Patrick Delamere
2004-10-10, 19:27
Hi Jules,
Forget my previous email! I am now very one very happy chappie. I just had
a look at the new code you sent me earlier (alienbbc_0.10) and realised that
that was the one with the MPlayer support in it. :-)
I got your email with the new binaries before your other email, so I thought
there was more to come. Anyway, I have now downloaded the latest MPlayer
source code (MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bz2) from:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html#source
then ran
../configure
make
make install
Fortunately it all went like a dream. I already had ffmpeg etc installed.
For anyone else compiling the above, you'll need to make sure you have the
prereqs etc. I had to install from source because YAST (SuSE's package
installation tool) did not have MPlayer on offer.
I then edited the transcoder_proxy.pl to switch the $use_alientstream off
again!! Thereafter, selecting a BBC stream from the web interface yielded
positive results for the first time since I started on this journey.
Anyway, not only that, as you mentioned, the connection time to the stream
proved to be very fast. Excellent stuff.
Since doing the above I have even been able to play my own Real Player
'smil' file which I'd placed in /var/slimserver/playlists/AlienStream.
I have to say, now that I can play my favourite radio station (which you
can't get in the UK), I can definitely justify my expenditure on the
Squeezebox. ;-)
Thanks so much for your help. Keep up the good work!
Patrick :-)
_____
From: Patrick Delamere [mailto:slimdevices (AT) delamerelocal (DOT) homeip.net]
Sent: 10 October 2004 15:52
To: 'Slim Devices Discussion'
Subject: [slim] Alienstream - buffering 0%
Hi Jules,
Thanks for your quick response! :-)
I am currently trying alienbbc_0.10 that you sent earlier. Currently it
appears to be having the same problems. I started "./alienstream
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/realmedia/fmg2.rpm".
The odd thing is that it just sits at the following for a long time......
mrl: 'http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/realmedia/fmg2.rpm'
Connecting HTTP server... [0%]
MRL REFERENCE
rtsp://rmlivev8.bbc.net.uk/farm/*/ev7/live24/radio2/live/r2_dsat_g2.ra?title
=
Buffering... [0%]
Stream finished (Count = 1)
I suspect that eventually I will get the other messages that I sent earlier.
Having clicked on one of the BBC stream on the web interface, I now get the
following errors:
Message: read() on closed filehandle GEN7613338 at
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.3/i586-linux-thread-multi/IO/Handle.pm line 431.
Lame has aborted. Cleaning up (waitpid returned: -1)
Closing Down 127.0.0.1:48938
(this nessage is repeated over and over again, so in some king of loop by
the look of things)
Looks like you were right about LAME being the problem. The odd thing is
that I am already using LAME to convert my WMA's to MP3 format, so in
theory, the SlimServer is able to find LAME with no problems.......
I'd be very happy to try out your new release as you indicated in your email
below. :-)
I'll install the packages you talked about and then your new release. I
should be able to get mplayer from YAST, SuSE's package installation tool.
The w32codec shouldn't be a problem either.
Thanks again Jules! :-)
Patrick
_____
From: discuss-bounces (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com
[mailto:discuss-bounces (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com] On Behalf Of Jules Taplin
Sent: 10 October 2004 13:37
To: Slim Devices Discussion
Subject: [slim] Alienstream - buffering 0%
Hmmm. Ok Patrick... not quite sure what's going on there. The most likely
thing I can think of is that the script can't find 'lame' where it expects
it, so it's not managing to consume from the pipe.
However, at the risk of invalidating all the great work you've done there,
let's try this instead:
I've got a newer version of AlienBBC getting ready for release (it's being
held up by some features that I just don't have the energy to implement
right now *sigh*). It has the ability to use mplayer instead of alienstream,
which is actually rather better in nearly all circumstances.
Basically... you'll only need two external packages with this build:
'mplayer', and 'w32codec'. Both should be easily available (sorry - not a
SuSE user, so I don't know how your preferred package management works - I'm
an APT user myself, and they're trivial packages for that).
I'll send the new release to you off-list (not nice to dump binaries on them
*grin*) - give it a go... it really is rather superior (for starters, it
cuts stream startup time in roughly half!). It's also got better status
reporting (if you point your browser to http://localhost:5123/Status/ ,
it'll tell you rather more about what's going on - should let you know if it
can't find a helper, for example).
Let me know how you get on!
-- Jules
Forget my previous email! I am now very one very happy chappie. I just had
a look at the new code you sent me earlier (alienbbc_0.10) and realised that
that was the one with the MPlayer support in it. :-)
I got your email with the new binaries before your other email, so I thought
there was more to come. Anyway, I have now downloaded the latest MPlayer
source code (MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bz2) from:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html#source
then ran
../configure
make
make install
Fortunately it all went like a dream. I already had ffmpeg etc installed.
For anyone else compiling the above, you'll need to make sure you have the
prereqs etc. I had to install from source because YAST (SuSE's package
installation tool) did not have MPlayer on offer.
I then edited the transcoder_proxy.pl to switch the $use_alientstream off
again!! Thereafter, selecting a BBC stream from the web interface yielded
positive results for the first time since I started on this journey.
Anyway, not only that, as you mentioned, the connection time to the stream
proved to be very fast. Excellent stuff.
Since doing the above I have even been able to play my own Real Player
'smil' file which I'd placed in /var/slimserver/playlists/AlienStream.
I have to say, now that I can play my favourite radio station (which you
can't get in the UK), I can definitely justify my expenditure on the
Squeezebox. ;-)
Thanks so much for your help. Keep up the good work!
Patrick :-)
_____
From: Patrick Delamere [mailto:slimdevices (AT) delamerelocal (DOT) homeip.net]
Sent: 10 October 2004 15:52
To: 'Slim Devices Discussion'
Subject: [slim] Alienstream - buffering 0%
Hi Jules,
Thanks for your quick response! :-)
I am currently trying alienbbc_0.10 that you sent earlier. Currently it
appears to be having the same problems. I started "./alienstream
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/realmedia/fmg2.rpm".
The odd thing is that it just sits at the following for a long time......
mrl: 'http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/realmedia/fmg2.rpm'
Connecting HTTP server... [0%]
MRL REFERENCE
rtsp://rmlivev8.bbc.net.uk/farm/*/ev7/live24/radio2/live/r2_dsat_g2.ra?title
=
Buffering... [0%]
Stream finished (Count = 1)
I suspect that eventually I will get the other messages that I sent earlier.
Having clicked on one of the BBC stream on the web interface, I now get the
following errors:
Message: read() on closed filehandle GEN7613338 at
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.3/i586-linux-thread-multi/IO/Handle.pm line 431.
Lame has aborted. Cleaning up (waitpid returned: -1)
Closing Down 127.0.0.1:48938
(this nessage is repeated over and over again, so in some king of loop by
the look of things)
Looks like you were right about LAME being the problem. The odd thing is
that I am already using LAME to convert my WMA's to MP3 format, so in
theory, the SlimServer is able to find LAME with no problems.......
I'd be very happy to try out your new release as you indicated in your email
below. :-)
I'll install the packages you talked about and then your new release. I
should be able to get mplayer from YAST, SuSE's package installation tool.
The w32codec shouldn't be a problem either.
Thanks again Jules! :-)
Patrick
_____
From: discuss-bounces (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com
[mailto:discuss-bounces (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com] On Behalf Of Jules Taplin
Sent: 10 October 2004 13:37
To: Slim Devices Discussion
Subject: [slim] Alienstream - buffering 0%
Hmmm. Ok Patrick... not quite sure what's going on there. The most likely
thing I can think of is that the script can't find 'lame' where it expects
it, so it's not managing to consume from the pipe.
However, at the risk of invalidating all the great work you've done there,
let's try this instead:
I've got a newer version of AlienBBC getting ready for release (it's being
held up by some features that I just don't have the energy to implement
right now *sigh*). It has the ability to use mplayer instead of alienstream,
which is actually rather better in nearly all circumstances.
Basically... you'll only need two external packages with this build:
'mplayer', and 'w32codec'. Both should be easily available (sorry - not a
SuSE user, so I don't know how your preferred package management works - I'm
an APT user myself, and they're trivial packages for that).
I'll send the new release to you off-list (not nice to dump binaries on them
*grin*) - give it a go... it really is rather superior (for starters, it
cuts stream startup time in roughly half!). It's also got better status
reporting (if you point your browser to http://localhost:5123/Status/ ,
it'll tell you rather more about what's going on - should let you know if it
can't find a helper, for example).
Let me know how you get on!
-- Jules