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#221804 - 18/07/2002 01:11 RioPlay as music alarm clock?
mef
newbie

Registered: 01/07/2002
Posts: 37
Loc: Seattle, WA, USA
I assume that the RioReceiver has a builtin clock, and that gettimeofday() works, right? If so, and assuming one correctly sets up the timezone stuff and maybe even syncs the time with a NTP server, could one turn the rioreceiver into a music alarm clock?

I'd like for it to turn on in the morning with some cool music that I have preselected. This could either be a playlist or some shout/icecast stream.

So, does gettimeofday() work? Since the thing is running linux, can one set up NTP or some other clock synchronization utility?


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#221805 - 18/07/2002 05:35 Re: RioPlay as music alarm clock? [Re: mef]
dave
new poster

Registered: 11/05/2000
Posts: 65
Loc: San Diego, CA
I assume that the RioReceiver has a builtin clock, and that gettimeofday() works, right?

Unfortunately it does not have a built in clock. For the "default" behaviour of the Rio there's just no need for a clock. You can run an NTP client on it to keep it in sync though. I've tried this with the ntpdate program found in the ntp package at http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/.

The other option is that when I get the Web interface implemented, you could write a server side script that would just send a "play" request to the Rio at the correct time. This would prevent the need for the Rio to keep track of the time and would also eliminate the need to add special alarm clock code to the player.

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#221806 - 18/07/2002 08:28 Re: RioPlay as music alarm clock? [Re: dave]
mef
newbie

Registered: 01/07/2002
Posts: 37
Loc: Seattle, WA, USA
Will have to think about whether server or client side is better. I suppose already with RioPlay it would be good to have server side support to manage the shoutcast streams, rather than having to diddle with the streams.cfg file. So once that type of support goes in, it might also make sense to do server support for the alarm clock like functionality. Well, that seems to be consistent with the vision that the PC (i.e., the server) is the digital hub and that the other digital appliances are just "dumb" devices that it controls.

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#221807 - 18/07/2002 15:17 Re: RioPlay as music alarm clock? [Re: dave]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
Umm, it does have a clock - ie, time() will return the correct value as long as you set it at some point. It *doesn't* have an RTC, but as it's useless without a network connection this isn't a biggie.

ISTR we did at some point set the clock from http headers supplied by the server. Might have been imagining things, though.

One thing to bear in mind is that the unit does not boot after a powerfail as the CPU only gets woken by a prod on the power button, which has to happen >2 seconds after power is applied due to brain-deadness of the CPU which has a post-hard-reset-no-wakeup-timer for no adequately explained reason. You can hook the wakeup line (JP something) to a suitably slow clock if you want and it'll wakeup 2 seconds after power is applied. You'll have to use the correct side of the jumper though.

Hugo

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