playlist to the player
> directly
> or let it get it from the database.  I am leaning towards the database
> approach for the following reason.
> 	- Much faster.  I often just select all my music and let it
> randomize it.
> Passing 10,000 tracks of information to the player could take a while
and
> in
> actuallity be a waste of time and bandwidth as I never listen to 4
weeks
> of
> music straight.  Thus, creating the playlist in the database with
pointers
> and just passing the right playlist ID into the player would be a much
> faster and better use of resources.
> 
> 	The one thing I have questions or concerns about are the
> visuaalizers.
> Personally I could care less about them as I do not sit in front of my
tv
> and watch the visualizations.   But others may have different
opinions.
> My
> concern is that all of the music data will be in the non-gui player.
Thus
> for a visualizer to work it would need to get data from the player.
In
> all
> honesty I do not know how much data these require.  Is it 20 points of
> data
> every 500 ms or is 1000 points of data every 100ms.  Also, since this
is a
> low priority to me It is not a piece I would initially concentrate on.
> However, there are probably other opinions on this...
> 
> Do any of the Myth developers have thoughts or questions about this
> approach?  Are there any active changes going on with mythmusic right
now?
> I know that there is the DAAP project going on and see that it has
stolen
> a
> lot of the code from myth music.  Not sure if the plan is to integrate
the
> two together or if they will remain separate entities.
> 
> Not promising anything in regards to time as I am in the process of a
> major
> remodel of my kitchen, but I am anxious to get this audio piece
working.
> 
> Since this is a major revamp to the program and it may take some time
to
> get
> it implemented how is that handled in the source code trees.  Is it
> mythmusic2 and then someday the original just goes away?
> 
> 
> Appreciate the feedback.
> 
> 
> Scott
> 
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