Release Panplayer Beta 1

[Mr_Loon]

@JDGBOLT : Many thanks for all you hard work with this. It is a huge improvement on the default player that comes with the codec pack. You've really helped make the Pandora a little more awesome.


Thanks also go to Pickle & ED for the launcher and the PND.


I'm not sure exactly how these things work, but to me it would make sense to make this the official Pandora Video player, especially if some kind of front end with dedicated touch screen media controls (Play, Pause, etc.) could be added.

 

[Bosbeetle]

I love this, it works like a charm

 

[bzar]

A video for those of us still without a pandora?

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Thanks a bunch for this jdgbolt.It works nicely.Perhaps a few on screen touch controls would be nice too.Anyhow thanks.

 

[Elanzer]

Alright, got around to toying around with this, and I -think- I found a bug, and a conflict with the community codec pack.


On a fresh install of HF5 RC2, it played all my files I tossed at it fine except 720p+ h264 (as expected). Those would open, but they would go far too slow (~5fps at 1050mhz). I wanted to compare performance to the "Community Codec Pack" so I installed that to test the same files. After I got more or less the same results, I went back to Panplayer to try playing back those same 720p h264 files - now they won't even open after installing the codec pack, it instantly returns back to Panplayer. Not a big deal, since the files that will actually play fine (ie: 1024x576p h264) still open. This stayed the same after a reboot, leading me to think that the codec pack caused the issue.


Another thing I noticed in a fit of trying to load these choppy 720p files (as well as trying to "feel" my way around the interface since I didn't bother reading what buttons do what), after mashing open on a couple files I managed to open one in the background so it was playing, but Panplayer was still in the focus. I could hear the file playing in the background but couldn't actually see it, and closing Panplayer also closed the background file.

 

[aranson]

Friggan love it!


Question though. If I wanted to launch PanPlayer through Thunar (by clicking on my video file, say), what would the best way to do that?


I know you can assign pnd_run.sh to launch pnd files, but I'm not sure what .sh file you are using for just mplayer. As far as I can tell runme.sh is for Picklelauncher.


Even if I do get the right .sh file, will it retain all of the settings so meticulously crafted?

 

[JDGBOLT]

The file to run would be mplayer.sh .


JDGBOLT

 

[aranson]

The file to run would be mplayer.sh .


JDGBOLT

I got it to launch from the terminal, but there isn't any sound. Maybe there is some configuration stuff I can look into.

 

[DaMummy]

Just tested the PND version, this is really great! Thanks a lot!


I have a question: is it possible to force aspect ratio? I tried the W and E keys to adjust pan scan, but I generally obtain garbage on screen (tested on 2 videos with differents aspect ratios, but I always get corrupt display). Is mplayer capable of switching between various forced aspect ratios?

Yep, it is possible. You have to add a line to mpinput.conf that is in the appdata directory that would look something like this:


a switch_ratio 1.6


This for example would switch the aspect ratio to being 16:10 by pressing the a key, 4:3 would be say 1.33333333, etc...


JDGBOLT

THIS is what ive been searching for, thank you. btw can we put this up on repo sometime?


also, if aspect ratio 16:10 is 1.6, and 4:3 is 1.33333333, what would 16:9 be?


sorry for the gravedig

 

[renegadechic]

Just tested the PND version, this is really great! Thanks a lot!


I have a question: is it possible to force aspect ratio? I tried the W and E keys to adjust pan scan, but I generally obtain garbage on screen (tested on 2 videos with differents aspect ratios, but I always get corrupt display). Is mplayer capable of switching between various forced aspect ratios?

Yep, it is possible. You have to add a line to mpinput.conf that is in the appdata directory that would look something like this:


a switch_ratio 1.6


This for example would switch the aspect ratio to being 16:10 by pressing the a key, 4:3 would be say 1.33333333, etc...


JDGBOLT

THIS is what ive been searching for, thank you. btw can we put this up on repo sometime?


also, if aspect ratio 16:10 is 1.6, and 4:3 is 1.33333333, what would 16:9 be?


sorry for the gravedig

its a straight up divide. 16/10=1.6, 4/3=1.3333 16/9=1.77777777

 

[Dark_Link]

i get the black screen of pain when i try to play my iphone 4 formated videos which means 55g of my library

 

[porg]

This concerns PanPlayer Beta4, published on 2011-02-24 at http://apps.openpandora.org


Bug report: Pressing the Pandora-Button (=META) while being in PickleLauncher mode quits the program as expected if it has been launched from MiniMenu, but not if it was launched through XFCE.


Feature request: While active playback, PanPlayer should prevent the OS from sleeping the display. Having the need to create an input event (nub, key press, etc) about every 15min during a 120min video is a little annoying.

 

[MarioPandio]

^ re: your feature request. I doubt Panplayer can override the screenblanking of the OS but you can disable it yourself and ED is adding an option to turn that behaviour on/off in the LCD settings in the next beta2 of HF6.


Disable it manually


http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/5320-zaxxon-hotfix-6-beta-1-released/page__view__findpost__p__93384


ED's cunning plan


http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/5320-zaxxon-hotfix-6-beta-1-released/page__view__findpost__p__93732


Fusion_Powers alternative manual fix (if we bug him for his autostart script )


http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/5320-zaxxon-hotfix-6-beta-1-released/page__view__findpost__p__93800

 

[porg]

re: your feature request. I doubt Panplayer can override the screenblanking of the OS but you can disable it yourself and ED is adding an option to turn that behaviour on/off in the LCD settings in the next beta2 of HF6.

First thanks for your efforts towards a solution! But yet these suggestions are not satisfying.


1) I don't want to disable screen blanking globally, as it generally makes sense to me!


2) Except some specific applications a) such as video players (i.e. PanPlayer) should prevent screen blanking while they run actively, and B) permanently running network applications/services (i.e. Transmission) should be able to prevent system sleep (i.e. the Mac OS X version can do this, haven't tested the Pandora version yet). Therefore the solution has to lie on the side of the applications, which require a permanent screen or system on-state.


Either by setting a special "no-sleeping-now" flag in the OS, if such a thing exists on the Pandora OS, or by triggering a faked/scripted user interaction every X minutes, such as move mouse 1 pixel left and again 1 pixel right for preventing screen blanking (case A), or any CPU activity to prevent total system sleep (case B) .

 

[MarioPandio]

I thoroughly agree and excellent suggestions at that!

 

[porg]

So can you use my suggestions for a realization?

 

[MarioPandio]

Purely to realise I should STFU in attempting to offer you a temporary solution to the screenblanking issue until ED adds the scripts to enable/disable it prior to running Videos. As I'm afraid I lack any programming ability, or any influence over the Dev's who's software is currently interrupted.


We can hope that the Dev's involved will hear your plea and suggestions though and will have the time and ability to implement a cure before ED releases HF6beta2 (as it will still be slightly irksome to have to disable things first before firing up video and enable it again after, if you dont desire to remove the feature altogether).

 

[porg]

If an applications sets the no-screen/system-sleep flag, and then crashes, the flag remains set, even though the app which originally needed it, then does not run anymore!


Therefore the more stable approach is, to let the affected application trigger a user/activity event every here and then.