Playing media thumb as screen saver

[sm13349]

Hi folks,

Here's something that I - the noob - have always wished for (with official FW, and now with WDlxTV):
It would be nice, and useful, if we could have the screen saver changed to the thumbnail of the MUSIC media playing.

Let's say you are playing a random-shuffled playlist of your music media that's going to run for hours, when the box is going to display-sleep (screen saver kicks in), you would see the album cover of the active song as screen saver bouncing around instead of a fixed image!

I'm not sure if it could be accomplished or even if more people would like this but I certainly see a use for it.

Maybe we could vote for this by replying to my post here and showing interest in the feature and for the developers - b-rad et-all - to tell us if it is possible or not.

[recliq]

Moved this to discussion since it's not about wdlxtv.com website

What you wish *MAY* be possible with WDTVExt, BUT I can already tell you some limitation without checking if it's really possible atall:
We *WILL NOT* be able to change the image of the screensaver once the screensaver kicked in. It *MAY* be possible to change the image while the screensaver is not active but I haven't tested this.

[KAD]

it is an interesting idea

both I and recliq know how locked down the screensaver is

I'm thinking it would be possible to set the screensaver image, but how do you change it, after it's started??
since the screensaver does not stop when the music changes songs/tracks the screensaver image would likely already be cached
and would then require stoping the screensaver to have the new image take effect

should be easy to test

simply let the screensaver start, then from cmd line

Code: Select all

mount -o bind

a new image, I still don't think it will work

[sm13349]

@ recliq & KAD: Thank you both for your replies, I guess my "wish" is harder to be granted than I thought then but I appreciate your insight regardless.
Cheers

[RavRob]

I have been doing this for a while now but not as a screen saver. I simply start my music and them go to my pictures and start a slide show. Both music and slide show play as if it were a screen saver. Images are set to 5 secs I believe.

Not what you want but it does a similar effect except it is not the music cover/thumb.

[Markster]

I have done something similar to this on my MovieSheets+ plugin which requires the WDTVExt enhancement of course. I had to disable the standard screensaver and replace it with my own logic.

This allowed me to play abstract video clips, movie trailers, and\or user defined images for screensavers, which change every xx seconds as chosen by the user.

I believe a similar approach could be used for the music image. You could read the current music info being played and match it up to the thumbnail, then when the music track changes, switch the image being animated.

Be happy to share how I do this with the home brew gang if it is something you are interested in.

[KAD]

well of coarse we're interested

never thought of disabling the screensaver and replacing with our own logic
since I'm not at home, was there a config setting to do this or was there something else you had to do

also how did you do photo slideshow, I had a protype for photo slideshow screensaver that was ok on 1.02.21 firmware, but upnp behavior changed on 1.05.04 so I stopped pursuing it

also, if you have tips, or some new method for dealing with these things, you could just post it in the wdtvext forum, so that any dev that wants to use such a method could do so

[recliq]

never thought of disabling the screensaver and replacing with our own logic

Isn't this quite the same what videoscreensaver does?

[KAD]

never thought of disabling the screensaver and replacing with our own logic

Isn't this quite the same what videoscreensaver does?

LOL, well sort of

videoscreensaver actually just sends off a upnp-cmd to start video playback
currently the videoscreensaver.js is dependant on the stock screensaver still running
it's onPageEnter that kicks off the upnp-cmd to start playback

if I had to restate that "never thought of disabling the screensaver "
in any version I've done, the stock screensaver settings are untouched

edit: I still think what he's claiming he can do above is not possible
but if it is, then he should post his findings so that other devs can use the same methods

[Markster]

"He" is quite willing to tell you how he implemented his screen saver logic. Where do you want me to post these tips?