Author Topic: Bluetooth Speakers?  (Read 16493 times)

Matthew

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2008, 02:33:11 pm »
I'd need to know what the DHCP monitor triggers to start the SlimServer
Some scripts parses the output from the DHCP server and sends a dce message with the MAC to the DHCP plugin. That looks into the table DHCPDevice and adds the appropriate devices.

For bluez you probably want to use snd-bluez-sco or snd-bt-sco.

Thanks, that's enough to almost get started (need to find which is the exact script that starts when a new BT device is detected, and get it to sub for the DHCP request of a new Squeezebox).

I'll probably get back to this after I get through with the "Status updates in Floorplan" revisions, since they're now related and both depend on an updatable Floorplan.

1audio

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2008, 07:19:03 pm »
Does Slimserver support the Bluetooth speaker (bluetooth audio profile)? I think Slimserver may be a sidetrack to adding the speakers. You may need to look at some of the other audio options in Linux.

Slimserver is good but its really designed to support Squeezeboxes and their clones on a network. But you really need an independent audio stream to be sent to the BT driver under DCERouter control (hence the value of Slimserver if you can configure it that way).

There is another Linux network audio solution (at least) called Pulse Audio that hooks into Alsa and sends the audio stream out the network.

LMCE currently doesn't know how to handle more than one audio device per MD but the BT may look like a local audio device to the system and Alsa would the audio stream to the BT driver.

Matthew

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #17 on: January 14, 2008, 05:16:38 am »
Does Slimserver support the Bluetooth speaker (bluetooth audio profile)? I think Slimserver may be a sidetrack to adding the speakers. You may need to look at some of the other audio options in Linux.

Slimserver is good but its really designed to support Squeezeboxes and their clones on a network. But you really need an independent audio stream to be sent to the BT driver under DCERouter control (hence the value of Slimserver if you can configure it that way).

There is another Linux network audio solution (at least) called Pulse Audio that hooks into Alsa and sends the audio stream out the network.

LMCE currently doesn't know how to handle more than one audio device per MD but the BT may look like a local audio device to the system and Alsa would the audio stream to the BT driver.

Thanks for the advice. I was advised earlier in this topic that SlimServer would do what I want. I don't think SlimServer directly supports the BT speakers, but I think sharing the archtecture already built into LMCE, SlimServer, with either its SqueezeBox HW clients or a new client that behaves essentially the same by wrapping the BT speakers in a SW client that triggers SlimServer and pulls audio from it like the SqueezeBox does, then sends audio to the BT speakers, is the most consistent with how LMCE does it.

However, the SlimServer might not be the best streaming server. Probably the best is Icecast, for fidelity, performance, scalability, programmability, and with a larger and more open developer community. But Asterisk also already has a streaming RTP server. So adding Icecast would mean a third streaming server. Pulse Audio and others would mean a third one, too, with limited application compared to the others. Probably using the Asterisk RTP server would be best overall, but it's so integrated into Asterisk (it's not even a separate "stack" or module, but RTP is processed all through the Asterisk audio signal path) that such is probably the least feasible.

Probably the fastest way to get something going that isn't a dead end is to wrap madplay in something triggered by the existing BT detection script, that triggers whatever is monitoring DHCP for SqueezeBox MACs, hitting SlimServer for audio. The existing integration of SlimServer/SqueezeBox probably means the minimum work to integrate the new SW/BT client into the Floorplan. Maybe all of their streaming servers should be factored into a single multiprotocol server (or bundle), which use the DB and DCE rather than their native, incompatible data and IPC. Maybe all the audio should be run under a GStreamer pipeline. I'll be in a better position to figure that out once I've got something up and running. In no small part because I'll be able to listen to music while thinking about it.

1audio

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #18 on: January 14, 2008, 05:32:38 am »
Probably the fast track would be to add Softsqueeze http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/ and point its audio output to the BT device. The challenge would be to get it to not collide with Alsa in the same box and to talk to a Slimserver at the same IP address.

bulek

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #19 on: January 14, 2008, 09:50:54 am »
Probably the fast track would be to add Softsqueeze http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/ and point its audio output to the BT device. The challenge would be to get it to not collide with Alsa in the same box and to talk to a Slimserver at the same IP address.
Hi,

I just tried to add softsqueeze to fake LMCE to think it's HW player. I sent detection message and it got "detected", but it seems that it's not controllable through LMCE. Something is different, so it doesn't work. But it would be nice to have player on your laptop winPC, that could be synhonized with HW squeezeboxes and controlable from LMCE....

Anyone with more experience doing this (I will start new thread on this) ?

Regards,

Bulek.
Thanks in advance,

regards,

Bulek.

Matthew

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #20 on: January 14, 2008, 05:12:52 pm »
Probably the fast track would be to add Softsqueeze http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/ and point its audio output to the BT device. The challenge would be to get it to not collide with Alsa in the same box and to talk to a Slimserver at the same IP address.
Hi,

I just tried to add softsqueeze to fake LMCE to think it's HW player. I sent detection message and it got "detected", but it seems that it's not controllable through LMCE. Something is different, so it doesn't work. But it would be nice to have player on your laptop winPC, that could be synhonized with HW squeezeboxes and controlable from LMCE....

Anyone with more experience doing this (I will start new thread on this) ?

I'm following that new "Adding softsqueeeze as LMCE's player" topic thread.

tkmedia

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #21 on: January 14, 2008, 05:25:20 pm »
I had my Hauppauge Media MVP playing as squeeze box client at one point.
Could control it from the unit and through the slimserver web port 9100??
This would also be nice to control from LinuxMce. ;)
http://www.mvpmc.org/
My Setup http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/User:Tkmedia

For LinuxMce compatible  systems and accessories
http://lmcecompatible.com/

Matthew

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #22 on: January 14, 2008, 05:40:52 pm »
I had my Hauppauge Media MVP playing as squeeze box client at one point.
Could control it from the unit and through the slimserver web port 9100??
This would also be nice to control from LinuxMce. ;)
http://www.mvpmc.org/

The flip side is whether a client to some other existing LMCE server component can get audio streams. Like whether there's a way to use a MythTV client to get audio streams from MythTV, and send them to the BT speakers. Or some other existing streaming server (if there is one).

bulek

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #23 on: January 14, 2008, 09:23:19 pm »
Hi,

there is another idea that might help you, although didn't do much on it in a last year. But I had xine audio only player working on core beside "normal" xine player for Orbiter and it's output was totally independent and controllable from other room. Repeating this wouldn't be too hard, we could just make new branch and start working on it - the whole idea is to start Xine according to some device data without any video resources, so it doesn't interfere with Orbiter's Xine that has video window.... I inserted some if then elses at that time (few hours work)...

The bigger problem was how to get controls for that Xine on Orbiter (currently only squeezebox and "normal Xine" is supported in that way, that media scenarios are automatically created)... To get me going, Aaron created those scenarios manually in database for me and voila, it worked.... There is also some work needed to get separate volume control - I think that currently some weird plugin takes care of sound volume (app_server ??? - not sure)...

I talked to one of Pluto developers and he said he will be able to help if we get stuck with it. I have waited for some time, because he said that he's doing major recoding on Xine player to add ability to sync more players, but have no clue if this is already done or not....

If you ask me, this would be best solution, cause it could come handy in many situations - basically you can get whole house audio on one Core with cheap sound cards... if they output to Bluetooth speakers, that's also fine :-) .... And of course, Xine player is maintained (at least at the moment), so we're not forking dead end...

All pretty much described here : http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3161.0

HTH,

regards,

Bulek.

 
Thanks in advance,

regards,

Bulek.

Matthew

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #24 on: January 15, 2008, 07:41:31 am »
I think the right way to do this is to make the BT detection script start up a streaming client (like SoftSqueeze or curl | madplay) and send that client's audio over the BT to the speakers. Which probably means the client needs a new (probably virtual) ethernet interface, with a dhclient getting a new IP# (that triggers DHCP, and SlimServer) so the stream goes to a new independent device.

Which means getting the SoftSqueeze running properly along those lines, as discussed in that other thread, is the first order of business.

Matthew

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Re: Bluetooth Speakers?
« Reply #25 on: January 23, 2008, 06:31:23 am »
I'd need to know what the DHCP monitor triggers to start the SlimServer
Some scripts parses the output from the DHCP server and sends a dce message with the MAC to the DHCP plugin. That looks into the table DHCPDevice and adds the appropriate devices.

For bluez you probably want to use snd-bluez-sco or snd-bt-sco.

I've been trying to get any bluetooth audio to these speakers with any technique, no matter how manual, and not even integrated into LMCE (later for autodetect speakers, etc). I've been trying every howto for btsco, bluetooth-alsa, a2dpd/headsetd, everything. And nothing works. Is there some clear howto that will work for getting an A2DP profile audio device to play audio sent from a file on LMCE to the DBT-120 dongle?