SUMMARY This plugin enables Linux PC audio to be streamed through SqueezeCenter. Similar functionality to the WaveInput for Windows see http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35718 ).
This plugin assumes ALSA is the installed audio subsystem. This plugin will *not* work with an OSS audio subsystem. The plugin is minimal mainly 2 conf file so that an ALSA PCM stream is played through Squeezecenter. Normally the ALSA stream used will be the PC audio out but it can be any ALSA stream so that the stream could be a virtual soundcard (e.g. on a PC with no real audio hardware). A typical use of this plugin would to play internet streams which work on PC which cannot be played from SC (e.g. flash audio such as NPR or new BBC). INSTALL Install by unpacking the attached .tar.gz file into the Plugins directory according to your distro. The new directory in Plugins will be called WaveInput. The most difficult part in getting this plugin to work will probably be the ALSA configuration. Typically the user will use an appropriate mixer application (e.g. amixer, alsamixer, Kmixer, Gnome-alsamixer) to configure the correct stream to be used in playback. A good installation will have a new FileType wavin under Settings/Advanced/File Types. The wavin FileType should have at least the WAV and Flac entries enabled - the mp3 entry will only be enabled if lame is installed. HOW TO USE There is no user interface. The ALSA stream is played through the URL wavin:<PCM_STREAM> where <PCM_STREAM> is the ALSA PCM name. Typically this will be "default" (i.e. wavin:default ) but it could be any stream named in ALSA configuration files (e.g. .asoundrc, /etc/asound.conf) The user should create an entry in Favorites or My Radio Stations, the name is arbitrary and the URL will be typically wavin:default. SETUP HINTS The default custom-convert.conf file uses -arecord- (normally supplied as part of ALSA) to copy audio stream to SC. However -arecord- is not great when converting live streams and drops out can occur when overruns occur (i.e. arecord was too slow processing audio) A second conf file is supplied configured to use -ecasound- (see http://www.eca.cx/ecasound ) - the configuration supplied is much better than arecord but dropouts can still occur - however there are more ecasound options that can be explored. If you have ecasound installed - just save existing custom-convert.conf file in Plugins/WaveInput and then rename custom-convert.conf.eca to custom-convert.conf. Then restart SC. As stated above getting ALSA configured correctly may be the difficult part - you may find it easier to test different setting of the mixer while recording using an application such as Audacity, Krecord as they provide visual feedback rather using SC. Sometimes the problem may not be the correct source but incorrect level settings. The configuration settings of mixer will probably depend on the audio hardware and the associated driver. Some drivers do not support the mix facility and so this plugin will not work with those drivers. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Filename: WaveInput.tar.gz | |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5400| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- bpa ------------------------------------------------------------------------ bpa's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1806 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=49584 _______________________________________________ plugins mailing list plugins@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/plugins
