Multimedia applications
Most supported applications works just fine out-of-the-box while others require some additional configuration
or have some quirks that you should now about. If the app provides a choice among sound engines/backends
we always recommend using ALSA.
XINE
Q: Why doesn't xine work?
You need to start xine with the "network remote control server" activated. You do this by running
it like this:
xine -n
You also need to have a password file saved as ~/.xine/passwd (that is, a text file called passwd which
you put in xine's hidden directory in you home directory) containing a line with something like this:
ALL:ALLOW
However, look at this in the xine documentation because you may not want to have it like this on a
multi-user system. We dunno.
Tip: make alias for this! Se how at the bottom of the page!
MPlayer
Q: Why doesn't mplayer work?
The ReMoot daemon creates a special fifo file in mplayer's hidden directory in your home directory that it uses
to communicate with mplayer. You now need to start mplayer with an extra option, like this:
mplayer -input file=~/.mplayer/fifo
Tip: make alias for this! Se how at the bottom of the page!
VLC
Q: Why doesn't VLC work?
ReMoot supports VLC if VLC is started with the extra http web interface, like this:
vlc --extraintf http
ReMoot connects to VLC with wget on port 8080 (the default port for VLC). If you prefer to set some
other port number in VLC, you can start the daemoot daemon with an extra switch to specify this port
(for instance 9090):
daemoot -vlc9090
Because "pause" can not unpause a "stopped" VLC session (it is not a true play/pause toggle, but an
pause/unpause toggle) we have mapped VLCs "stop" to "pause" instead. You'll have to live with that.
Tip: make alias for this! Se how at the bottom of the page!
XMMS
Q: Why does XMMS keep opening new instances instead of executing commands?
Unselect "Allow multiple instances" in Options->Preferences->Options
Noatun
Q: Why does Noatun keep opening new instances instead of executing commands?
Go to Settings-> Configure Noatun... and check "Allow only one instance of Noatun".
SMPlayer
Q: Why doesn't SMPlayer work?
You need to start SMPlayer's telnet interface. To do this, you go to Preferences->Interface and
check "Use only one running instance of SMPlayer". Then you select the local port to use.
If you stick with the default port (8000), thats all you need to do. Otherwise you need to specify the
same port when you start daemoot by using the "-smp" switch (for instance 9000):
daemoot -smp9000
Q: Why is the smplayer interface in daemoot so unresponsive?
Long story. smplayer uses telnet for remote access and basically we seem to have an input dispatch
problem over telnet that may cause smplayer to not perform its action at all, OR that it can make smplayer
or daemoot or even X can crash, probably due to this unpredictable input buffering or queuing problem. We
do not know if this is a daemoot/Perl problem or an smplayer/telnet problem at this point. Unfortunately
implementing a perfect "autoflushing" telnet client in perl without extra dependencies is surprisingly difficult.
However, we have found that the most consistently working remedy (or work-around, really) is to have daemoot
wait for a second after it has passed the argument to smplayer over the telnet session and then close
the session. The ideal case is of course to not add this pause and be able to keep the telnet connection open
as long as the particular instance of smplayer is running. Our solution seems stable but will make daemoot
wait a second before listening for input again when you use smplayer. Should you experience crashes,
contact us! Fixes are deeply appreciated!!
Create aliases
For those apps that need to be started with extra parameters to work with ReMoot (for instance, VLC and mplayer).
You simply put lines like this:
alias mplayer="mplayer -input file=~/.mplayer/fifo"
alias vlc="vlc --extraintf http"
alias xine="xine -n"
in your .bashrc or .bash_profile file in you home directory. We never
remember which one, and you wont either, so try any :-)
