• Media Centers

    From Chicken Head@1:103/705 to All on Fri Oct 25 17:39:34 2019
    So just a general question here...who is using Linux as a "media center" of sorts? For...well, years now...I have been using Logitech Squeezebox devices as my main media boxes. The problem with this is the damnable "Logitech Media Center"...formerly squeezecenter. Logitech no longer supports any of it and I think maybe only one person in the world is currently maintaining the thing. It was written in Perl and every time the OS updates perl...it breaks (don't ask me my opinions on perl).

    So I have had enough...my Squeeze Boom boxes' displays have all failed due to the sub-standard components they used. And now I can't even get the LMS to work anymore. I'm done...and I'm moving to MPD.

    I've been playing around with Rune Audio, and Arch Linux based MPD distro that runs on RPi devices...I like it. But it's missing things like an alarm clock (I've had my Squeeze Boom on my bedside table for over a decade now).

    Does anyone have any other suggestions? MPD seems like the way to go. Kodi doesn't quite cut the mustard as an audio player...Rune Audio/MPD is designed to be headless.

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  • From Richard Falken@1:103/705 to Chicken Head on Fri Oct 25 18:48:43 2019
    Re: Media Centers
    By: Chicken Head to All on Fri Oct 25 2019 05:39 pm

    I've been playing around with Rune Audio, and Arch Linux based MPD distro that runs on RPi devices...I like it. But it's missing things like an alarm clock (I've had my Squeeze Boom on my bedside table for over a decade now).

    Can't you set a cronjob for working as an alarm?

    I use Linux a lot for playing music, videos and making file conversions, but if
    you limit yourself to a RPi board you are going to be a bit tight on computing power. Their IO is not exactly great. At the hour of truth I just use a regular
    computer with a regular distribution and regular multimedia players.

    I just pulled one of this year's Linux Magazine and found some instructions for
    getting Kodi running with some popular multimedia providers, but you say it does not work for you, hmmm...
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  • From Karel Kral@2:423/39 to Chicken Head on Sat Oct 26 05:22:14 2019
    Hello Chicken.

    25 Oct 19 17:39, you wrote to all:

    Does anyone have any other suggestions? MPD seems like the way to go. Kodi doesn't quite cut the mustard as an audio player...Rune Audio/MPD
    is designed to be headless.

    I am using RPi and KODI for a while. (had some Zyxel before, it was crazy). What I like is that I can add whatever I need (many plugins). Also HDMI CEC is working without any issue. But to say the true, I am not so heavy user (pure audio I am using different device and Movies I have in standard resolution)

    Did not help so much to you, I know ;-)

    Karel

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    * Origin: Plast DATA (2:423/39)
  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to Chicken Head on Sun Oct 27 10:45:52 2019
    Hello Chicken!

    25 Oct 19 17:39, Chicken Head wrote to All:

    Does anyone have any other suggestions? MPD seems like the way to
    go. Kodi doesn't quite cut the mustard as an audio player...Rune Audio/MPD is designed to be headless.

    Are you looking for a server solution, a client, or both? I don't have any experience with the client side as I'm mostly using appliances (wifi-capable radios, TV's and such) for that. Thus on the server side I'm pretty much fine with having a decent dlna/upnp server. I used media tomb for that part many years, switched to minidlna later, and only recently moved on to serviio.


    Regards,
    Gerrit

    ... 10:45AM up 193 days, 20:06, 8 users, load averages: 0.34, 0.44, 0.41

    --- Msged/BSD 6.1.2
    * Origin: A love pays love for lying (2:240/12)
  • From Ron Lauzon@1:275/89 to Chicken Head on Sun Oct 27 08:24:00 2019
    Chicken Head wrote to All <=-

    So just a general question here...who is using Linux as a "media
    center" of sorts? For...well, years now...I have been using Logitech Squeezebox devices as my main media boxes. The problem with this is
    the damnable "Logitech Media Center"...formerly squeezecenter.
    Logitech no longer supports any of it and I think maybe only one person
    in the world is currently maintaining the thing. It was written in Perl and every time the OS updates perl...it breaks (don't ask me my
    opinions on perl).

    I took a Raspberry PI 3 with a 3.5" screen case. https://www.banggood.com/Geekcreit-3_5-inch-TFT-LCD-Touch-Screen-Protective-Cas e-Touch-Pen-Kit-For-Raspberry-Pi-3B3B2B-p-1391232.html?rmmds=myorder&cur_wareho use=USA

    I loaded standard Raspian headless with mpd/mpc on it.
    I then NFS mounted the music directory from my server.

    I wrote up a simple Python program using tkinter to create a control panel for the 3.5" touch screen.

    Any complex control can be handled by using an mpc client for Android (which are mostly free).

    I hooked it to some nice speakers and, voila, media player that works just as good (if not better) than my old Squeezebox setup.


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  • From Chicken Head@1:103/705 to Richard Falken on Fri Nov 1 16:59:49 2019
    Re: Media Centers
    By: Richard Falken to Chicken Head on Fri Oct 25 2019 06:48 pm

    A Cron job is exactly what MPD people are doing...and I will likely do it myself. I've been spoiled by the Squeezebox way of doing things for a long time...but it isn't a big deal to set up a cron job.

    The AHK Gang! Live on Riot.im. When we feel like it.
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  • From Chicken Head@1:103/705 to Karel Kral on Fri Nov 1 17:03:28 2019
    Re: Media Centers
    By: Karel Kral to Chicken Head on Sat Oct 26 2019 05:22 am

    Actually it is good to hear about others using Kodi. I tried...I've been using
    my old Squeezebox to broadcast a "white noise" sound to help me sleep. I tried
    with Kodi but for some reason it has problems auto-repeating the same track without a stupid delay. Kind of defeats the point.

    ...but I do like Kodi. I have another Rpi that is my media center using LibreElec, which works great. I've heard you can get Netflix working with it but I haven't had the time to try.
    The AHK Gang! Live on Riot.im. When we feel like it.
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  • From Chicken Head@1:103/705 to Gerrit Kuehn on Fri Nov 1 17:08:16 2019
    Re: Media Centers
    By: Gerrit Kuehn to Chicken Head on Sun Oct 27 2019 10:45 am

    Hi Gerrit:

    I'm kind of looking for both a server AND a client. For clarification...I've got a Squeezebox Boom box, and I've got the remote control from one of their older "Duet" combos. Works great, if you can keep the stupid logitech media server running between updates....but I give up on that.

    Right now I've got an Rpi running Rune Audio, which is basically Arch Linux running MPD. For a remote control I've got my android phone that can use either the many MPD remotes, or the Rune Audio one.

    The nice thing about the Logitech/Squeeze system was it was nicely integrated, with alarm clocks and other things. The MPD-based stuff doesn't go that far. But I think it is more flexible in the long run.

    The AHK Gang! Live on Riot.im. When we feel like it.
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  • From Chicken Head@1:103/705 to Ron Lauzon on Fri Nov 1 17:09:48 2019
    Re: Re: Media Centers
    By: Ron Lauzon to Chicken Head on Sun Oct 27 2019 08:24 am

    Thanks, Ron...that's exactly where I am headed.

    The AHK Gang! Live on Riot.im. When we feel like it.
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  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to Chicken Head on Sat Nov 2 10:23:22 2019
    Hello Chicken!

    01 Nov 19 17:08, Chicken Head wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:

    I'm kind of looking for both a server AND a client. For clarification...I've got a Squeezebox Boom box, and I've got the
    remote control from one of their older "Duet" combos. Works great,
    if you can keep the stupid logitech media server running between updates....but I give up on that.

    I had a look at the Squeeze solution many years ago when I was thinking about buying the first client appliance. It looked really nicely integrated back then, but exactly that scared me away from it in the end: it looked like a vendor lock-in.


    Regards,
    Gerrit

    ... 10:23AM up 199 days, 19:44, 8 users, load averages: 0.40, 0.38, 0.34

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  • From Chicken Head@1:103/705 to Gerrit Kuehn on Fri Nov 8 16:10:54 2019
    Re: Media Centers
    By: Gerrit Kuehn to Chicken Head on Sat Nov 02 2019 10:23 am

    I think the biggest problem with the Logitech/Squeeze Media Server was it's dependency on Perl. That is what keeps breaking.

    The LMS had great features ahead of it's time...you could have multiple devices
    all playing the same thing, in synch (and I did, at one point). MPD supports streaming but not this. And the LMS devices had nice things built in like alarm clocks and even RSS readers.

    But Logitech abandoned it a long time ago, and that's ancient history. I like what I'm doing with my RPi 3 running Rune Audio/MPD.

    I find it interesting that the alternatives like Sonos still don't do what Squeeze did.
    The AHK Gang! Live on Riot.im. When we feel like it.
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