Chumby and music

=My Streams=

Simple PLS file
A simple PLS playlist is a file that looks like a Windows .INI file, with the following format:

[playlist] NumberOfEntries=14 File14=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/14Gone.mp3 File13=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/13TheEndOfTheWorld.mp3 File12=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/12Shucks.mp3 File11=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/11DogwoodAcres.mp3 File10=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/10WereNotFromAroundHere.mp3 File9=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/09Family.mp3 File8=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/08PipeDown.mp3 File7=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/07KeepYourEyesOpen.mp3 File6=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/06WillJesusWashTheBloodstainsFromYourHands.mp3 File5=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/05Brother.mp3 File4=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/04MrMemory.mp3 File3=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/03OneOfTheseDays.mp3 File2=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/02GoJake.mp3 File1=/mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/01GimmeAHoller.mp3

The key pieces are: the [playlist]; the NumberOfEntries; and then each path to the song preceded by File#= (where # is the index number of the song,)

This I named Nashville.pls, and all the files including this playlist I put on the USB drive when I mounted the drive to my computer. I knew that chumby was going to mount my drive as /mnt/usb because it had previously mounted it there. If yours is mounted at a different place, you'll have to use something other than /mnt/usb in your list; see where your usb drive is mounted first, and use this location.

Please note that I specified the File# entries backwards in order to address the problem mentioned earlier in this forum that the Chumby plays the songs from the bottom of the playlist up. I numbered them the correct way in the hopes that when the problem is fixed I don't have to change this file.

Simple M3U file
A "simple" M3U file format is a list of filenames. An easy way to create a M3U list, if all your songs are in one folder, is to redirect a list of the songs to a file. As an example, if I start up the sshd daemon and log in, I can create M3U list similar to the PLS list mentioned above by typing:

ls /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/* > /mnt/usb/Nashville.m3u

The file would like: /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/01GimmeAHoller.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/02GoJake.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/03OneOfTheseDays.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/04MrMemory.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/05Brother.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/06WillJesusWashTheBloodstainsFromYourHands.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/07KeepYourEyesOpen.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/08PipeDown.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/09Family.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/10WereNotFromAroundHere.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/11DogwoodAcres.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/12Shucks.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/13TheEndOfTheWorld.mp3 /mnt/usb/BillFrisell/Nashville/14Gone.mp3

GNUMP3d
See link here: GNUMP3d

Creating a Stream: Using a PLS or M3U file
To use the playlist on the chumby, you have to create a new stream in My Streams, call it whatever you want, give it the type of PLS or M3U, but give it the URL of file:////mnt/usb/Nashville.pls (or .m3u) Note the 4 slashes (////) after 'file:' -- this is not a mistake. Of course if your drive is not mounted on /mnt/usb you'd have to change the URL.

Edit the "My Streams" file
If you have a large number of streams and don't want to edit each one through the Chumby interface, follow these instructions:

1. Enable SSH daemon 2. Open an SSH session "ssh -l root" 3. Enter "vi /psp/url_streams"

A faster way to edit the streams file is to create MANY streams via the Chumby interface (don't worry about editing the content), then edit the 'url_streams' file with vi. Consider copying the url_streams file to a USB drive, edit it on a PC, then copy it back. You also have a limited amount of storage space in the /psp/ directory so you can always create a sub-directory and copy your '.pls' files.

mkdir /psp/mystreams cp /mnt/usb/*.pls /psp/mystreams cp /mnt/usb/url_streams /psp

Using a Playlist as an Alarm
Once a stream has been created with your playlist, you can use it as a custom alarm sound. When creating your alarm, choose as the sound My Streams; you will then get a list of streams to choose from. Choose the one associated with your playlist.

= Internet Radio = Chumby's control panel allows users to access several Internet music sources, which can play in the background while the chumby cycles through widgets.

Here is some brief documentation describing how you can develop your own music source and get it to show up in your chumby's control panel:

Sample source files and documentation: