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Connected Jukebox
Updated: - New version released: playlists now persist outside the plugin, and search index loads in background (see update history for full summary)
Note: (28 April 2009) Seeqpod is currently down, which means that online audio searches are returning zero results. Access to local media libraries is unaffected.
Welcome to Connected Jukebox, which aims to give you feature-rich access to your locally stored music, as well as online audio and music videos.
Search or browse for music, put together on-the-fly playlists, and view music details and album art on the full-screen 'now playing' display.
Please do let me know how well the plugin works for you and any gremlins you find.
Thanks go to the divx team for allowing access to the connected database structure.
A quick summary of keys:
Back arrow - Return from search results to the folder view, or move back a level in the folder structure
Number keys (0 for space, Delete for backspace) - Mobile phone style text entry for searching
Left, right, up, down, page up, page down - navigate through the results
Enter - add selected track to playlist
Dot - Toggle between small and full screen 'now playing' information
Subtitle - display song lyrics (when available)
Info - Manage playlist
Info from playlist - Load/Save playlists
Repeat, Shuffle - pretty obvious
Search - Search for music online
Menu - Playback, search and video resolution options
Album art is taken from the Connected database if available. If not, art in the windows folder will be used. If this doesn't work, the jukebox tries to find it online.
Thanks to Seeqpod, MTV, Amazon, MusicBrainz, Yahoo and Lyricwiki for their web services which are used in the plugin.
Tips
- To clear a playlist and start afresh, press Info, and then 0 (zero) when the Manage Playlist window appears.
Update history:
Version 1.00 (21 April 2009)
- Playlists persist if the plugin is exited or re-entered, allowing the user to browse photos etc in the main Connected interface;
- Search index is now loaded in the background, allowing navigation and selection via the folder structure straight away;
- Standard music controls such as fast forward, rewind, stop now work;
- New Seeqpod authentication implemented (i.e. online audio search works again!)
- Some minor performance improvements;
- Various bugfixes;
- Brought out of Beta.
Version 0.23 (1 February 2009)
- More bugfixes, mostly resulting from Server 1.5 Beta
Version 0.22 (21 January 2009) (not auto-notified)
- Fixes for main problems introduced by Server 1.5 Beta
Version 0.21 (11 January 2009) (not auto-notified)
- Minor folder art bugfix
Version 0.20 (10 January 2009)
- Browse music library
- m3u playlist support
- Improved album art engine
Version 0.11 (20 December 2008)
- Fixed save/load playlist problem;
- Added option to clear current playlist;
- Shuffling playlist will now put current track at start;
- Other minor bugfixes.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| connected_jukebox.zpi | 181.2 KB |
Attached Images
License Agreement
NO COMMERCIAL USE: This License Agreement grants our community members the right to use the Software downloaded from DivX Labs for personal use only in order to evaluate and provide feedback about it to DivX, Inc. Commercial use of the Software or of the work products resulting from its use is not permitted under the Terms of Use of DivX Labs.- To read the full Terms of Use please visit the Terms of Use page.
- To inquire about commercial licensing please email us
Speed Suggestion
Hi Trebor,
As you know I love this plugin. Having said that I'm not one to stand still and I thought I'd run a couple of ideas past you.
Mainly it's an issue of speed. I have 270 folders in the route of my music collection (mostly sorted by Artist). My system takes about 7 seconds to load all the artwork and for this period the system freezes.
The best i've managed to do is to break down my folders into 3 folder (A-H, I-M, N-Z, etc). This improves the speed significantly when entering a folder but it is still about 3-4 seconds. I would also apprectiate a 'please wait' box when the system freezes for the artwork.
Is there anything you can do to simplify the loading of artwork. I would happily sacrifice the flying artwork if that helps. What do you think. Alternatively things would be quite a bit better if the artwork were cached so once it had loaded you could then go in and out of folders without waiting again.
What do you think?
One other little bug is that the playlist still shows up when I adjust the volume (a server 1.5 bug I think).
Thanks for your work. It it very much appreciated.
Greeenman
PS. One other thing, a similar interface would be great for browsing photos. One frustration is that with the normal connected interface you cannot see what's in a whole load of folders at a glance, the lack of the folder.jpg feature that many other have complained about.
Cheers.
Great work
Hi Trebor, the new version works great on the connected PC and I love the way the playlist now operates in an outside of the plugin.
I have just tried on the DSM330 and unfortunately it doesn't seem to operate properly. The playlists do not seem to transfer in and out of the plugin. Also the 'Leave' button doesn't work.
Am I doing something wrong?
Edit: I tried again today and it now seems to work, not sure what's changed. The only significant bug i have noticed is that when a playlist from the main connected interface is shown in the plugin, none of the titles etc are there and the shuffle function doesn't work. When you press shuffle everything seems ok but after the track ends it stops working and if you cycle through the tracks after shuffling you somtimes get an error message.
Hope this helps.
Having said this, the functionality is excellent and I'm sure will help to sell more connected devices. You should be on the divx payroll.
Greenman
External playlists
Thanks for the update Greenman.
When playlists are started outside of the plugin, unfortunately the track details aren't available to the plugin, so it marks them as 'Unknown track's. Shuffling etc then doesn't work as it doesn't have enough information to reform the playlist.
I think the trouble you had to start with may have been for a similar reason.
I'll try to make this a bit more elegant in the next release!
Glad you like the new functionality.
great!
great, this new version seems to work quickly!
i have a question, when i do a research online, i don't have the same answer than in the website(i mean seeqpod), ie when i search for 'Noir désir'(a french brand) it says 'sorry no tracks found' but when i do the same research in seeqpod i have 362 answers
Accents
Unfortunately it seems the new Seeqpod authentication doesn't like accents on characters (the é in this case), and I can't find any easy way to get round it.
The best thing is to just type the plain letters using the keypad, rather than using the suggested artist name when it includes accents.
You should then get the same number of results as the number of _audio_ results for the same search on the Seeqpod webpage (the total number of results shown on the webpage includes videos, documents etc).
i've tried 'noir desir' and
i've tried 'noir desir' and i have zero answer in music
music search don't work
Hello i use this plugin and it is really great but since a few days i can't do any search in music, i mean when i do a search it find only video and no music...
is it only me??
Seeqpod change
Hi tontonalbert,
Well spotted - a few days ago Seeqpod changed their music search service, imposing a more complicated authentication system.
I've got my development version of the plugin working with the new system - but it's probably going to be a week or two until it's ready to release.
Hopefully it will be worth the wait, though, as there'll be some new features as well ;-)
Trebor
ok thanks for the answer and
ok thanks for the answer and i'm sure it worth the wait!
and thanks a lot to take your free time to develop this great plug-in, i also developped 3 plug-in(in french) and i know how long it is to have something who work fine
Great plug-in - I have a question about playlists
First, a huge thank you for this plug-in. It's what I had hoped for when I first got my DSM330 over 1 year ago. I know there's still some work to do, but it's a huge leap forward.
Second, I'd like to understand a bit more about the playlists:
I've experimented a bit and saved a couple of playlists using my DSM330. In subsequent sessions I've successfully reloaded them and played them.
But where do they get saved, and in what format? I've tried searching all the drives on my PC (= DivX connected server), but couldn't find them.
What I'm wondering is whether I can create playlists on my PC and copy them to whereever my DSm330 looks for them?
Thanks once again.
KimB
Playlists
Hi KimB,
The internal plugin playlists are saved within the Connected database (the only thing the plugin has write access to), so are not accessible outside the plugin.
If you save a playlist in m3u format on your PC however, in a directory that Connected has access to, this should be readable within the jukebox plugin (it will appear in the same way as an ordinary album would).
Hope that helps,
Trebor
New Feature Development
Hi, I am very happy with this plug in. It seems from recent divx comments that for music functionality this plugin is the best way to go.
On that basis, I have put together some developments I would love to see.
1. Speed: Is there anyway to speed up the loading and thumbnailing of the albums? On my system the plugin takes 15 seconds to start up and then takes another 15 seconds to show the album thumbnails for browsing (I have about 300 folders). Also, everytime I enter a folder, when I come out I have to wait another 15 seconds. Is there anyway to cache this information or to not load it all at once?
2. Photos: For me browsing photos while listening to music is a common family demand. Is there anyway to enable the plugin to keep functioning while photos are browsed? Ideally, could the plugin work on the same playlist that the main system works on? This way the playing would not be affected as you move out of the plugin. Alternatively could a photo browsing feature be added to the plugin?
3. Bug: When browsing during music playback, I cannot access the very last row of albums (X,Y,Z's) as it is covered up by the 'now playing'/'next' box. Is there a way of removing the now playing box without deleting the current playlist?
4. Standard def TV: With my widescreen standard def TV I struggle to see clearly the albums and titles in browse mode. Currently the system displays 5 album columns, personally I would like to see this reduced to 4 album columns (or a user option). I assume this is better on a HD TV.
5. Bug: In browsing mode, the album titles are somtimes not shown properly. It seems to me that if the album title will fit on 1 or 2 lines it is displayed correctly. If it need more lines then it tries to display the whole title centred on a single line. This often means that none of the album title can be read. I would suggest this if the album title is more than 2 lines long then the system should just display the first 2 lines.
Thanks again.
Greenman.
Thanks for the suggestions
Hi Greenman,
Thanks for the feedback, it really is appreciated.
These are all things I can and will look into. In particular, some improvements to speed may be possible - although if it proves hard to solve, I may eventually have to provide the option of a simpler browse interface that responds better for large collections.
Persisting playlists outside the plugin could be tricky, but there is one avenue I can explore for it.
It may take me a while to plough through the various improvements people have asked for, but keep your eyes peeled!
Cheers,
Trebor
Nice work and great progress
Let us know what you need in order to get full mouse support working on the new server 1.5 PC client.
I really like the micro-collage effect.
.m3u Playlist Support
How do I use your plug-in to access .m3u playlist.
I can see it in the interface but, I can't actually select and use it.
Fixed in latest version
This problem should be fixed in the latest version of the plugin, which has been adapted to work better with Connected Server v1.5 Beta
Fantastic!
I'd tried two versions back and had a little trouble navigating, it seems much improved. Also I didn't realize that my itunes needed to be in MP3, not AAC (will that change with 1.5?)
I don't know if you have this field in the database, but is it possible to change the sort order to chronological (and then also for any sort have ascend/descend?) This would be ideal for playing podcasts so you can know which is the latest.
Thanks!
Best connected plugin ever!
Best connected plugin ever! Lot of functionnality asked by community is compacted in this plugin. Thanks a lot. Garry from nextar navigation system blog.
Browse facility makes this superb
Loving this new version. One thing i noticed is that album art can take a while to load, this might be due it having to find my album art on the net as i know some of my older albums dont have art. What might be a nice option (if possible but not one i would want you to spend time on rather than more important features, or new plugins) is if the browse could be a list down the left hand side with only the album art of the currently selected artist/album displayed on the right hand side in a larger form that presently available as thumbnail.
Other than that its fab, thanks
1.5 Server
Hey thanks a lot for this very quick fix. As you said above scrolling (in the top menu) seems to be a problem as navigation doesn't highlight folders but the major issue of it not working at all is resolved. This plugin is a great bonus for the dsm 330 please keep developing it!
Random song? Random generated playlists?
Add the functionality of a randomly generated playlist (say, 25-50-100 songs) and I'll have your baby.
Keep up the good work.
Hi Trebor,
This plugin is still in everyday use in my home. With the new browser facility this is long set to continue.
I have noticed a bug with the music browser though. The page up/down buttons do not seem to work on my system. When I press page down, the only thing that happens is half the page disapears.
Also, the startup time seems to be quite significant when starting the music browser. I guess colating all the album covers is quite processor hungry.
Keep up the good work.
Greenman
Browser version :) :) :)
Love the new version with the music browser, it works really well !!
Keep up the good work, this is what is needed to sustain this platform.. :)
Top Plugin
Not much to say really, have just found this plugin and having a play. so far it's brilliant, finally i can go through my library and queue up some songs while i listen to others and can now seriously listen to music on my connected device. Like others have said if a browse facility is possible this would be fantastic.
Great work. thanks.
Best connected plugin
Best connected plugin ever!
Lot of functionnality asked by community is compacted in this plugin.
Thanks a lot.
Superb Plug-in
This has to be the best plug-in effort so far. Most of the others are one-shot interesting, but this one is going to give the Connected box a real leg-up.
I'm looking forward to the browse facility - that should really make this the music manager of choice.
I just love the ability to display lyrics while a track is playing - I can see my guitar coming out from its dusty box.
My only issues of note seem to be:
1. Navigating back to a library search after doing an online search. I just can't seem to get back there.
2. It seems all too easy to drop out of the plug-in back to the Connected menus without a warning. The "back" button is covered, but other ways back like the color button options aren't covered. Then there's no way back to where you were.
3. It would be nice to be able to leave the plug-in and, say, look at some pictures with music in the background (that does work), then be able to go back to the plug-in where you leave off. At the moment it just drops the play list and you're back to square one.
4. Would be nice if the back and skip buttons on the remote could skip tracks back and forward.
5. I can't get all the functionality using the PC SDK client. Which keyboard keys, for instance, correspond to the "dot", "info", "subtitle", "search" etc?
Again top marks - great effort
This is great work so far!
This is great work so far! Love the full screen now playing option. Keep up the good work and can't wait for future development on this one.
Lemur19