RE: [misterhouse-users] MH background music clips

[Bruce W. <br...@mi...>]

> When someone
> enters our "TV"
> room I would like to play the first 30 seconds of a random
> selection of TV
> theme song (Cheers, Law and Order, X_Files, Quincy etc.) midi files as
> background for my usual motion announcement.   The problem is in limiting
> the midi play (~ 30 seconds) without having to listen to the full
> midi.  I
> could individually hand edit all 30 of my TV midis to extract the
> first 30 seconds, but my mind balks at the thought of mindless drudgery.
> 	Anyone have a better idea?  If I start a process for
> mplayer.exe can I use a timer to stop it?

There would be 2 ways to use a timer to stop mplayer.  You can use sendkeys
(not available yet on perl 5.6), or you can use Process_Item to start
mplayer, then simply kill the process when you want to stop the music.

The attached code works ok on mh Win 2k box.

Bruce

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$midi_test_p = new Process_Item;
$midi_test_v = new Voice_Cmd '[Start,Stop,Play5,Play10,Play20,Play30] a midi
file';
$midi_test_t = new Timer;

if ($state = state_now $midi_test_v) {
    print_log "${state}ing the test midi file";
    if ($state eq 'Stop') {
        stop $midi_test_p;
    }
    else {
#       my $file = 'c:\win98\media\canyon.mid';
        my $file = 'c:\winnt\media\passport.mid';
        print_log "Playing $file";
                                # Use a process item so we have
                                # an easy way to stop it
#       run "mplayer.exe  /play /close $file"; # Win98
#       run "mplay32.exe  /play /close $file"; # Win2K
        set $midi_test_p "mplay32.exe  /play /close $file";
        start $midi_test_p;
        if ($state =~ /Play(\d+)/) {
            print_log "Midi timer set for $1 seconds";
            set $midi_test_t $1;
        }
    }
}

run_voice_cmd 'Stop a midi file' if expired $midi_test_t;

print_log "Midi file playback is done" if done_now $midi_test_p;