Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've done anything with Freevo but, now
that I have a PC that works right and a stable development station, I'm gearing
up to jump back in! Well, sort of.... Read on.
First, my quibbles and questions... Freevo has a lot of great development
going on and a lot of cool features are yet to be added. I really look forward
to v2.0! However, after looking over some of the code in 1.6.2, there seems to
be some overt complicating of the internals. For example, in ivtv_xine_tv.py
there's a reference call to the mixer plugin and direct manipulation of the
audio from within when it isn't necessary. In mixer.py, I have to question why
we're accessing hardware directly rather than using a higher level tool? The
OS, it's hardware drivers and their associated tools are available to handle
this type of thing. All claims of "Why add another dependency?" aside, why not
use the tools built into the OS?
I don't know how DVD's sound in other countries when played in Freevo with
6-channel audio enabled in Mplayer or Xine, but in the U.S. they sound awful.
The center channel, where ALL the dialog is recorded, is weak. The Front,
Surround and Bass(LFE) channels are unbalanced and frequently over power the
dialog or start the windows rattling. (Good examples of this are "Underworld"
and "Queen of the Damned." The bass channel will deafen you while you strain
to hear a single spoken word. In "Queen of...", the narrative is plain and
clear from the front channels while the dialog is almost missing.)
For this reason, I have spawned and have been improving a new mixer which I
have named sixmixer.py and a new volume control for use with sixmixer.py which
reflects the volume settings for the Front, Surround, Center and Bass(LFE)
channels. When I am sure these do not break Freevo in any way (at least not on
my system), I'll post them here. I've also done some removal of code to
eliminate conflicts with sixmixer.py. Sixmixer.py uses the "amixer" control to
handle volume settings. I chose this because the ALSA sound system is by far
the most common among Linux distros. I know OSS is out there and in good use
but OSS, if I remember correctly, contains ALSA wrappers for programs that are
designed to use ALSA by default. I'll be adding OSS and ARTS support in the
near future. I don't know enough about the JACK audio system to make the
necessary additions to sixmixer.py so support isn't planned. In order to make
sixmixer.py work from the remote, I had to add events and
new remote button mappings to events.py which may have broken something as I
keep getting a crash when I try to rename a favorite. (Something about
subsurface out of range or something like that when I use any of the remote's
number buttons or keyboard...) I also took the liberty of adding the special
"MENU" button mappings to events.py.
I haven't seen where a configuration tool has been built for Freevo. This is
what I intend to work on for a while. Initially, this tool will be built from
1.6.2 and will begin with a better tool for adjusting sixmixer.py. As I stated
above, I think I broke something when I remapped some of the remote keys. The
best way to keep the remote events in a pristine state is to write a separate
control to adjust and track the sixmixer.py settings. In so doing, 6-channel
audio can become the _default_ for Freevo which should make a number of people
VERY happy. Afterward, I'll work on code which will detect the absence of
local_conf.py and then try to detect as much hardware as possible, building a
basic local_conf.py as it goes. (Due to it's extreme simplicity, the "Rain"
skin will be used for defining the menus for the forthcoming "Settings" plugin.)
We'll see where these projects go from there. If it seems a fork in the
Freevo project becomes necessary, I'll seek feedback on that idea before hand.
Thanks guys!
Michael
---------------------------------
Bored stiff? Loosen up...
Download and play hundreds of games for free on Yahoo! Games.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT
Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your
opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash
http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV
_______________________________________________
Freevo-devel mailing list
Freevo-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freevo-devel
