Archive > Xine Plugin
How is xine used in Pluto ?
archived:
Aha, now I understand the confusion. You want to use a multi-channel audio card as multi-zone. Honestly, I've never heard of anyone doing that -- I mean having 2 separate programs take over individual channels individually.
It would be nice on the 5.1 boards which usually have 3 stereo mini jacks, to be able to make 3 separate zones out of them. Running 3 instances of xine in our software is not an issue. If you create 3 xine's under the media director, or hybrid device, the Start_localDevices script will spawn them. And, if you put those 3 xine's in separate rooms, then Pluto is fine with that too.
The hard part is telling this xine to take over these channels, and another one to take over different ones. But that is something that's better for the Xine forums -- I don't think any of us here have the low level technical knowledge of Xine to make this happen.
archived:
--- Quote from: "aaron.b" ---Aha, now I understand the confusion. You want to use a multi-channel audio card as multi-zone. Honestly, I've never heard of anyone doing that -- I mean having 2 separate programs take over individual channels individually.
It would be nice on the 5.1 boards which usually have 3 stereo mini jacks, to be able to make 3 separate zones out of them. Running 3 instances of xine in our software is not an issue. If you create 3 xine's under the media director, or hybrid device, the Start_localDevices script will spawn them. And, if you put those 3 xine's in separate rooms, then Pluto is fine with that too.
The hard part is telling this xine to take over these channels, and another one to take over different ones. But that is something that's better for the Xine forums -- I don't think any of us here have the low level technical knowledge of Xine to make this happen.
--- End quote ---
I guess you're talking about how to tell each xine on what alsa device to play ?
Right now I think this device is set to 'alsa:default' or something like that in /etc/pluto/xine.conf. We should just figure out how to add this device as parameter and start xine in this way (set it to 'alsa:hw:1,1') . I'll try this and get back to you...
Are there any other parameters that should be customized for each instance of xine?
I've asked this also on slim mailing list:
- do you perhaps now how sync is made between different slim clients ? If I try with Alsaplayer I guess I should solve this sync too...
Thanks for help,
regards,
Rob.
archived:
--- Quote from: "tinia" ---
--- Quote from: "aaron.b" ---Aha, now I understand the confusion. You want to use a multi-channel audio card as multi-zone. Honestly, I've never heard of anyone doing that -- I mean having 2 separate programs take over individual channels individually.
It would be nice on the 5.1 boards which usually have 3 stereo mini jacks, to be able to make 3 separate zones out of them. Running 3 instances of xine in our software is not an issue. If you create 3 xine's under the media director, or hybrid device, the Start_localDevices script will spawn them. And, if you put those 3 xine's in separate rooms, then Pluto is fine with that too.
The hard part is telling this xine to take over these channels, and another one to take over different ones. But that is something that's better for the Xine forums -- I don't think any of us here have the low level technical knowledge of Xine to make this happen.
--- End quote ---
I guess you're talking about how to tell each xine on what alsa device to play ?
Right now I think this device is set to 'alsa:default' or something like that in /etc/pluto/xine.conf. We should just figure out how to add this device as parameter and start xine in this way (set it to 'alsa:hw:1,1') . I'll try this and get back to you...
Are there any other parameters that should be customized for each instance of xine?
I've asked this also on slim mailing list:
- do you perhaps now how sync is made between different slim clients ? If I try with Alsaplayer I guess I should solve this sync too...
Thanks for help,
regards,
Rob.
--- End quote ---
Hi,
I've taken a closer look of xine and found out following:
- alsa device for player output is set in xine.conf :
--- Code: ---
# audio.alsa_default_device:hw:1,0
# audio.alsa_mixer_name:Wave
--- End code ---
so that means that xine will play to subdevice 0 on card 1. You can get available devices with :
--- Code: ---aplay -l
--- End code ---
- xine has both option for mixers: you can use master HW mixer on device or software mixer, where xine scales its pcm output. Settings :
--- Code: ---audio.alsa_mixer_name:Master or software
--- End code ---
So I think we have options to try to enhance xine player plugin under Pluto. But I'd like to get some minor help, maybe from pluto-xine plugin author ?
- is xine in Pluto launched with graphic window ?
- how to run xine from command line without any X resources - audio only from console ?
- how is volume control implemented in Pluto ? I've tried to use it on video, but no effect...
Propositions:
- xine should be spawned with as little resources as possible (audio only setup, but to stay pluto compatible)
- add some parameter to specify alsa device and mixing settings for each instance....
I'll try to do this, but I guess that it's best if author of pluto-xine gives some guidance and opinion...
Thanks,
regards,
Rob.
archived:
Hi Rob,
There are technical issues that might prevent you from using more xine players to accomplish what you want.
First:
- The Xine players share the same config. This should be changes first and paramterized per instance (the Device Data that aaron told you about).
- The Xine players need to know if they are going to be used as audio and/or video players. (This is to avoid creating the Video ports and windows on the X server in order to be able to run on a headless box).
After those issues are fixed you will be able to use multiple Xine Player's on a media director for multiple audio zones.
The second issue is your question about alsaplayer. This should not be such big of a deal but you will probrably need to code some control code in the Xine_Plugin, or create a new Media Plugin to control Alsa Players. Is not rocket science but is also not trivial.
The other solution would be to buy a lot of Squeeze boxes and use our SqueezeBox integration to achieve the same effects. This should work right now and if not it will be a priority for me to fix it. The SlimServer/XinePlayer integration is not there yet so is not something that you can count on now to resolve your issue.
The first this is the more usefull thing because it can help people like yourself to enjoy whole house audio without expensive investments in SqueezeBoxes. I'll put those fixes on my list and try to fix then as soon as possible.
If you want to contact me directly i have the mtoader YM id.
Sincerely,
ToMiC
archived:
Hi Rob,
The previous post was from me. I'm the guy working on the Xine integration in pluto. If you need info on this you can contact me directly (mtoader on YM).
Sincerely,
ToMiC
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