Building The Infinite Player in PiPresents

To continue building your infinite player you must already have all the software installed as in my other posts.

First I configure PiPresents defaults in a way that I prefer. It will save a lot of manual changes later. How to display images and videos etc. will have already been defined. Copy and paste the entire block below into a terminal window.

Open PiPresents Editor.

Create the main show.

Menu > Profile > New From Template > Media Show > (Name the show as you want. e.g. infinite)

Menu > Profile > Open > (Double click your show folder name then ) OK
(The ‘Shows’ pane should contain Start [start] and main [main] and ‘Medialists’ main.json)

Main is the container that all subsequent shows run in. The will all need entries in main.json (later)

There will be two types of LiveShow’s. One type will play a specified number of tracks and the other will play endlessly until told to stop. E.g. a music show might specify 10 audio tracks but the video/image concurrent show will just play endlessly in the background.

Create LiveShow’s for each media folder(category).

Menu > Show > Add > LiveShow > (Name as required. eg music-live, broadcast-live etc.
Select the show name, (goes red) then click ‘Edit Show’ button in center.
Live Tracks Directory 1
Set to appropriate folder for the current category. e.g. /home/pi/pp_home/media/music
Track Count
If this is a controlled show such as a Feature or Broadcast then set to 1
If this is a controlled show such as a music then set to number desired
If this is a background show ie. images or video leave at 0
Repeat/Single
If this is a controlled show such as a Feature , Broadcast or music then set to single-run
If this is a background show ie. images or video leave at repeat
Select Tab > Controls
If this is a background show then remove all but ‘pp-pause pause’. Otherwise no changes.

Do this for every category. A *.json file will be created automatically for each category. They will not be used at anytime but must exist. The only one we will use is main.json.

Naming shows. Keep the names simple. e.g music6-live, music12-live (The number is how many tracks it will play. This helps later when planning the order of play.)

Exception.
As was mentioned in my other post, any video such as relaxation or nature video can provide background imagery for audio content. If this LiveShow is for that purpose then set Tab >  Track Defaults > Video Player Volume > -60. This will play a silent video allowing you to play your own audio show concurrently.

Building The Playlist (All following work is done in main.json)
Example 1.Adding the Monthly broadcast or a Feature-length etc. You may have created broadcasts-live as a LiveShow. If so, to have it play.

1. Select main.json in the Medialists pane (goes red).
2. Menu > Track > New > Show. A ‘New Show’ track will appear in the right pane.
3. Select the Edit button on the right.
4. Change the title to the same name as the LiveShow. e.g. broadcasts-live.
5. Click ‘Show to Run’ button and select the corresponding show, broadcasts-live.
6. OK

Example 2.
Playing audio with images or video in the background.

1. Select main.json. On the right click ‘Add’ button.
2. Browse to and select the black.png or jpeg that you hopefully have downloaded or generated.
3. Click the ‘Edit’ button.
4. Change its Title to ‘open relaxing-live’ or ‘open illustrations-live’ etc.
5. Set the ‘Duration(secs) to 1.
6. Copy the title and select the ‘Show Control’ Tab.
7. Paste the ‘open relaxing-live’ or whatever into the ‘Show Control at End’ window.
8. OK.
9. Menu > Track > New > Show. A ‘New Show’ track will appear in the right pane.
10. Select the Edit button on the right.
11. Change the title to the same name as the audio only LiveShow. e.g music8-live or magazines-live etc.
12. Click ‘Show to Run’ button and select the corresponding show.
13. OK
14. Again browse to and select the black.png or jpeg file.
15. Click the ‘Edit’ button.
16. Change its Title to ‘close relaxing-live’ or ‘close illustrations-live’ etc.
17. Set the ‘Duration(secs) to 1.
18. Copy the title and select the ‘Show Control’ Tab.
19. Paste the ‘close relaxing-live’ or whatever into the ‘Show Control at Beginning’ window.
20. OK.

What happens is this:

1. The first black image is just a placeholder to command the background show to open.
2. The audio show starts and plays according to the specification set in its show settings.
3. The second black image is just a placeholder to command the background show to close.

By adding and ordering Live shows in this manner you end up with a very unpredictable program. A video used for background will have a different sound track every time it plays.

There is no actual limit to the number of shows, it just gets hard to configure in the first place.

Files can be added to the folders and they will play at sometime without changing the structure. You can even add them while it is running by SSH etc.

Run the show.

python /home/pi/pipresents/pipresents.py -p infinite -f -b