[nas] Re: help with using sox with nas-piping sound

[Dave Richards]

Just one request for everyone as this project proceeds into the future. 
Our NCD Terminals with NCDWare are no longer produced.  They work
*great*, but I have no way of flashing them with a newer version of NAS
if in some way it's changed too much.  I would like to suggest that it
always be backwards compatible.  Kind of like the way that ICA clients
work with Citrix Metaframe.  As new features are added, one needs new
clients to make them work, but the old clients always work and make use
of the features they had at the time.

Another FYI for this email list, someone is dumping a massive quantity
of NCD Explora 401's on Ebay right now.  We bought some, and they had
Amazon.com inventory stickers on them.  The broker is selling them in
lots of 5 for about 10-20 dollars.  2 dollars a terminal is a great
price! ;)  These were the entry level models that NCD had a few years
ago, 800x600 16bit color, with NAS.  Just wanted to give everyone a
heads up.

We have a gigabit switched network.  I'm just not sure if xawtv would
even open on an NCD terminal. I guess there is only one way to find out!
;)  I'll check out the other project you mentioned, thanks.  At one
point I did playing a DVD remotely to the terminal.  Didn't work too
well!  But it was fun trying.

Regards-
Dave


On Sat, 2002-10-05 at 09:35, sibusiso xolo wrote:
> Dave Richards wrote:
> We have
> > 400 NCD thin clients here with NAS, and have always thought it would be
> > cool to build a tv server host, build a Linux system, with 4 PCI/WinTV
> > cards and then be able to distribute them out to any of the 400
> > terminals.
> 
> this depends on your network.  If you are using gigabit: fine.  at 100MBit,  
> you will more than  struggle  with 4.  .
> (perhaps you could have a go with 1 and let me know if you managed to get 
> sound!)
> 
> Tobias Diedrich wrote:
> >If the remote supports the XVideo extensions and your LAN is fast enough
> >it should work. Maybe it even works without the XVideo extensions, but
> >then you need even more bandwidth
> 
> This might also prove a useful link: http://www.MediaApplicationServer.net/
> 
> The above however seems to be more peer-to-peer  and require a heavier client.  
> NAS/libaudioss  therefore  probably hase some potential   So here is my 
> wishlist for  future extensions of NAS/libaudiooss:
> 
> a)  future extensions of libaudiooss be made that fragment size and number be 
> set externally rather than recompiling the program
> b) the use of  sox (or another sound conversin program)  to work with audio 
> input from the  tv/radio card
> c) ability to define multiple  audioservers  (on different ports)  to enable 
> broadcasting
> d) 44.1 kHz CD quality input to nas server
> 
> back to my pressing problem,  The difficulty I have is with the sound.
> The suggestion of Tobias Diedrich namely:
> 
> >LD_PRELOAD= sox -w -s -c 2 -r 44100 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp -t raw - |
> > LD_PRELOAD=libaudiooss.so sox -t raw -w -s -c 2 -r 44100 - -t ossdsp
> > /dev/dsp   
> 
> does not work on the machines I have tried.  I have varied sound quality etc  
> and I have recording  enabled on the line-input of the sound mixer of the 
> client.  I expected the  execution of sox to hang in the terminal whilst it 
> pipes sound but it  returns to command prompt  soon after  command execution.   
> All  suggestion welcomed.
>   
> On Friday 04 October 2002 21:09, Dave Richards wrote:
> > Okay all, I have to jump in here. ;)
> >
> >    I have always thought that it would be way cool to run Xawtv over to
> > a remote display, but just assumed (maybe incorrectly) that it was doing
> > a low level open of the local video card on the console and would not
> > work on a remote display.   Are you saying that you are getting the
> > video to go over there??   What does it look like if it works.  We have
> > 400 NCD thin clients here with NAS, and have always thought it would be
> > cool to build a tv server host, build a Linux system, with 4 PCI/WinTV
> > cards and then be able to distribute them out to any of the 400
> > terminals.
> >
> > Thanks for any info!
> > Dave
> >
> > On Fri, 2002-10-04 at 17:24, sibusiso xolo wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 02 October 2002 13:58, Tobias Diedrich wrote:
> > > > sibusiso xolo wrote:
> > > > > I am trying to route sound from a bt848 tv/radio card  (using v4l) to
> > > > > a remote nas server:
> > > >
> > > > In this case it is not good to globally export the LD_PRELOAD line
> > > > because this means libaudiooss is linked agains every app you start
> > > > after that and it always tries to redirect accesses to /dev/dsp to the
> > > > server.
> > > > auplay does seem to have some problems with playing from stdin, but
> > > > this should work:
> > > >
> > > > LD_PRELOAD= sox -w -s -c 2 -r 44100 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp -t raw - |
> > > > LD_PRELOAD=libaudiooss.so sox -t raw -w -s -c 2 -r 44100 - -t ossdsp
> > > > /dev/dsp
> > > >
> > > > Here the first sox command is used without libaudiooss preloaded so
> > > > that it will access your real soundcard and the second is used with
> > > > libaudiooss preloaded so that the output will get redirected to the
> > > > server.
> > >
> > > I  expected the above command when executed to  hang and allow the start
> > > of xawtv in another terminal and the piping of sound.  There seems to be 
> > > a delay needed in  the above command to allow resampling of the sound.  I
> > > read the man page of sox  but the use of resample  is not
> > > straightforward.  I would be grateful for  you suggestions .
> > >
> > > regards
> > > sibu