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#222142 - 31/08/2002 09:00 RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions.
98PaceCar
stranger

Registered: 27/08/2002
Posts: 7
Hi All,

Thanks to everyone who responded to my original post regarding how the software works for the rio. I looked over the options and like the way RRR looks. I downloaded the latest version and got it up and running easily. The only problem is after about 5 minutes of playing, the playback gets very choppy and I can no longer connect to the internal webserver. Once it gets to this point, the only way I can get my Rio working again is to completely reset it.

Right now, I'm running a dedicated server (PII-233) connected to the Rio via a crossover ethernet cable. Server OS is XP and I'm still using the server software that comes with the rio. The only thing I'm streaming to it is standard MP3's.

When it does work, it looks like a very powerful client. But I have a few questions. First, when I do a song list by title, it looks like it's limited to 1000 mp3's. Is there any way around this? Also, will it read m3u playlists from the server? If not, what format playlist will it accept? And finally, is there any way to just select all of the music on the server and let it play everything? What I do with the original client is just select music by title and the very first option is to play all.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

98PaceCar

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#222143 - 01/09/2002 14:42 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: 98PaceCar]
reza
newbie

Registered: 29/03/2002
Posts: 35
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
First off, with regards to the degration of quality over time. I recently implemented playlists, and before then, I didn't notice this problem. However, something happens over time where the load on the RIO starts increasing after about 5/8 songs are played on the playlist. An easier way than to reset the whole thing is to click on the shutdown button on the main menu (i think it's http://.../shutdown if you want to get to it directly). This will cause the program to reload.

In terms of fixing it, I found that debuggin it on the rio to be too much a pain in the ass, so I've ported the code over to x86 (wasn't too hard), and I'm using valgrind and some other tools to help find bugs. I think the biggest problem I have is that I implement a lot of spinlocks and I might have to change that to conditional mutexes. The problem will be fixed before the next major release (0.8). I also want to add some other cool features before then.

With regards to the playlist length, I just figured that it would be difficult to have someone scroll through 1000 entries on the rio. I can a separate web interface for picking songs and leave the rio with the 1000 entry limit, or do you think i should increase that limit as well? To change the limit, it's a simple change in the common.h header file.

It currently does not support m3u, but it would be easy to add. As people don't give me a lot of feedback on what the y want and what they dont want, it's hard for me to guage what should be added. So, if this is desired, then it shouldn't be hard.

Other than the 1000 song limit, you should still be able to select 'by title' and then play all. Random and Repeat also work. You can select the playlist link to see what's in the playlist, what's been played, and what's left to be played.

Anyhow, thanks for the suggestions/comments.
Reza

p.s. Anyone know if there is an i2c bus in the rio?


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#222144 - 01/09/2002 22:03 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
98PaceCar
stranger

Registered: 27/08/2002
Posts: 7
Hi Reza,

I'll have to try reloading your client and playing it without a playlist. See if that cures my problem.

Not real sure how I think the 1000 song limit should work. I can see your point. Once you get over a couple hundred songs, it can get time consuming to scroll through all of them. Not to mention the overhead of building the list to display. The way I normally use my rio is I have an m3u playlist that has every song on my server selected. I pick that playlist, hit random and repeat, and let it go. I rarely use the existing interface to pick a particular song/artist/genre. Mainly because of the lack of good id3 tags on a large portion of my collection.

As far as what I like, the biggest improvements you have made are the ability to time out the backlight and a way to see what song is playing from the server. If I could have a client that has just those two options, I'd be perfectly happy! I still need to try out the shoutcast support, but I need to rewire my network to get a lan drop by my server before I can do that. The weather support is cool as well, but for me, I'd just go to my main workstation before I'd use the small screen on the rio. Oh yea, this is just a minor pet peeve, but how hard would it be to have the rotary control wrap when it hits the top or bottom of a menu? That's not a biggie at all, but I kinda like being able to turn it either way and get to all the options.

Anyway, I'm having a blast playing around with your new client and I can't wait to get a hold of the next version.

Thanks,
98PaceCar

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#222145 - 01/09/2002 23:33 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: 98PaceCar]
reza
newbie

Registered: 29/03/2002
Posts: 35
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
Thanks for the reply. With regards to the weather support, the goal is actually to get the rio to speak out the weather. The thought being that you'de hit a button on your remote, and it would pause the current audio, have a digitized voice read out the temperature/forcast, then resume playing music. This can be extended to all kinds of good things like stock listings, etc.

Being able to wrap-scroll would be easy to add -- I'll add that to the next version of the code as well. I'll also play around with m3u support to see how hard it would be to get that to work. Would it be easier to have a top-level option that's "Play All Shuffle Repeat?" I'de have to figure out a way to get the server to give me a list of all mp3's -- even the ones without id3 tags.

I've been playing around with microcontrollers and i2c stuff latley, and I need to refresh my java skills for a job interview next week (god, I hate java, why is J2EE such the fad these days?). I'll get back to the rio soon though.

I've got a Question for you all -- If you could get a larger display attached to the RIO, but it required opening up the case and connecting something to a header inside it -- would you do that? An extreme that would be cool would be something that actually projected the song info or some visual effects on the wall or ceiling.

Another question -- who here would like an alarm clock option?

Reza

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#222146 - 02/09/2002 03:26 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
julf
veteran

Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Alarm clock - yes, definitely! But as to biger display... Hmm, if you really want a *big* display, it's probably easiest to have a separate PC connected to your TV/projector/whatever. I don't think it's worth the bother to break up the box/form factor of the receiver just for a display.

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#222147 - 02/09/2002 03:33 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: julf]
reza
newbie

Registered: 29/03/2002
Posts: 35
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
Would you want to be able to set the alarm via the RIO interface, or would it be sufficient to set it via the web interface?

Reza

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#222148 - 02/09/2002 08:47 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
98PaceCar
stranger

Registered: 27/08/2002
Posts: 7
Kinda along the same lines of the alarm clock, a sleep timer would rock. Just have it automatically turn off after 15, 30, 60, or 120 minutes.

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#222149 - 02/09/2002 08:58 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
98PaceCar
stranger

Registered: 27/08/2002
Posts: 7
Ok, I see where you are going with the weather reporting. That would be cool to have it read it out. Does the rio have the kind of power to synthesize a voice?

A "Play All Repeat Shuffle" option would be perfect for my needs. Perhaps something working off of the file names instead of the id3 tags? I don't know if that would make it any easier, but most of the filenames I've seen are descriptive enough to be used for basic info.

The m3u support isn't critical by any means. I'm just using it now since the current client supports it and they are easy to make using winamp. If it's easier to support some other format of playlist or even develop a playlist format of your own, that would work as well.

For a larger display.. I don't think I'd be willing to open my unit up for a couple reasons. First, I hate to risk my only rio for a hardware mod when I can't just run down to Best Buy and get another one. Second, I've already got a monitor set up in the same place as my rio (I'm running some spectral analysis software for tuning purposes), so the web interface status screen gives me all the info I need. But I think for the people that don't have a monitor handy, some sort of display option might be a good idea.

98PaceCar

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#222150 - 02/09/2002 13:28 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions. [Re: 98PaceCar]
basf_audio
newbie

Registered: 02/09/2002
Posts: 36
Loc: Saint Louis
I too have had this problem. I'm running on Windows 2000 Advanced Server with about 9,200 songs. RRR 0.7.10 worked great as long as I was playing from the unit. I wanted to check out the Web server and after a few clicks, the unit freezes and no longer responds to any Web requests. This is without even playing a song.

I also noticed that HPNA doesn't work with this (or any other other players I've been trying.) The Rio finds the music server and then just sits there. I have two Rios with one of the able to connect to my 10/100 network. Once I switched over, the Rio started working. The one on the HPNA - never starts up.

I'm actually pretty excited about playing with something different on my Rio - especially the streaming audio from ShoutCast. What's also cool is that with a PocketPC (like Toshiba's e740) you can wirelessly surf to admin Web pages and view and control the Rio. (Much cooler than the two-way Sony Remote Controllers).

I'm anxious to see if version .80 will solve the Rio locking up after hitting the Web interface. I too use a lot of M3U lists as one of the other repliers listed. With 9,200 songs... You have to.

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#222151 - 02/09/2002 13:31 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: 98PaceCar]
reza
newbie

Registered: 29/03/2002
Posts: 35
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
Actually, it wouldn't need be so complicated. I've got a friend in georgia that's got a nice voice -- I'm trying to get her to record the numbers 1,2,...,10,20,..,100 it into individual WAV files which I can save on the filesystem and play back in various orders to get the desired output.

I'll also add the play all repeat shuffle option. And the only reason I brought up the external display issue was that a few people have been asking me for it. However, a decent display is going to cost $100 by itself.

Reza

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#222152 - 02/09/2002 13:32 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: 98PaceCar]
reza
newbie

Registered: 29/03/2002
Posts: 35
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
Great idea. That shouldn't be hard to add either. -Reza

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#222153 - 02/09/2002 19:02 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
98PaceCar
stranger

Registered: 27/08/2002
Posts: 7
Ok, that makes sense. I was thinking you would try to do realtime synthesis. I know I used to do it on my old C-64, but I think even it has more power than the rio!!

I'll keep thinking about any other enhancements that would make things better. And if you need a test mule, let me know and I'll load it up into mine.

98PaceCar

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#222154 - 02/09/2002 20:44 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
dionysus
veteran

Registered: 16/06/1999
Posts: 1222
Loc: San Francisco, CA
In reply to:

Another question -- who here would like an alarm clock option?




ME - but I think even more useful would be a shutdown timer...

-mark
_________________________
http://mvgals.net - clublife, revisited.

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#222155 - 03/09/2002 11:18 Great Idea! [Re: reza]
Demon
newbie

Registered: 24/01/2002
Posts: 28
I'd definatly go for the Sleep Timer, and I'd welcome the Alarm Clock, too. I think I could use both!

As far as the Alarm Clock goes, it would be nice to be able to set times by date. So I could say M-F, wake me up at 6, other than that, wake me up at 8.

:d:

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#222156 - 03/09/2002 15:30 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions. [Re: basf_audio]
reza
newbie

Registered: 29/03/2002
Posts: 35
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
That's an odd problem you're experiencing with the unit locking up when using the web interface. Do any of the web-pages work? And are you sure you have the right IP address? You can verify by going to the 'About RRR' option on the main menu of the unit.

You can get HPNA working, but it's a bit tricky. You'll have to swap out the zImage file from the distribution I have with the one that came with the RIO. The HPNA drivers are not in the public domain, so we can't add them to our code base yet. This process has been discussed here, and I've recieved email from someone that has had luck with this, so I know it's possible.

And what I like to use is my laptop with 802.11 to control the Rio. Though with the small form-factor of the hand-held, I probably should come out with a different cascading style sheet to make it more pda-friendly. If you want to have a go at it, just edit the file /sbin/header.txt in the NFS filesystem. Let me know if anyone has any improvements/changes.

One other dissapointing note -- the person I thought I was going to buy the rio from flaked, so now I'm once again stuck with just one Rio. Let me know if anyone's got a spare they're willing to sell me

Reza

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#222157 - 03/09/2002 20:12 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions. [Re: reza]
basf_audio
newbie

Registered: 02/09/2002
Posts: 36
Loc: Saint Louis
Reza,

Thanks for taking a look through my post. I tried as you said replacing the ZImage file with the original one... And based on some other postings here, replaced the il-binary.o file as well. Neither helped it get past the "searching for audio server" screen - although the Windows Server did recognize a "new" audio receiver after I deleted the one in the list. So it looks like it's picking up a valid DHCP request - just not booting very far.

I'll keep playing around with different combinations - because I'd love to get the HPNA working on my second Rio. I don't feel like running another Ethernet line to my bedroom!

I did actually go downstairs to my first Rio and noticed that it wasn't really locked up... It just wasn't responding to a Web request. Perhaps something flaked out when I submitted the changes to the config file. After hitting "submit" I found that the config file was saved - (Not quite sure "where" it was saved) - but then it would no longer take another Web request.

Cool that you played around with WiFi as well. The Toshiba e740 has a built-in 802.11b adapter... Which is the same as your laptop. But fits in your hand.

It would be cool if we could customize the HTML pages ourselves... Using templates that we could customize - or at least let us know how to hack out your pages to make changes. Not a big deal really... I personally like to dig around.

As before, I'll keep trying to figure out the steps I took to get the unit to stop working. I have seen it weird out where the screens flip back and forth between the selection menus and the play/stopped menus. And back and forth. This only happened when using the control knob. And lastly - speaking of the control knob - on the menus, the direction of the knob rotation is backwards to what it was with the original Rio software. Right should be down... Not up.

Thanks again for the great software.

-Dave


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#222158 - 04/09/2002 01:13 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: basf_audio]
reza
newbie

Registered: 29/03/2002
Posts: 35
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
Here's the relevant bit from the email I got from the guy that got HPNA working :

I simply extracted the ./zImage and ./il-binary.o file from the arf file
that comes with the rio receiver, and replaced yours with those. Dave, the
RioPlay author, posted this trick on the BBS. Not sure if someone else
succeeded at getting an HPNA driver to work that is compiled from source.

Sounds like that's what you did though, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

It probably wouln't be too dificult to extract the static HTML out into txt files that you could edit by hand. And you can change the look and feel quite a bit by editing the cascading style sheet in the header.txt file. In terms of chaning the dynamic HTML (what's playing, etc), then all that code is simply in action_http.c -- and it's fairly simple to make changes. If you don't want to bother setting up a cross-compiler, please feel free to modify that file and send me any changes and I'll try to incorporate them.

If you want to add different/new screens, then you just add a line in action.c mapping a URL to a function, then add that function to action_http.c

My display code is not very nice, and needs to be re-written. I'm also in the process of adding a few new fonts to make it more aesthetically pleasing. That all needs rewriting, and hopefully that'll fix your problems.

Finally, with the controller knob, it always messes me up on the original rio client (I think it should be backwards than the way they implemented it.. i think of clockwise as turning the volume up, so i figure the menu selection should go up.) I'll make this a configurable option.

Oh, and the configuration. It will try two things. First off, it will try to save it to disk, which usually will fail, unless you've got a proper NFS mount with the right perms setup. Secondly, it will send out an assortment of UDP requests to the server to store the configuration in place of the "Favorites" on the server. You can see what's saved by going to http://<SERVER_IP>/favourites/all. This does limit you to 99 configuration options, but I think that should work.

Reza

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#222159 - 04/09/2002 07:40 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
fvgestel
old hand

Registered: 12/08/2000
Posts: 702
Loc: Netherlands
> Not sure if someone else succeeded at getting an HPNA driver to work that is compiled from source.

I compiled a custom kernel and generated a suitable il-binary.o. I do not have HPNA, but I received mail from someone that it was working though...
BTW, It seems the c++ compiler on redhat 7.2 is broken. I cannot compile modreloc.c on it. Redhat 6.2/7.3 works fine...
_________________________
Frank van Gestel

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#222160 - 04/09/2002 10:30 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
julf
veteran

Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
It would be nice to be able to set the alarm from the Receiver, as many of us don't want to have a web browser too close to our beds...

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#222161 - 04/09/2002 16:39 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
basf_audio
newbie

Registered: 02/09/2002
Posts: 36
Loc: Saint Louis
At first I thought it might have to do with the way I tar'd up the files after I swapped out the two files... But it looks exactly like what I had before. Odd that after swapping out the two files my 10/100 Ethernet port enabled Rio would no longer boot either. So it really could be the way I'm retar'ing the files up. I'm simply doing a tar -cf ../receiver.tar ./* from the root directory of where your files are. And then renaming the receiver.tar file to receiver.arf after I transfer it to my Windows server. Hmmm... I'll have to look into it some more...

As far as the Web server not returning requests, I've found that after I hit submit to update the configuration file - the Web server locks up until I unplug the receiver and plug it back in (The rio isn't locked up - it'll still play music). The file is updated - however, I don't have a directory like you mentioned in your post. At least on my Windows 2000 server, there's only...

c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Favorites

The logged in user (since we still can't run the software as a service...) is would be listed under:

c:\Documents and Settings\audioreceiver\Favorites

And there are no files listed there. Still - the settings are being saved somewhere Just don't know where yet...

I'll also take a look at those HTML files. I don't have any compilers but I did download your source files... It should be fun to play around with those.

I also wouldn't mind working on some of the interface screens on the receiver with you. The fonts aren't really pretty...

I also noticed (since my DSL line is acting a little flakey today) that when a shoutcast stream gets cut off - the rio stops responding to any front panel controls... It seems to lock up until I think some sort of timeout threshold hits.

That's it for now... more playing to be done...

Thanks!
Dave

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#222162 - 04/09/2002 22:50 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions. [Re: basf_audio]
John3914
stranger

Registered: 08/07/2002
Posts: 18
Check here for getting HPNA to work with RRR and Rioplay. I have had the lock up issues on RRR myself. I was wondering if it was this techinque for adding HPNA. Maybe it wasn't....

http://rioreceiver.comms.net/php/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=Technical&Number=1965&Search=true&Forum=Technical&Words=Zimage&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=1938

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#222163 - 05/09/2002 16:23 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
mardibloke
addict

Registered: 14/08/2000
Posts: 468
Loc: Penarth, UK
Do keep up the good work Reza, I use RRR everyday on my players, would be lost without it.

Sad to say I had to go back to an older version though, as getting the "spluttering" someone else has mentioned. Both on my 802.11b wireless attached one, and wired 10mbit

Suprised no one else is getting it, unless its related to the fact my units are Dell's, or maybe I have messed with some configuration options, I should not have touched ?

Count down timer would be handy for me, as would >1000 in the web interface, can see alarm clock ( via Web interface ) being handy for many people too.

Anyone got a clue how we get weather.com to work for UK postcodes ?
_________________________
- --
Rod, UK

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#222164 - 06/09/2002 20:17 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions. [Re: John3914]
basf_audio
newbie

Registered: 02/09/2002
Posts: 36
Loc: Saint Louis
Ahhh yes... That did the trick. However, the file names were a little different... The last lines should be:

tar --delete -vf receiver.arf ./il-binary.o ./zImage
tar -rvf receiver.arf ./il-binary.o ./zImage

The case was switched on the first two letters of zImage. (That wasn't my original problem... I think I just had a corrupt tar file.)

However, upon reflection - the cool parts of RRR won't work in my setup. With HPNA, obviously you're not going to be hooked up directly with the Internet. My DSL is hookup to my Linksys which fed the same network that my first Rio was on... The one on HPNA has no easy way to connect to any Internet based (through my Linksys) Shoutcast servers. I suppose I'll try and make a bridge between my HPNA and Ethernet on my Windows 2000 server...

But so far so good. I'm really enjoying the added functionality of streaming audio off the Internet.

Enjoy!
Dave


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#222165 - 09/09/2002 00:09 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: reza]
gregggreg
stranger

Registered: 14/03/2002
Posts: 9
Reza-

Yes, I would LOVE to have an external display. Something like this display that is discussed in this Tivo thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53954

That would rock. The one thing I don't like about the Rio Receiver is the tiny display.

While I'm at it, I would like to request 2 other things for RRR:

1) Different fonts (I like the one in the default player)
2) Have the dial work the same way as the default player, rrr seems to have it reversed

These seem like things that would be pretty easy to change if I had my own arm cross-compiler. I might get around it one of these days.

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#222166 - 17/09/2002 20:11 Re: RRR: Locking up my rio and interface questions [Re: gregggreg]
laserfan
stranger

Registered: 08/09/2002
Posts: 32
Loc: Frozen North
I hate to make a post that sounds like I'm a clueless newbie (I'm not COMPLETELY clueless), but I have read this thread and dl'ed the code and looked at the README and still am confused about what this package does. Before I spend a lot of time, please somebody--will this new client that you have built Reza play tunes from a central server? I don't want to run the Rio server at all, just want to play files from a networked share. It appears you were asked earlier in the thread about doing this, and it requires playlist capability? If yes, where does this stand?

BTW Reza I completely agree w/your earlier comment about the controller knob being backwards. It always trips me up; I never twist it correctly the first time!

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