Looking for help with a script to automate VLC Post: 302321119

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Looking for help with a script to automate VLC Post 302321119 by uncertain on Saturday 30th of May 2009 08:22:35 AM

05-30-2009

Registered User

Looking for help with a script to automate VLC

Hi,
New member here looking for help. This might not be a post for the 'VERY basics' section, so feel free to move it to somewhere more appropriate.

I've created a script that searches my computer for video files, creates a list of these files, and selects a number of random entries to play in VLC. After a recent catastrophic external HDD failure, everything I could recover has been moved to two computers on a LAN. Now, instead of just searching my ~/Videos folder for the files to index and play, I have to search the ~/Videos folder of a second computer as well, index those (appended to the same list, preferably), and include them in the random shuffle I've created.

I have SSH & SCP access on both machines (I recently learned how to implement passwordless-ssh using rsa & dsa keyfiles, specifically so these processes could be automated). I don't have Samba or NFS installed or working on either computer, but I'll install and configure them if need be. (Though I'd rather not install, configure, and enable NFS or Samba, edit fstab, and then auto-mount a remote folder at boot just to do this.) Just today, I've learned how to start VLC on the remote computer in network-streaming mode, and then start VLC on the local host in network-capture mode. All I'm having a hard time conceptualizing is how to implement the indexing process from a script on the local machine to list files on a remote machine.

Here's a copy of my script in its' current state. It's the first BASH scripting project I ever tackled, and 'borrowed' bits & pieces of it from various things I found via Google. I'm sure there's a better/smoother/cleaner way to do some of the things I did, but it works, and I'm happy with it. Right now, it's set to index all the episodes of The Simpsons that are in my hard drive, and then play several random episodes.

If anyone could point me in a direction or give me some pointers, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
#
# Creates a list of all files in all Simpsons folders and then
# plays so many random episodes with VLC Media Player.
# Created by Uncertain

# Filenames and paths.
path1=/home/zero/Videos/
path2=/home/zero/Videos/Simpsons
list=/home/zero/Videos/Simpsons/episodes.txt
# Check for the list. If it's in ~/Videos, fine.
# If it doesn't exist, create it in ~/Videos.
if [ -f $list ]
 then
  echo "List found at $list"
   else
    echo "Episodes list not found. Creating list arranged by season & episode..." && cd $path1 && find ~/Videos/Simpsons -name '*.avi' -o -name '*.mpg' -o -name '*.mp4' -o -type f -size +20M | sort > $list && echo "Done. List created at: $list" 
fi
# Set the number of episodes to play. Episodes are 
# roughly 20 mins, so three episodes to every hour.
repeat=3
cycles=0
while  [ $cycles -ne $repeat ]
 do
  echo $cycles
  cycles=$(( $cycles + 1 ))
# Read the list, select one random line.
LowerBound=1
RandomMax=32767
UpperBound=$(cat $list | wc -l)
RandomLine=$(( $LowerBound + ($UpperBound * $RANDOM) / ($RandomMax + 1) ))
# Use sed to grab the random line.
episode=$(sed -n "$RandomLine{p;q;}" "$list")
# open the random line in VLC
vlc -vvv --fullscreen "$episode" vlc:quit
# Close the episode count loop...
  done
# ...and then...
exit

Last edited by uncertain; 05-30-2009 at 10:43 AM..

uncertain

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LEARN ABOUT MINIX

cdplay

CDPLAY(1)						      General Commands Manual							 CDPLAY(1)

NAME

       cdplay - play audio compact disks

SYNOPSIS

       cdplay [ -a]|[-r]

DESCRIPTION

       Cdplay is an audio-cdplayer it can be used interactively or non-interactively. With no flags cdplay is used interactively. When used inter-
       actively cdplay can be either in non-playing or playing mode.  In non-playing mode you can select tracks to  be	played.  In  playing  mode
       cdplay shows the track-time, remaining track-time, total-time and remaining total-time.	Cdplay assumes the drive to be at /dev/cd0.

       During non-playing mode the following commands are available:

       cursor-up/down
	      browse through the track-list

       spacebar
	      add track to the play-list

       backspace
	      remove a track from the play-list

       s      start  playing  the  tracks  in the play-list. When the play-list is empty start playing from the current position in the track-list
	      until the end of the cd

       p      play the track on the current position in the track-list

       r      play all tracks in a random order (shuffle play)

       e      exit cdplay

During playing mode the following commands are available:
       s      stop playing, return to non-playing mode

       spacebar
	      pause/resume current track

       cursor-up/down
	      skip to next/previous track

OPTIONS

       When one of these options is used cdplay does everything in the background.

       -a     Play all tracks, cdplay tells the drive to play all tracks and then it immediately returns to the user

       -r     Play all tracks in random order (shuffle play). Cdplay forks of a new process which starts up a track, during that track it  sleeps.
	      When  the  track	is finished it wakes up to start the next track and goes to sleep again. The parent process immediately returns to
	      the user.

BUGS

       Cdplay does not sense if a cd has changed, so don't switch cd's.  If you want to play another cd you have to insert the new  cd	and  start
       cdplay again.

AUTHOR

       Michel R. Prevenier (mrpreve@cs.vu.nl)

																	 CDPLAY(1)