On-demand playlists of more than one track

[kilucas]

I have on-demand streaming working such that my browser is directed to a playlist like abc.pls and I am streamed abc.mp3. My content folder contains many mp3s and contains sub-folders that also contain mp3s. Can I use a native feature of Shoutcast to request:
- a playlist that contains all tracks in the main content folder
- all tracks in a given sub-folder
- all tracks in the main content folder and its sub-folders?

If not can I construct such playlists manually yet still benefit from Shoutcast's on-demand security? (For example would I manually create a playlist (and put it on a web server) that contains entries that are themselves shoutcast on-demand playlists or would this mean that the browser would never get to see the shoutcast playlists (inside my manual playlist) which I believe is vital to have the .pls requests converted to .mp3 streams.

Or is there some other way to use on-demand with playlists of multiple tracks?

Finally if I couldn't build multi-track playlists for on-demand streaming then presumably I should build a Web page that has a separate hyperlink to each track (expressed as a .pls) so that the usser simply clicks each track in turn. Is there by any chance a way to build such a page automatically from the track contents of my Content folder?

Many thanks for any help you can give.

Kevin Lucas

[angst]

check out this ondemand playlist solution for shoutcast:
http://dev.by-code.com/prod.asp?id=2

[kilucas]

Thanks. Do you know where I can find some indicaation of where I put the downloaded files (for use with Shoutcast)? There's no indication from the Web site. Any indications of how it works would also be of interest since it'd be nice to understand it a bit before installing it.

Thanks very much

Kevin

[FesterHead]

Check out the Sticky post titled:
SHOUTcast: Important Info & Answers to FAQs. READ ME!

Scroll down a bit and look for the section titled:
How to Setup On-Demand with SHOUTcast -> Sawg's Lame Rip-Off: On Demand Audio
How to Setup On-Demand with SHOUTcast -> On Demand Audio (Radio Toolbox)

[kilucas]

I'd checked the two FAQs over in advance but they only cover multiple playlists when streaming from a standard Web server rather than from Shoutcast. The ondemand tool mentioned by Angst sounds potentially interesting if it can scan my content folders dynamically although I'm still happy to consider building playlists in advance (say for an entire album) but I just don't know how to do this in conjunction with Shoutcast (rather than my standard web server).

Any tips on doing this with Shoutcast?

Many thanks

Kevin

[FesterHead]

I understand on-demand to be:
Webserver = multiple tunes in the playlist
SHOUTcast = single tune in the playlist defined by the mp3s in the content directory


Since I've never setup on-demand, though, I could be wrong.

Check out KXRM's (Jay) tool mp3toolbox

Mp3 ToolBox is the first (as far as I know) fully functionally on-demand live stream emulating jukebox php script ever.

[Jay]

personally I never saw any logic in using SHOUTcast for something apache could do better.

[kilucas]

Thanks very much for all the feedback so far.

The dev.by-code facility is very much along the lines I had in mind - showing folders and their contents and allowing users to build their own playlist for a subsequent SHOUTcast. Just by way of feedback on it, it'd be great if could show the folders and tracks in alphanumeric order and if the full folder pathname elements displayed toward the top of the screen were clickable to allow you to jump up a number of levels in the hierarchy.

It also runs a lot faster over an internal network when the site meter code is removed.

It took me a while to get it running but only because I didn't understand some of the initial parameters you have to set up, especially for the temporary folder in which the finally constructed playlist is held. If I were more of a script-wizard I'd probably have understood that quicker.

The MP3 toolbox sounds interesting and I'm exploring that now although I'm unclear how much I'll need to understand scripts and their handling to 'install' this for use.

Thanks very much for the ideas so far.

Kevin

[angst]

ya I'm going to update that script soon, it's been a while since I did anything new with it,.

[Jay]

Originally posted by kilucas
The MP3 toolbox sounds interesting and I'm exploring that now although I'm unclear how much I'll need to understand scripts and their handling to 'install' this for use.

Installation is just simply copying the files over to a web accessible directory. The webserver must support PHP though.

Configuration can all be done in the mp3toolbox_conf.php file

[jckm2000]

kilucas...how did you set that dev.by-code utility up and which one did you use?? (i saw four on their site...) Yup i agrre some 'readme' info would have helped there...
cheers,

Jon

[kilucas]

I downloaded the version called IR On-demand Scan Dir - v-2.0. I've provided somee comments on my experiences below but please don't interpret any of them as criticisms - I'm not knowledgeable enough to be certain of what I think I've found and the coders might not intend it to be a fully rounded suite.

I unzipped it into a local folder and then set my web server (MS PWS 4) to provide an alias called 'ondemand' for the local folder. This meant that http://<myserver>/ondemand/index.asp would invoke the index.asp file provided in the download. Effectively the download is a little web site.

To get this ondemand web site to work with your music files and with SHOUTcast on demand you have to tell it where to find your music (this is a reference to the folder in which all your mp3s are stored - they can be in sub-folders as well), and you have to tell it where on your hard drive the folder called 'temp' is that is unzipped from the download. This fooled me for ages (because I hadn't spotted that such a folder had been unzipped). Here's what I believe the sitee does.

It records key parameters in the file called setup.inc that you edit with a text editor and it's key you get them right. I found most of them obvious except 'tempdir' - the hard drive reference to the unzipped temp folder. On my PC this became C:\<intermediate path folders>\ondemand\temp\ because 'ondemand' was the folder I unzipped to and the unzipping process created the temp folder within it. Don't miss the '\' off the end.

The Web site will look at all your music folders and files and allows you to specify which files will be added to a playlist. It keeps track of this file list in a cookie and then transfers the list to a true playlist file (.pls) only at the point when you say you want to listen to the music you've selected.

At this point the site manufactures the .pls and places it wherever you've specified as 'tempdir'. It then redirects your browser to http://<your web pathname>/temp/<the playlist it just manufactured>.pls. This is the web reference to exactly the same playlist that has just been placed in the 'tempdir' location which is why the site doesn't work if 'tempdir' points somewhere else - a playlist gets made but the browser looks for it in the wrong place.

Redirecting the browser to the .pls invokes your default .pls player (Winamp, Real, etc). The playlist contains calls to the SHOUTcast ondemand content which then gets played.

I've encounteered some quirks that I'll mention in case they should affect you.

I've already mentioned that tthe folders and files aaren't necessarily listed in alphanumeric order and I see that the coders are considering adjusting this.

I found that apostrophes in folder or file names could mean that folders appeared to be empty when they were not. removing the apostrophes cured the problem.

I find there's a limit to the number of files you can select succesfully and it varies. I'm guessing it's due to a restriction in the amount of text the cookie will hold as I appear to be able to hold more items on the list when their pathnames are short.

As the file list is held in a cookie you will find you return to the site with yourr last list intact. (You'll also see that you can't clear it without visiting a folder that contains music files rather than just sub-folders).

I find I'm unable to play some lists consistently across PCs that default to Winamp and Real as ttheir .pls playeer. I think culprit will turn out to be filename that contain commas, long filenames or perhaps where unsual characters appear in the file name such as an umlaut in a pianists name. Some of these filenames were constructed via the CDDB lookup from the CD_Reader Winamp input plugin so I may have to look more carefully at how I name (or maybe tag?) files.

On the whole I think it does what I wanted even though the non-alpha sorting gets pesky for long lists. I think the rest comes down to me getting my file names into acceptable shape (although it'd be better still if I didn't have to). So thanks to the coders for this.

I intend to look at the MP3toolbox offering as it sounds as if it may be a little more comprehensive. Unfortunately PHP is foreign to me and, I suspect, my web server. So I'm having to check out what's involved in PHP-enabling the web server first.

Hope this helps.

Kevin

[jckm2000]

Whoosh ---- a little over my head there!!! lol! thanks anyways
jon.

[kilucas]

I want to try out the MP3toolbox and my web server is Microsoft PWS 4. I gather I can php-enable it via cgi or isapi but I notice that some newsgroup discussions say that these behave differently and that php scripts might have to be different to run under each. Are these scripts intended for CGI or ISAPI (or if there is no intention to target one or the other could I ask which they've been used under so that I can set up my web server the same way please)?

Many thanks

Kevin

[Jay]

Originally posted by kilucas
I want to try out the MP3toolbox and my web server is Microsoft PWS 4. I gather I can php-enable it via cgi or isapi but I notice that some newsgroup discussions say that these behave differently and that php scripts might have to be different to run under each. Are these scripts intended for CGI or ISAPI (or if there is no intention to target one or the other could I ask which they've been used under so that I can set up my web server the same way please)?

Many thanks

Kevin

I normally use Apache but I know of some who have gotten it to work on Microsoft's web servers. the only issue I know of with it is that Microsoft sort of watches over the CGI process and will time it out after a certain amount of time, so you'll need to find that setting and set it to the amount of time you would want someone listening to MP3 toolbox.

[jckm2000]

damn shame ya just can't place all the tracks you want to stream into 'content' folder and have them play one after the other....perhaps that needs to be placed on a wishlist...............................
Jon.

[FesterHead]

That's not the way on-demand works.

If you want to source the DNAS with tunes for everyone to hear instead of giving them the option of what they want to hear, use a Winamp/DSP combo.

[kilucas]

Thanks for the reminder about timeouts and now I think of it I've seen some postings about reseting timeout thresholds although it's not obvious whetheer I can ddo this with PWS so I'm checking this out. (Does anyone else know?)

I took a look at Apache but the latest version won't run behind Zonealarm which I already use and I'd rather not go back to an early version that I can't then keep uptodate if I can help it.

This is all great feedback - thanks very much.

Kevin

[Jay]

use apache 1.3

Apache 2 is no where near good enough in the windows distro.