Development: Muzac

[loadman]

As most of you know I spent some time replacing the video Engine in mala. This can be found in the mala beta.

I also wanted to replace the audio engine that drives the background music and Jukebox. There were various problems, Music resuming, shuffle/ random music was not so random etc.

I did some research the considered and tested the latest engines available and what I ended finding was the best idea was to use the 'VideoGrabber' package as it supports a Playlist and a few other goodies. I paid good money for this so it is a great that I can use it for audio as well.

So far so good.  And no more bass.dll required :-)

[drventure]

Great News!

About that Video package. What was it called? I know it uses FFDSHOW in the background, and I downloaded the docs on the ffdshow api but haven't quite groked it yet. Did you purchase a wrapper for ffdshow, or are you making use of the ffdshow api directly.

I only ask because, well, since it's already going to have to be installed to run Mala, I thought I might as well make use of it in my plugin as well (assuming that doesn't violate any license agreements).

[Ryglore]

I also wanted to replace the audio engine that drives the background music and Jukebox. There were various problems, Music resuming, shuffle/ random music was not so random etc.

I noticed that the screensaver isn't very random and I've actually had the same video play 2+ times in a row or within a few minutes of each other. I'd think that with 250+ videos that you would constantly see new ones pop up. Would this randomness be fixed as well?

[SGT]

With true randomness, a video that has just played has the same odds of playing as any other video.  Therefore it is very possible to to have the same video play twice in a short period of time.  Sounds like you want a random playlist created before play begins instead of a random choice made after every video is displayed.

On the other hand, its getting late here in GMT-05:00 and I'm posting while too sleepy.  Wasn't this a thread about audio?    

[Ryglore]

On the other hand, its getting late here in GMT-05:00 and I'm posting while too sleepy.  Wasn't this a thread about audio?    

Oh it is, but he mentioned VideoGrabber and using it for the audio. So I was just wondering.

[drventure]

Really, for "random" things like this, what you really want is a shuffle.

Ie take your whole list, shuffle it randomly, then start playing top to bottom. When you've played everything, reshuffle. I supposed it'd still be possible to play the same piece back to back, but just once per rotation.

That's the way I'm doing the slideshow anyway.

[loadman]

About that Video package. What was it called? I know it uses FFDSHOW in the background, and I downloaded the docs on the ffdshow api but haven't quite groked it yet. Did you purchase a wrapper for ffdshow, or are you making use of the ffdshow api directly.

Using a Wrapper.  http://www.datastead.com/products/tvideograbber.html

With true randomness, a video that has just played has the same odds of playing as any other video.  Therefore it is very possible to to have the same video play twice in a short period of time.  Sounds like you want a random playlist created before play begins instead of a random choice made after every video is displayed.

Yes, I just added a line into the code so that might improve things a little for now.  http://www.delphibasics.co.uk/RTL.asp?Name=Randomize

Ie take your whole list, shuffle it randomly, then start playing top to bottom. When you've played everything, reshuffle. I supposed it'd still be possible to play the same piece back to back, but just once per rotation.

Yes, Audio will be like this. The Video screensave uses a different method but I will consider porting it to use this one day