[grc] [Stubblefield] Looking for media player ideas

[Richard Thibodeau]

We apparently resolved the issue.

We had been operating with a USB sound adapter to achieve better sound.

When we saw the following happen for BOTH Winamp and WMP, we decided to try
running directly from the laptop's onboard sound card, eliminating the USB
audio adapter, and it has been running continuously ever since:

- sound stream and player stops
- after unplugging and replugging USB cable the sound stream and player
resumed requiring no other actions

It appears to have been a USB issue all along.

On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 4:25 PM, Richard Thibodeau <richtib at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I installed a second instance of Winamp into a different directory,
> Winamp2 (both Winamp install folders live in the default x86 Program Files
> folder on Windows 7 Home Premium).
>
> Initially they could be launched and run side by side.  No longer.
>
> One thing you probably don't realize is that I have chosen to use the
> CLamp CLI to run from the command line as it enables pause and resume
> capability (and there are no non-CLamp commands that can do this).
>
> We are running a 27-hr programming playlist in one mp3 player.  We are
> using Winamp for that because it can be paused and resumed by CLamp CLI.
> We have been using WMP for second playlist (station ID / promo / news
> playlist) because launching WMP and killing it are both simple operations.
> The following cycle works fine for several cycles:
>
> pause Winamp
> (wait)
> play WMP
> kill WMP
> resume Winamp
>
> After several cycles of this Winamp loses the sound card.  We get silence
> from Winamp for its part of the cycle, but WMP plays just fine at the top
> and bottom of the hour.
>
> Having now installed the second Winamp instance on my home computer,
> initially I was able to control them separately but now I cannot.
>
> To troublehoot this, I am using Process Explorer.  With no Winamp
> instances running I launch Winamp and identify which resources it's using
> (it's using resources located in its own "Winamp" folder).  With Winamp
> running, if I then launch Winamp2 nothing happens - it fails to launch. The
> same Winamp resources that were active before remain active, and no other
> Winamp resources can be found in Process Explorer..
>
> If I close Winamp and launch Winamp2, the same thing happens in reverse.
> Conclusion:  Only one instance of Winamp can run on this computer at a
> time.  Experiment over.  I avoided trying this before since this is pretty
> much what I expected because it violates the integrity Windows tries to
> maintain by using a registry. Installing Winamp results in a LOT of
> registry keys, and I'm not a big fan of hacking the registry unless it
> means the survival of the operating system.
>
> I tried VLC prior to this - but it's "command line" control is actually
> "web control" - commands are passed through URLs, which means that I need
> to run a web browser on the computer.  I went so far as to do this and even
> got some response from VLC (unfortunately nothing more than error messages)
> and the scarcity of documentation left me high and dry.
>
> So I guess we'll work on a "plan B" that will have to be quite a bit
> simpler until we can get up to speed with a proper radio automation
> software (RadioDJ, i.e.).
>
> Unless someone has a better suggestion.
>
> Thanks for the suggestion.  Too bad we're so close to the bleeding edge
> here!
>
> On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 5:32 PM, Michi Bradley <mae at recnet.com> wrote:
>
>> What may work here is to install two different instances of Winamp.
>> Pretty much do two different installs to two different directories (e.g.
>> C:\program files\winamp and C:\program files\winamp2).  When you do your
>> .bat files, launch the program using the full path as well as the file name
>> following the full path.
>>
>> "C:\Program Files\Winamp2\winamp.exe" C:\users\radio\music\filename.mp3
>>
>> This **MAY** work and it is something you can try.
>>
>> In the past, I have successfully installed two instances of WInamp on the
>> same PC along with a shoutcast client to run a second stream in the
>> background while a primary winamp player was playing the main stream
>> through the audio mixer and gong to edcast.
>>
>> =m
>>
>>
>>
>> On 6/9/2015 5:56 PM, Susan Raybuck wrote:
>>
>>> Dear BrainTrust,
>>>
>>> Wimberley Valley Radio (KWVH-LP) is now on the air under Program Test
>>> Authority as of June 5. Our first plan to broadcast our online radio
>>> content met problems with the sound cutting off. (A limiter went bad,
>>> Internet bandwidth was choked, AND there's a computer media player issue).
>>>
>>> We've been doing a workaround, with our IT guru setting up a two folders
>>> and a script commanding certain times (:60 and :30) to switch on our legal
>>> ID at the hour and half hour plus play our news update and are currently
>>> using a Windows-based PC to play our content. One folder's content is
>>> controlled by winamp and one by Windows Media Player. The WMP content stops
>>> playing after an indeterminate amount of time. IT deduces there's something
>>> in WMP that goes into rest mode after the winamp content switches on and
>>> fails to switch back off. He's hoping to find another media player than
>>> those two that has a command line that he can tweak. He's researching the
>>> issue, but I thought I'd ask in case someone has a good solution already.
>>>
>>> Right now someone has to go out to the transmitter and wake up WMP. Not
>>> hard, but time-consuming, not to mention frustrating to listeners.
>>>
>>> The workaround is certainly not a full program schedule as our online
>>> content would have been, but it does give us representative content that we
>>> can update.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank you!
>>>
>>> Susan
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> Susan Raybuck
>>> Wimberley Valley Radio • KWVH
>>> www.wimberleyvalleyradio.org
>>> (512) 722-3266
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> grc mailing list
>>> grc at maillist.peak.org
>>> http://maillist.peak.org/mailman/listinfo/grc
>>>
>>
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>
>
>
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