xPLMediaNet - Release Soon

["Tony Tofts" <tony@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Just a heads up on the state of play with xPLMediaNet

Am hoping to release the first public alpha for testing this weekend, which
supports Rio/DDAR, ExStreamer and SliMP3

All devices have the same funtionality available (with the possible
exception of TTS on the Rio, see below)

All support their display being used as an xPL OSD, other than ExStreamer
that doesn't have a display of course. And all support displaying their
menus and playing status on other xPL OSD's. All can be controlled via xPL
messages.

All remote control (and rio panel) buttons can be remapped as required.
There are 3 sections (menu, pronto, normal) that represent the 3 modes a
client can be in. If a client is in Pronto mode, then only the pronto
section is relevant. If the client is in a menu then mappings are taken
from
the menu section, and if not matched then they are taken from the normal
section.

The menu uses 2 separate buttons for selecting and queueing, this is so you
can select to queue all tracks for an artist/album/genre as well as
drilling
down to individual tracks (though track lists also include a play all)

All support Pronto quick selection of albums/playlists

A single device web page is used by all devices, so tayloring the web
should
be simple

Statistics are only updated when a track completes

On the remote control side any device can remote control any other device.
The menus are sized to match the master to give the best menu system at the
master end. If the slave display is _smaller_ than the master (e.g. rio
controlling a slimp3) then the slave display is temporarily locked out
(this
saves adding ton's of code to support the remote control feature). The only
alternative was to use the smallest display setting on both devices, but I
think I've chosen the right option?

Have just modified the way transcoding works, if I've done it right then
adding new file formats _should_ just be a case of providing a suitable
transcoder to mp3 (and a tag support module if appropriate) without any
need
to modify any existing client modules etc

Due to system file locks preventing access to tracks when they are being
transcoded, the transcoder module makes a temporary copy of the track. This
prevents issues with source modules being unable to read the file info from
a track while it's being transcoded, and more importantly means the same
track can be transcoded to multiple clients at the same time

The only obvious function missing is TTS on the Rio, which _might_ be added
before the release. Due to the way riot works (and the fact that the rio
might be playing flac/ogg natively) it is necessary to actually stop the
Rio's stream, send the TTS as if it's an mp3 file, and then restart the
original track where it left off. Not simple, but achievable.

Once the first alpha is released for general trial, I'll start work on the
MVP

Regards
Tony



xPL Links: http://www.xplproject.org.uk http://www.xplhal.com http://www.xpl.myby.co.uk
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