[mschmitz]

I'm using a raspberry pi in my car as a video player. Works pretty good using XBIAN and my iphone as the remote controller.

Because the system is usually not gracefully shutdown, you can not resume a video where you left off.
I would very much like to see the following functionalty:
- Creating an automatic video 'resume' bookmark every x seconds when playing a video.
- When XBMC is started, ask if you want to resume the last video.

This option would also be handy when using XBMC at home...

Maybe it's possible to script this thru the http api? And maybe someone can point me in the right direction with some scripting examples?

Thanks!!

[Ned Scott]

It might be better to figure out a way to trigger a shutdown when the Pi loses it's main power source. Like have it run off of rechargeable batteries or a capacitor for a few seconds when main power is cut (which is constantly being recharged when the car is on) and have the Pi detect the loss of power through one of it's interface pins, and that trigger a shutdown command inside of XBMC. The shutdown would create a resume point.

The reason being is that sudden shutdowns like that will eventually corrupt the database files for XBMC, and maybe even the system files. You could end up having to rebuild your library every few months, or less.

[Ned Scott]

Hmm, the more I think about this, the more I want to try it. (have to wait for my new Pi to arrive, since my original one died). This could be a solution for proper shut down on people who power the R-Pi on TVs as well. Should be fairly simple, too.

[mschmitz]

Thanks, a portable UPS solution would do the trick (in combination with for example the ResumeX script), but I lack the time and knowledge to build it myself.
So for now I'll just have to press the off button on my iPhone before leaving the car... and wait for an out-of-the-box solution...

[Bstrdsmkr]

This is a common thing in car installs. What you're looking for is called a shutdown controller: http://store.mp3car.com/Micro_Shutdown_C...wr-007.htm

If you've got soldering skills, you can build one much cheaper than you can buy it.

[mschmitz]

Thanks again for the tips. You could possibly build a shutdown controller with http://www.antratek.nl/Arduino.html.
But for now I'm ok, I'm not using any of the library functions or crawlers etc, I just play files from a disk, and till now I have not encountered any disk corruption with sudden shutdowns. And I finally found the time to write a script that monitors the position of the playing file and at boot prompts if you want to resume the last file. It then creates a playlist from that file and the remaining files in the folder, so the next videos are also played automatically.
And if the SD card gets corrupted, I'll just restore the working image.

So it's working pretty good for me now, the only problem that remains is the loud audio popping noise on the analog interface when starting/stopping/skipping files. No solution for that one yet, The only build that does not have this problem is RaspBMC RC4, but I can't get my wireless dongle to function as an AP on that build. Maybe someone has any tips for this problem? Thx!

[Ned Scott]

I hear there are some issues on the analog audio port that the Raspberry-Pi people are trying to fix, and it sounds like the same thing you are experiencing. Hopefully it should be fixed sometime soon.

[xbmc-user]

Thanks again for the tips. You could possibly build a shutdown controller with http://www.antratek.nl/Arduino.html.
But for now I'm ok, I'm not using any of the library functions or crawlers etc, I just play files from a disk, and till now I have not encountered any disk corruption with sudden shutdowns. And I finally found the time to write a script that monitors the position of the playing file and at boot prompts if you want to resume the last file. It then creates a playlist from that file and the remaining files in the folder, so the next videos are also played automatically.
And if the SD card gets corrupted, I'll just restore the working image.

So it's working pretty good for me now, the only problem that remains is the loud audio popping noise on the analog interface when starting/stopping/skipping files. No solution for that one yet, The only build that does not have this problem is RaspBMC RC4, but I can't get my wireless dongle to function as an AP on that build. Maybe someone has any tips for this problem? Thx!

Do you mind sharing the script?