Cataloguing your MP3s for the Philips Streamium

The Problem

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Firstly, it is only possible to play those radio stations chosen by Philips. The Streamium can actually play any streaming MP3 station - however Philips likes to be able to control which ones you can listen to.

Secondly, there is not much control over the way your MP3s are catalogued, and it will only run on a Windows machine.

The Solution

Cataloguing

How to use it

<streams name='streams'>
	<group name='mygroup'>
		<url name='mystream'>http://mycomputer:8000/mystream
	</group>
</streams>

The options are as follows:
-k    Kill single track albums
-l    Try to guess length of MP3 (may be slow and will not work properly with VBR MP3s)

The file nodesfile.txt will be written to the current directory. This should be used in conjunction with pclink.pl. You can download both the modified pclink.pl and pclinkscan here.

How it works

nodeid;name;link(s);options

The nodeid is the unique identifier for the node. The first node must be zero, but subsequent nodes need not be sequential. To create a hierarchy, you can put a list of nodes into the links section like this:

0;Arists;1,2,3
1;The Cure;4,5
2;The Charlatans;8,9
3;The Stone Roses;6,7

This will create a list of artists, which will then point to other nodes (presumably containing tracks or albums). Searching is achieved by adding an idx parameter in the options part. The format of this is idx(XN) where X is the character to be searched and N is the position of the item in the list to which you would like to scroll to starting from zero (not the nodeid!). The Streamium allows you to enter the numbers 0-9 and the characters A-Z to search. If no idx is provided, then pclink will return to the beginning of the current list. In the above case, if we wanted the search character 'C' to point to 'The Cure' and 'S' to point to 'The Stone Roses' we would use the folllowing:

0;Arists;1,2,3;idx(C0),idx(S2)
1;The Cure;4,5
2;The Charlatans;8,9
3;The Stone Roses;6,7

The link for track nodes is passed in as a url in the links section. The length() and artist() options can be used to pass in the length of the MP3 in seconds and the artist of the MP3. The MP3 will work without artist and length information - it will simply not show it on the Streamium. ie:

1;The Cure;4,5
3;The Stone Roses;6,7
4;The Lovecats;http://mymachine/mp3/cure - lovecats.mp3;length(123),artist(Cure)
6;I Am The Resurrection;http://mymachine/mp3/stone roses - i amd the resurrection.mp3;length(321),artist(Stone Roses)

Playlists and albums are slightly different as they are referenced by the Streamium numerically rather than sorted alphanumerically. Both playlists and albums are supported by pclinkscan. You can specify a numeric list in the nodesfile by adding a num() option at the end of the list. For example:

4;The Lovecats;http://mymachine/mp3/cure - lovecats.mp3;length(123),artist(Cure)
6;I Am The Resurrection;http://mymachine/mp3/stone roses - i amd the resurrection.mp3;length(321),artist(Stone Roses)
10;My Playlist;4,6;num()

There is no need to use any idx parameters in a numeric list, the streamium itself calculates which node is needed when the user types in a track number with the remote control.

Known problems

mc-i250

pclinkscan

If you have any comments, suggestions or modifications to pclinkscan, you can contact me on paul@paulhalloran.com

Version 0.5
Compiled version - pclinkscan.exe
Source C# - pclinkscan.cs
Changes

pclink.pl

See Nathan's site for more details on pclink.pl

Last modified Mon Dec 23 12:40:15 GMT 2003
paul@paulhalloran.com