[vlc] videolan-based jukebox (longish)

[Darrell Berry]

Hi

I'm currently running a single-box mp3 jukebox based on the rather
excellent otto jukebox system (http://www.cardhouse.com/otto/), using
mplayer as the actual player engine to play both mp3 and flac audio files
locally via alsa.

Having decided its time to move to FLAC for everything (re-rip!), I'm
reviewing the entire architecture. Rather than have a single box with a
disk large enough for all my music (~700 cds and counting), I'm planning
to rebuild the actual player as a thin-client, running (possibly) a
videolan client rather than mplayer (or if that doesn't work, sticking
with mplayer and mounting my flac collection remotely as a share onto the
box). But videolan seems tidier, and more extensible if/when i decide to
move to video as well.

BUT, I can't quite work out how to do what i want to do, under the
videolan model. Effectivly, I need:

on the SERVER:
programatic control of what's being streamed (preferably via otto, because
I like it), rather than simple looping through a playlist. my current otto
setup simply calls mplayer on each track in turn, and i need a similar
functionality: to be able to tell vlc (or vls) the name of a file to queue
up next. or indeed, to tell the sevrer to stop playing the current file
and skip to the next one. but there isn't at any point a playlist FILE
that's being played -- otto sends 'play' requests one file at a time, and
maintains its own mysql-based playlist internally (inaccessible to the
actual media streamer).

on the CLIENT:
a simple player that is permanently tuned into the server 'channel', and
plays whatevers is on (or silence if there's nothing).

Again, this is an obvious newbie question: there's probably a 'videolan
standard' way of doing this, but again I can't find it in the docs. I
realise this is a fairly trivial use of videolan, but the main reason i
want to use it is its excellent ability to support very flexible formats
and wrappings -- being able to stream flac is a very cool thing for these
kinds of tasks...

all help much appreciated

- d

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