Playing media thumb as screen saver

[mad_ady]

@Markster - preferably on the wiki, under a new article. If formatting is a problem, you can post it on the forum as well.

P.S. Are you a "she" by any chance?

I always thought the problem was with running an image slide show without interrupting music playback. I'm curious how this is resolved.

[Markster]

No, I am a "he". However I was posting as Markster but somehow I became a "he" in KAD's edit and it came across like a private conversation between him and Recliq. I had thought I was trying to help with some suggestions about what I had already done with MovieSheets+ slide show and video but some how this became a "I doubt he can do what he says he can do" private conversation, even though it is a public thread.

mad_ady, I assume the wiki requires a user name and password and I have never requested access in the past so not sure who grants this kind of access. As I am new to this idea of posting "how I developed" a feature concept, I would prefer some guidance\assistance as to what section of the forum or wiki to use, category, etc.

I also want to make clear that I am more than willing to provide my approaches as to how I overcame an issue\developed a feature. However I do this from the perspective of trying to help others vs. teaching coding practices. I say this because it is clear there are many developers on this forum who are "miffed" at me because I have not "shared" my development solutions and I don't want this to become an arena for them to take pot-shots at my approaches. This should be a healthy environment for people to post info, ask questions, and receive answers, noob or master programmer, without being challenged.

[recliq]

To log into wiki try your forum credentials, if you created that account on wdlxtv.com then is works there, on the forum and the wiki.
As normal user you can't create new pages I think, so drop a note if you need/want a new page and I'll create it, then you can edit it as a normal user.

[Markster]

Recliq, I verified I can log in to the wiki. Can you please create a page for me and place it in the area you feel best fits.
The focus of this page will be a tutorial on how to create a custom screen saver that works anywhere in the WD Live player (1.02.21 of course), including playing music or movies.

Using our discussion below, I have gone ahead and enhanced my MovieSheets+ slideshow feature to show a cover picture of the current music track being played.
The cover is added on top of the slideshow. I get this info by using the GetMediaInfo upnp command, which tells me what music file is being played and its title.

mad_ady, I do NOT use UPNP for the actual slideshow picture, as UPNP on the WD only supports a single media file at any given time. So I let WD use it to play the music and I use my own method to clear the screen and show pictures.

You will see that I changed the slideshow timeout to be only 30 seconds for this youtube video. I also created three short music files so that I can demo how they change without having to wait for the entire song to play (I shortned each song to be only 20 to 45 seconds long). The slideshow randomly shows every image in a special folder so that you can add your own images to it. By default each theme comes with 3 still images which is why you see the same 3 images repeat.

Best to view the youtube video in HD 720p. All of the slideshow is directly from my WD. There is no mock-up or video tricks. I use a Hauppage PVR device to capture my video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHMMhGNNjeg

As I don't typically play music on the WD (I prefer to have a random movie trailer playing instead), sm13349 please review the above youtube and let me know if this is along the lines of what you were wanting?

Once I hear back from you, I will look into creating the tutorial of how I did it.

[mad_ady]

It looks great - good job!

It's an elegant solution to use wdtvext to inject the new background image instead of the default screensaver - I hadn't thought of that. I always thought you had to use the upnp renderer to display it.

I see several possible branches of this - a regular screensaver with random images from one folder; your implementation which overlaps media info on top, and maybe one with the option of drawing image info from a UMSP plugin (like 500px), or from a web image service...

There could possibly be one mega screensaver with all the info above packed into it...

[Markster]

MS+ also offers random video screensavers (as long as the UPNP service is not being used) and random movie trailers. Each theme comes with its own set of screensaver videos. I also play random music tracks along with the still images if the UPNP service is not being used.

[recliq]

Here you go: http://wiki.wdlxtv.com/WDTVExt_Create_Custom_Screensaver

[Markster]

Here you go: http://wiki.wdlxtv.com/WDTVExt_Create_Custom_Screensaver

Thanks. Once I hear back from sm13349 I will take a crack at the tutorial. Note that I am away for the next 3 days and my first priority is getting pre-release MS+ 2.0.3 - phase 3 out the door when I return.
Likely get to this in the coming weeks.

[Markster]

I received some feedback from some of my MovieSheet+ users about the music feature screensaver enhancement. As a result I have added support for embedded along with stand-alone cover images.
I was not aware that the music player did NOT support displaying stand-alone cover images but did support embedded. My screensaver only supported stand-alone so now both areas have been enhanced.

I also plan to add music files to the automated playlist generator in version 2.0.3 to create artist and genre playlists. I also cleaned-up the display of the cover image and title when overlaying the screensaver slideshow.

I have updated the youtube video (new link below) with these changes and hopefully it is available in all countries this time (youtube blocked some countries due to the music content).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHMMhGNNjeg

Enjoy!