Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

What do you mean with "anymore". Which version are you talking about?
Also note that the current development version in Fremantle extras-devel is not complete yet.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Would it be possible to add a way to pass options to mplayer (when using it as a backend)? I'd like to have Mediabox use the bluetooth a2dp hack but output from speakers as usual with other programs, and it's rather annoying having to keep toggling it manually.

Thanks!

-jkq

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

I did an update from SVN - I used to long time back - and thought it would be okay to resume doing that - I guess something has changed in the middle that I did not know

I am still on N800-Diablo

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Yes, this would be possible in some way. Not currently, but it could be done.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

The current version is SVN is still missing some Diablo compatibility stuff,
so things may look weird or are missing. Diablo compatibility will be added soon.

No problem, my N8x0 are also on Diablo, and the 770 is even on Gregale. :)

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Is there somewhere (besides this thread? :)) that you are tracking feature requests, and if so, where?

I have a feature to request... :p

Thanks,

-jkq

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Yes, it's here:

https://garage.maemo.org/tracker/?group_id=355

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Okay, feature request added.

-jkq

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

@pycage

I just recently switched back to Mediabox from Canola and I really like what you have done to the UI since the last time I used MB:D

Is there anything I can do to improve the quality of video playback from MB? I have AVIs set to play via MPlayer. If I launch the video from MB, the picture is significantly reduced in quality(pixelated) than when it is launched from the MPlayer front end or from within Canola.

Is there a setting I have missed?

Also, how do I add a media location for UpnP servers? :o Never mind...I see from your blog that this is pending the Fremantle release)

Thanks

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Is any one having issues trying to install this?

I tried adding it last night and I get Installation corrupt error

Any ides?

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

What resolution is the video?
Hires videos are played with lower resolution to make them fluent on the device.

UPnP support has been in MediaBox for almost a year now. If MediaBox discovers UPnP storage devices, they get listed in the folder browser. If not, there may be some network issue.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Try checking for updates in the application manager again to reload the catalog list. Then try installing again. I don't think it has anything to do with MediaBox or its package. I've seen this stuff occur with other packages from time to time, too.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

After updating the application manager I get a message saying,

Application list partially refreshed. Some catalogues unavailable.
Check catalogue details,

Failed catalogues

Extras-devel

http://repository.maemo.org/extras-d...mantle/Release

No Hash entry in Release file /var/lib/apt/lists.new/repository.maemo.org_extras_devel_dists_fremantle_ Release

Any ideas?

Cheers

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Could extras-devel be down at the moment, perhaps? Sorry can't test from here.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Cheers for your help.. I just made a thread :D

Thanks!
 

Pycage, just wanted to say thanks for such a great media player! I noticed in reading this whole thread that some people were saying that MediaBox is too slick, but I have to humbly disagree -- it's not just too slick, it's the slickest things I've yet to put on my internet tablet!

I primarily installed it for streaming, but now I use it is my only media player. And don't criticize yourself about the UI design -- it was very easy to learn and rather intuitive.

Thanks again, and as I continue to use it, I'll be sure and post any relevant feedback, suggestions, problems, etc. So far -- everything's working just fine!

-- Chris

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Hey pycage,

(Betcha thought you'd heard the last of me...:) )

I have noticed that mediabox has been acting a bit wonky lately. Two problems have manifested themselves:

1. Sometimes, when you pause playback of a file and then restart it, it goes back to the beginning of the track. I'm not sure whether it has to do with whether the unit goes into sleep or not, it seems like about 50% of the time. If I pause it and restart it, say, going through a drive-thru or something else fairly short, then it seems to behave normally. But other times, say, when either the unit has gone to sleep or when you have gone to another app and back to MediaBox again, sometimes it the track will start over again. I wish I could give more information, but I haven't been able to pin it down to any action. However, I will tell you that I had to fsck the SD card last week, because it was trashed, and MyDocs (and sword) lives on the SD, hence all of the media files live there. Most of the media files I listen to are podcasts, so they rotate through the N810 weekly.

2. I'm also getting some strange behavior in the music selection screens. If I drill down by artist or by albums, the album will be listed, but clicking on the > will not show the media file underneath like it used to. Basically, the album will change from the > icon to the "Add to playlist" icon, but the mp3(s) or ogg(s) contained in the album will not show up...And if I hit the add tp playlist, nothing is added. I am able to open the music folders -> Podcasts and import all of the files (the ones that wouldn't show up above) into the playlist. I also noticed that all of the Albums and Artists listed are under the Podcasts directory. Under .sounds, I have the following directories:

• Bible
• Bluesamba
• Concierto
• Jazz_Mood
• Meddle
• Moanin
• OLF
• Podcasts
• Sermons
• Wierd Al

(You have no idea how eclectic my taste in music is)

I have tried deleting the .mediabox directory and letting mediabox recreate it, but the problem persists. I was thinking about completely uninstalling and reinstalling the package, but thought I woudl ask first.

Suggestions?

Also, when is the new version for diablo coming out?

Thanks,
--vr

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Yes, I have seen this bug, too. It's happening with osso-media-server as backend if you pause a file for some time. After resuming MediaBox tries to seek to the position where it left, but somehow osso-media-server doesn't get it.

Could this be related to the trashed SD card? It sounds like MediaBox cannot find the files and thus doesn't list them.
Reinstalling the package shouldn't have any effect on this. Removing the .mediabox directory is the best you can do to reset the index. If removing it didn't fix it, then the problem was not with the index.
You mention that everything appears in the podcast directory. It would be interesting to see what the file manager says about this.


In January, I suppose.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Would it be better to use one of the other backends? mplayer generally plays everything. In fact, I thought I had changed it to mplayer, but it just occurred to me that when I nuked .mediabox, all of that got set back to defaults. Geez... *facepalm*

I'll take a look, but I believe they show up in emelfm2. And I will repopulate the .sounds directory.

Can't wait. But I can't blame you either...I have been meaning to put together a theme for it, and just haven't had time. 1.5+ hrs each way to and from work eats up a lot of your available time...

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

mplayer isn't the default for all media formats because osso-media-server is generally better for battery-life.

You might want to check http://pycage.blogspot.com/2010/01/m...-for-n900.html
Especially the last line. :)

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

At some point, I asked if it would be possible to remove the media files from within MediaBox...I don't know if I ever got a response. Did that make it into this release? If not, does it have a chance in a future one? For me, the main use of mediabox is to listen to podcasts and other audio of this type, and when I have listened, I remove it from the device, so there is a constant rotation of media. And it is a PITA to jump between mediabox and an xterm or mediabox and the file manager to delete media that I have already listened to. Its nice to have the ability to clear the playlist, but it would be nicer if you added an additional trash can to nuke the actual media.

--vr

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

pycage, is Mediabox on the N900 going be the same as the Diablo versions in that it uses folder.jpg for the art?

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

It seems likely -- 2010.01.03 is picking up my "cover.png" art from inside the various directories.

-jkq

PS. If you name your art "cover.jpg", it'll also get picked up by the built-in player. See http://wiki.maemo.org/Media_Player_Album_Art.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Yes, 2010.01.03 can delete files, thanks to you. ;)
I continue working on this issue, so that you can also remove stuff from the index without deleting the actual file. The index structure does allow this easily now.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Yes, it's based on the same code, and there is going to be a new release for Diablo soon, too. I just have to port Fremantle-specific stuff to work on Diablo (some hildon windowing stuff, the lack of tracker for assisting indexing, and no playbin2 in GStreamer).

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Martin,

Hopefully it will still continue to support album art saved as tags. That method works better for me since in the past MedaBox has shuffled through a folder and stopped at an album jpeg.

One other question, or request. Is it possible to set up a separate library for audio books. It would be great if when I went to artist or albums in the music section if it didn't include my audio books (they don't tend to be as well formated as my music).

Thanks again for putting together such a great product. I look forward to the new release for Diablo.

Cheers, Bill

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Yes, embedded album art in ID tags is still supported. But you're right. Stopping at an album jpeg while shuffling through a folder is nasty. :(
Any ideas for how to make this better?

Well, I'm thinking of ways to remove stuff from the index, or exclude it from indexing.
But you can disable automatic indexing and manually add your stuff to the index now. This way, you will only have your music indexed.
Just make two folders: one with music with all its subdirectories, and one with audio books. Then just select "Scan for Media" on the folder with music.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Martin,

Thanks for the quick reply.

After spending a few hours cleaning up my music library, I really think that having album covers embedded in the tags is the cleanest way to go. So the problem of stopping at cover art is gone.

With respect to audio books, what would be really sweet is if they had a separate category, like movies and photos do. There even seems to be enough space in the menu that maybe in the future we could have the option of creating our own categories and assigning them their own library. Then when we index, manual or auto, everything would be happy and up to date.

Speaking of indexing, I am still have some problems getting Mediabox to re-index when I change my library files, especially when I delete files. For some reason it keeps the old artists alive. I remember this being discussed before but I can't track it down. Can you point me in the right direction.

These are just suggestion, and nit picking at that, for a product that I just love.

Cheers and Thanks,
Bill

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Hi pycage,

I've been eagerly awaiting the N900 version of mediabox - but been waiting for the extras-testing release before jumping on board.

Just done a fresh install from extras-testing in App Manager. All seemed to be going well (browsing Upnp mediatomb is working very smoothly) until I attempted to play music/videos - I'm getting a maemo note appear with just "0" as the value and nothing is playing for me.

Tried running the app from X Term and seem to be getting this error - could there be a dependency I'm missing?

Not sure why the path mentions extras-devel as I don't have this repo enabled - just installed straight from testing.

File "/home/builder4/maemo-fremantle-armel-extras-devel/work/mediabox-2010.01.04/debian/mediabox/opt/mediabox/mediaplayer/OSSOBackend.py", line 172, in _play
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'play'

Apologies if there is a proper bug tracker I should be raising this in - please let me know and I will gladly do so.

One other question - this may be me being quite slow - but, how do I quit the application? On my N900 the usual window decoration isn't appearing so I can't access the task manager or close button. So far I've been using 'end current task' when I need to quit.

Best,
Chris

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Thanks, this is very helpful. :)
Do you happen to have the Fennec repository in your application manager? It makes MediaBox believe you have a Maemo4 device, making it use osso-media-server for MP3 playback. There is no osso-media-server on Maemo5 anymore.
I thought I had fixed this bug already, but apparently the fix was only in the FM Radio app. I'll upload a fixed version of MediaBox tonight.
For the time being, you can try removing the Fennec repository from the application manager (just disabling it is not enough).

Yes, there is a bugtracker: https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=MediaBox

I think that's because MediaBox thinks it runs on a Maemo4 device because of the Fennec repository issue.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

The easiest way to re-index with version 0.96.x is to delete the .idx files inside /home/user/.mediabox/

In 2010.01 it will be easier, though, although hopefully not required.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Yep that's fixed it!

Just marking it as disabled did the trick, didn't even need to remove the mozilla repo entry or uninstall fennec itself.

Thanks a lot, will get testing the rest of the app :)

Chris

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

I have found this making things worse with full screen playback, at least in several cases. I thing it would be a good idea to have a configuration option for this (I disabled the downsampling by hand)

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

i get no sound when i play any media through mediabox 2010.01.05. where can i start to troubleshoot?

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

1) is the phone in silent mode?
2) is the volume low?
3) does the player window have a close-button at the top-right? (weird question, but there's a relation)
4) does rebooting the phone fix it?

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

1) i did have the phone in silent mode. which was the problem.
2) the volume of the files is either low or the playback is slightly low
3) yes
4) im sure the silent mode was my issue, i didnt think about it since the built in media player was working for local media.

thanks for you help and quick reply!

edit: ps: how strong is the MP4 particularly FLV containers support in media box?

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

It depends on the codecs you installed on your tablet. Installing the Zoutube app, e.g., will also install codecs for playing FLV.
My N900 plays MP4 and FLV just fine with MediaBox and also with MediaPlayer.

And for playing Ogg and FLAC audio there's the package ogg-support available in extras.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Hi,
Nice stuff here. I have Zoutube and the ogg support, etc installed along with MediaBox.

I have some things I'm trying to figure out.

When the Vol slider on the left is at 100%, the Volume on the device is only 50%. So the volume is too low all the time.

Where do you fix that one at?

I have 51-1 FW by the way.

I can get mpg and flv files to play in mplayer but they won't play in MediaBox, how to fix that one? The FLV files do not show up in the browser?

Thanx for the nice bits you've done here!

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Do they show up in the Maemo media player? They ought to show up once Zoutube is installed. Maybe forcing tracker to reindex with
will help.

Anyway, you don't have to rely on tracker with MediaBox. Find the folder containing the FLVs in MediaBox' filesystem browser and tap and hold down on the folder icon to open the menu. There you can scan the folder for media.

Re: A couple of Mediabox questions
 

Thanx! That solved the Video question. Any idea about why I only get 50% Volume?