[jpresto]

hi all - i'm looking to use xbmc to drive a storefront display.  my requirements (above normal xbmc functionality) are:

- system should boot directly into xbmc and the screenshow mode
- system should play files out of a particular directory
- order should be according to a playlist or alphabetical order of files (whatever is easiest/makes the most sense)
- support for the playlist mixing mpeg, jpg (as a screenshow with programmable length), flash, and weather display
- ftp server should accept uploads from server of new media content.  ideally, this should be to the live content area, but i doubt it is possible to delete running content. so a staging area makes sense, which is checked every 12 hours or so and the live content refreshed.

i've seen some basic playlist creation scripts out there, but this is a little more involved.  

is anyone interested in creating a script to handle this? as this is for commercial use, i'm more than happy to pay for the development work.

i posted a request at rent-a-coder here, but i thought i'd touch base at this site, as this forum has all the experts on xbmc's python implementation.

thanks in advance!  joe

[Asteron]

flash is def not doable, but i think there are programs out there to convert flash to a movie file like http://www.soft32.com/download_77739.html.

to get xbmc to start on startup would require a bios change or making use of some autolaunch feature of whichever dashboard you have loaded on startup. to load the script on startup it should be called autoexec.py.
i dont think support exists for mixing mpgs and jpgs in the same playlist so the alphabetical order (or shuffled order is easy too) is the way to go.
for the weather display i suppose you can just show the weather screen of the current skin, and hide it after a while.
the rest seems pretty simple.
i dont think the staging area idea is going to help any with deleting currently playing file.... actually i doubt there is a problem here as deleting a picture shouldnt matter since its already loaded in memory and deleting a playing video should just cause it to reach the end of the buffer and move on to the next video i would think... the script could be designed to scan the dir after every video (or on a timer after every picture).

if noone else wants to give it a go i'll try it tonight.

[jpresto]

hi - thanks for the comment, and the offer!

xbmc on startup: couldn't i just rename xbmc as default.xbe?  worst case i can make it easy to launch from evox.

jpg/mpgs mix: not critical (can always create an mpg show out of jpgs) but i was wondering if it is possible to script something in python where it crawls a directory, and based on whether the next file is an mpg or jpg trigger a playback or display as appropriate.

weather: same idea, maybe i can put a filename in the mix that would serve as a flag to trigger display of the weather channel screen i saw somewhere in xbmc.

flash - not a big deal, don't need it immediately.

file locking during playback: i did some testing and found i couldn't delete an mpg via ftp while it was being played back. may be different for jpg. the refresh from the staging area could occur by time, or if it sees a trigger file in the staging area (this way you avoid refreshing from the staging area during population of the staging area.  i could have a file put in there after everything is uploaded.  or simply have it refresh on a reboot.

[Asteron]

xbmc on startup: couldn't i just rename xbmc as default.xbe? worst case i can make it easy to launch from evox.

renaming it default.xbe (actually that is the name of the xbe already) would allow it to autolaunch from a dvd but most bios's have a boot order thats something like

d:\default.xbe (to run a game)
c:\evoxdash.xbe
c:\xboxdash.xbe (ms dash)

...
this would have to be altered or xbmc would have to be autolaunched.

didnt know about not deleteing the video playing...

[morphman]

you can use xbmc as your default dashboard, so it auto boots into it.

you just need to move the main xbe into the c: directory and rename it evoxdash.xbe, also it needs the mediacenter.xml in the root directory. there are instructions in the xbmc manual on how to do this. i have had xbmc as my defailt dash for a month or so, and i love it. would never go back. then once you do that, just create a startup script called autoexec.py and place it in the scripts directory. this will auto start every time xbmc starts.

[jpresto]

turns out alexpoet has written some scripts which may be of use.  going to check them out in the next few days.

j

[Asteron]

turns out alexpoet has written some scripts which may be of use. going to check them out in the next few days.

j

ok i started this but then got distracted by doom 3.
what i started was something that on startup scans q:\scripts\display for files, adds them to a playlist, and plays them.

weather support is sorta in there but isnt enabled because i was having some trouble hiding that window after showing it.

if you can use what i have so far its at
http://www.filespace.org/asteron/autoexec.py

-ast