modprismiq

File Release Notes and Changelog

Release Name: gather-0.2

Notes:
NOTE: Initial PRISMIQ Release
gather v0.2

Automagically build XML files and playlists for the Prismiq Media Server


By Rob Flickenger, 9/19/03 (Yarrr!)


What is it?
-=-=-=-=-=-

The Prismiq is a nifty little hardware MPEG/MP3 decoder with a very open
architecture.  It runs Linux 2.4.18 (MIPS), and sports a 10/100 NIC *and* a
PCMCIA slot for a wireless card (or other device?  Muahahahaha...) It will
play MPEG1 and MPEG2 videos natively (as well as MP3s), and can play many
other formats by using a software transcoder.  It will also display various
image formats, and stream Internet radio.  The fun part is that its only
output device is your TV / Stereo system.

As it has no storage of its own, the Prismiq requires a "Media Server" to
operate.  This is a computer somewhere on the network that has a pile of
media and runs the Prismiq "Media Server" software.  As of this writing,
Linux support for the Media Server is pretty weak (it is a "preview" by
their own description).  While it will indeed serve media to your Prismiq,
no effort is made to scan your server for media files.  That's where this
script comes in.

The 'gather' script will recursively search a directory of your choice for
all supported media types, and build the XML and media.map files that the
Media Server hands to the Prismiq.  As a bonus, it also builds automatic
logical playlists for each media type (one playlist for each artist for your
audio collection, and one for each subdirectory for images and videos.)

Just run this script as often as you like, and it will keep your XML files
in sync with whatever media you happen to have around.


Requirements
-=-=-=-=-=-=-

* perl v5.6.1

* Chris Nandor's MP3::Info module

* A Prismiq media player, http://prismiq.com/

* The Linux Media Server, http://prismiq.org/

This code has only been tested with Linux Media Server 311b and Perl 5.6.1,
but it should work with older Perl 5, and might even run on Windows with
minor modifications.


Installation
-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1) Install the Linux Media Server and get it running first.

2) If you don't have the MP3::Info perl module, try this:

# perl -e 'use CPAN; install MP3::Info;'

Otherwise, go check http://search.cpan.org/ and download and install it
manually.

3) Unpack the prismiq-gather.vXXX.tgz archive somewhere handy (say,
/usr/local/prismiq/).  

4) Edit the prismiq.conf according to the comments in the prismiq.conf file. 
You essentially have to get all of the paths right or nothing will work. 
See the comments in prismiq.conf for details.


Running gather
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You can run it manually from the commandline by simply typing:

$ ./gather

You don't have to run it as root, but be sure that you have write permission
to the bin/gui directory under the Media Server installation.

You should see something like:

Processing.......

It adds a . each time it processes 100 items.  Eventually, you should see a
nice statistics screen.  If you'd like it to run quietly (say, from a cron
job) run it with the -q switch:

$ ./gather -q

To run it from cron, add an entry like this (hint: 'crontab -e'):

30 * * * *	(cd /usr/local/prismiq/gather; ./gather -q)

That will run it every half hour, which should be more than enough for most
applications, although your mileage may vary(TM).


Caveats
-=-=-=-

The Prismiq does *not* like big collections.  At all.  It seems to re-parse
the XML every time you hit a button.  With over 4100 music tracks listed, it
takes about ten seconds from the time I hit play until it finally starts
playing music.  And don't get me started on Page Down / Page Up, or the lack
of search, or queueing, or cover art...  =(

Hopefully their next rev (currently in beta!) will be better.  


License
-=-=-=-

This code is released under the GNU Public License.  

Use it, play fair, have fun!


--Rob
rob@nocat.net

Changes:
CHANGELOG (Was README.v2.PRISMIQ)
---------------------------------

Version 0.2	PRISMIQ, 10/29/2003
-----------------------------------
gather script for the PRISMIQ MediaServer for Linux, version 0.2

This script was created by Rob Flickenger to auto-find media and create data
files formatted for the PRISMIQ MediaPlayer. This version merely changes the
name of the configuration file to "gather.conf", and adds a sub routine that
will query the MediaServer to determine if an audio or video file is playable.

This version also adds lots of escaping of illegal characters in filenames and
folder names, automatic lower-case comparisons of file types and filenames, as
well as creating unique playlists per media type (see Tech Docs). also,
symlinks are followed when searching.

See http://nocat.net/~rob/prismiq/ for the original version.

PRISMIQ, 10/29/2003