Steve,
Not a stupid idea, I would add to it wmatool as an idea.
Arnon
-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com
[mailto:discuss-bounces (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com] On Behalf Of Steve
Bernard, Jr
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 1:33 AM
To: Slim Devices Discussion; developers (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com
Subject: [slim] AlienBBC v0.11 Released
My immediate thought as far as AlienBBC is that there must be better
ways to get RealAudio to the Squeezebox from a Windows server than
using a port of mplayer or xine under Cygwin or whatever.
Lots of people use the whole Rube Goldberg contraption of using the
Tara plugin for Winamp (
http://www.musiclivesonline.com/software/watara.html ) and then using
Winamp to broadcast a Shoutcast stream. Seems to me that some
middlemen could be cut out by writing a standalone program that could
use the Tara plugin (or the Real codecs in some other way) to decode
the Realaudio and send it to the STDOUT in the same way wmadec and
lame and such do.
Now, I did a touch of research on this and I know that there people
out there who have written Windows apps that use Winamp plugins (CDEX
can use them, for example). I found a site with some sample code for
a DLL in VC++ and an app in VB for using Winamp input plugins to
decode files:
gins/article.asp
Unfortunately, I downloaded this code example to see if it would work
with Tara, and I can't the code to work at all, with any
configurations of plugins. I emailed the guy who wrote it and haven't
heard back (this was actually a couple weeks ago), so I guess I have
nothing but a beautiful dream so far.
I'm really only able to code a teeny bit in VB (or any other
language), but it seems like much of the heavy lifting is done already
as far as an input plugin that handles up-to-date Real codecs, and
some examples of open-source software that should theoretically be
able to use that input to do what we want.
I've crossposted this to the developers list, since there's been
recent discussion of an mplayer version of Windows that should work
for AlienBBC. That may make this idea pointless where AlienBBC is
specifically concerned, but I think there's still a ton of mileage in
the idea of a small program that can use Winamp input plugins to
decode audio to the STDOUT (this could work with other input plugins
like Monkey's Audio or MP3Pro or whatever).
Someone let me know if a) this is a stupid idea, b) you know if
there's already a similar project to this, or c) you're an actually
talented Windows developer who'd like to work with me to try this out.
-Steve
On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 22:30:31 +0000 (UTC), Neil Sleightholm
<neil (AT) x2systems (DOT) com> wrote:
> I am very interest in a Windows version. Are there any areas of
> investigation that you could farm out to Windows developers? As a
> predominantly Windows developer I would be interested in taking this
on
> as this is only thing missing from my home audio system and I would be
> using it! (Well to be truthful my wife would to get her get daily
> Archers fix!)
>
> Neil
>
>
>
> Jules Taplin wrote:
>
> > Hi Bill.
> >
> > It's complicated. It's looking like a Windows version will require
> > slimserver changes, changes to the mplayer codebase itself, as well
> > as substantial changes to AlienBBC. Whilst it's looking like this
> > will move the design forward quite a long way, it's clearly not
> > something that's entirely in our control.
> >
> > When it comes down to it, Window's stream handling is just plain
> > inferior, and that's the root cause of the problem
> >
> > So... I think we'll eventually get there... but it won't necessarily
> > be fast. You also need to bear in mind that neither myself or Craig
> > really have any intention of USING a Windows port, so the 'scratch
> > your itch' theory of Open Source software development just isn't
very
> > strong in this case
> >
> >
> >
> > -- Jules
> >
> > Bill Burns wrote:
> >
> > > Jules Taplin wrote:
> > >
> > >> For those of you who don't already know, AlienBBC is a plugin for
> > >> Slimserver that allows streaming of pretty much all of the BBC
> > Radio >> content, as well as a few other bits and pieces. It runs on
> > Linux >> platforms, has been massaged into running on MacOS/X
> > platforms >> (although it's still a bit of a struggle), and we're
> > still working on >> getting it to operate on Windows platforms.
> > >
> > >
> > > Is the Windows version an active part of the project? I'd really
> > > like to have AlienBBC, and I have to decide whether to wait for
the
> > > Windows version or set up a Linux box. Any idea on the timeframe
> > > for Windows?
> > >
>
>
Not a stupid idea, I would add to it wmatool as an idea.
Arnon
-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com
[mailto:discuss-bounces (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com] On Behalf Of Steve
Bernard, Jr
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 1:33 AM
To: Slim Devices Discussion; developers (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com
Subject: [slim] AlienBBC v0.11 Released
My immediate thought as far as AlienBBC is that there must be better
ways to get RealAudio to the Squeezebox from a Windows server than
using a port of mplayer or xine under Cygwin or whatever.
Lots of people use the whole Rube Goldberg contraption of using the
Tara plugin for Winamp (
http://www.musiclivesonline.com/software/watara.html ) and then using
Winamp to broadcast a Shoutcast stream. Seems to me that some
middlemen could be cut out by writing a standalone program that could
use the Tara plugin (or the Real codecs in some other way) to decode
the Realaudio and send it to the STDOUT in the same way wmadec and
lame and such do.
Now, I did a touch of research on this and I know that there people
out there who have written Windows apps that use Winamp plugins (CDEX
can use them, for example). I found a site with some sample code for
a DLL in VC++ and an app in VB for using Winamp input plugins to
decode files:
gins/article.asp
Unfortunately, I downloaded this code example to see if it would work
with Tara, and I can't the code to work at all, with any
configurations of plugins. I emailed the guy who wrote it and haven't
heard back (this was actually a couple weeks ago), so I guess I have
nothing but a beautiful dream so far.
I'm really only able to code a teeny bit in VB (or any other
language), but it seems like much of the heavy lifting is done already
as far as an input plugin that handles up-to-date Real codecs, and
some examples of open-source software that should theoretically be
able to use that input to do what we want.
I've crossposted this to the developers list, since there's been
recent discussion of an mplayer version of Windows that should work
for AlienBBC. That may make this idea pointless where AlienBBC is
specifically concerned, but I think there's still a ton of mileage in
the idea of a small program that can use Winamp input plugins to
decode audio to the STDOUT (this could work with other input plugins
like Monkey's Audio or MP3Pro or whatever).
Someone let me know if a) this is a stupid idea, b) you know if
there's already a similar project to this, or c) you're an actually
talented Windows developer who'd like to work with me to try this out.
-Steve
On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 22:30:31 +0000 (UTC), Neil Sleightholm
<neil (AT) x2systems (DOT) com> wrote:
> I am very interest in a Windows version. Are there any areas of
> investigation that you could farm out to Windows developers? As a
> predominantly Windows developer I would be interested in taking this
on
> as this is only thing missing from my home audio system and I would be
> using it! (Well to be truthful my wife would to get her get daily
> Archers fix!)
>
> Neil
>
>
>
> Jules Taplin wrote:
>
> > Hi Bill.
> >
> > It's complicated. It's looking like a Windows version will require
> > slimserver changes, changes to the mplayer codebase itself, as well
> > as substantial changes to AlienBBC. Whilst it's looking like this
> > will move the design forward quite a long way, it's clearly not
> > something that's entirely in our control.
> >
> > When it comes down to it, Window's stream handling is just plain
> > inferior, and that's the root cause of the problem
> >
> > So... I think we'll eventually get there... but it won't necessarily
> > be fast. You also need to bear in mind that neither myself or Craig
> > really have any intention of USING a Windows port, so the 'scratch
> > your itch' theory of Open Source software development just isn't
very
> > strong in this case
> >
> >
> >
> > -- Jules
> >
> > Bill Burns wrote:
> >
> > > Jules Taplin wrote:
> > >
> > >> For those of you who don't already know, AlienBBC is a plugin for
> > >> Slimserver that allows streaming of pretty much all of the BBC
> > Radio >> content, as well as a few other bits and pieces. It runs on
> > Linux >> platforms, has been massaged into running on MacOS/X
> > platforms >> (although it's still a bit of a struggle), and we're
> > still working on >> getting it to operate on Windows platforms.
> > >
> > >
> > > Is the Windows version an active part of the project? I'd really
> > > like to have AlienBBC, and I have to decide whether to wait for
the
> > > Windows version or set up a Linux box. Any idea on the timeframe
> > > for Windows?
> > >
>
>