Hi, i am integrating all new things in my home situation.
Vero4k is connected to my reciever/audiocentre.
So music listening would be by selecting something in the Yatse app.
A album or a artist. A genre.
This is plain filtering the library content.
It would be nice if i can use a smarter playlist function.
I choose one song and it collects a mood, type and time area of that song to cook up a playlist out of my content what not only is the same artist but also any other album of artist which would sound like it. Lazy radio without talking by DJ’s so to speak.
Don’t which part would control this.
Yatse mobile app or vera4k’s osmc/kodi?
I assume that Yatse can only give a command towards osmc/kodi (it’s a remote app) so i assume kodi would need to have this feature.
1 does this feature excist in kodi?
2 if so would that be possible to control by Yatse? Or do i need to acces this by the User interface of vero4k itself?
At this moment i use Yatse to start some music by album or artist without the need to power up the TVscreen. Just select on reciever the correct input and click on the thumbnail of any album.
Problem is it’s rather manual adding every time i like to listen to some music.
I would like to have an option to just say i like this sound and mood find others who sounds nice along it.
Kodi has mood tags that one could use to build smart playlists from. There also does seem to exist an add-on to get you pretty much where you wanted to be. I’ve never tried it so all I can offer is a link to it Kodi forum post…
or … install LMS (Logitech Media Server) somewhere and then one of the LMS player Kodi adding and then tell LMS to play something with “Don’t Stop the Music” LMS plugin enabled.
Quite a lot to set up but you’ll get a great music system out of it.
Woops thats a 2010 post. Would that addon still be working?
@paulwebster i have already a plex server running and recently upgraded to lifepas level. (couldn’t resist.)
Which i just set up for connecting all mobiles in the family. (expanding later on laptops) if they like.
The Plexamp app has a great feature in remote choosing. That was reason why i was trying to find the same feature in my yatse (remote mobileapp) - vero4k- reciever combination. Real hifi and good speakers are much nicer then a bluetooth boombox connected to my mobile.
I think (after some reading) i need to search in the yatse app-features,which showes the same library as Kodi has. I not that smart in programming to understand quick in which part i have to find and modify the section i like to have.
Most smart TV’s have also app’s which are plex related and as workaround would then my tv be the source of the audio to my reciever.
But 1 that will be a extra electronic device active, 2 a bit of a stupid way to overcome a minor issue.
Edit: Found out the Yatse pro version can cast /stream plexamp output towards the Vero4k/Kodi but that would be relay on a continues connection draining battery of the mobile.
I am not sure what Yatse does when i choose a playlist on my phone.
Sent the playlist over towards kodi and be done with it (go in idle) and the play list is in modi itself or it keeps a continues contact and streams the data over. Basicly getting mp3data from Vero4k and sent it back in a certain order. A loop.
(I try to keep the vero4k in active place in this matter.)
Radio is now digital provided by tv decoder of the provider connected to the recievers analoge input,no tuner use of my older reciever.
Too much hassle to get that in line.
Probably not. The GitHub repo was last updated seven years ago. At a minimum that means it’s built on Python 2.x. The last version of Kodi to support Python 2.x was version 18 (Leia), so it might work on that, but it almost definitely won’t work on version 19 (Matrix).
It is. It is common for a Kodi add-ons dedicated thread to not change even when the original author is no longer involved. The add-on was updated to support Matrix [here] which points to the github where you can download it [here]. I just installed it and it appears to be working.
Funny enough I had thought to mention that the feature was available in Plexamp but since there is no way to run that in Kodi and it requires a Plex pass and server I didn’t. Since you have that just look into how to cast that to your TV or AVR. I’m not sure how it works with Android but with my iPhone I can just AirPlay Plexamp right to my AVR and that works pretty well. If you have a device connected already that can directly run Plexamp (not Plex and it lacks this function) then the mobile app can function as a remote for that other instance.
yep my Yamaha473 does have airplay support but i don’t have a iphone
The way plexamp works on my android phone and bluetooth this to my humble BTspeaker, works nicely in the garden and such. very good user interface too. But it doesn’t work to my 100watt VM1’s and Yamaha unfortunaly.
I don’t want to push out Kodi it self because i am a long time user and i like it but in larger libraries the filtering and browsing on my tv screen in osmc/kodi is starting to be too blunt as user interface. out dated would be the word maybe. (not critism only observation it’s losing terrain against plex and such.)
Most of this you can workaround by using Android Yatse.(in my case the free version) the searching and starting and adjusting things as subtitle, audio track and such along the way. my Yamaha app on the phone helps to select modes and input.
The vero4k-kit it’s hardware is great. small and nimble. And if it’s supporting android remote by plex and plex amp in order to play series and movies and music and photo’s it would be a marveles hub for my media. casting or streaming.
Or even hosting a Plex server i think it would be even greater. (my synology 416play would be less stressed if it only has to manage sending files over in stead of running a plex server.)
Like switching users/profiles: log out kodi login plex(amp).
Yatse android.
if i know/remember the difference between streaming and casting correctly:
Casting is give the command with a console to play a file and step out between the nass and the playing device: the reciever/vero4k.
Streaming is providing a stream of digital data which reach the playing device in a continues connection. (my phone stayes in between my database and playingdevice) This cost much more juice and drains the battery faster of my phone. less stable connection: no utp but Wifi and bluetooth.)
Yatse does casting in connection with OSMC/Kodi’s library. you browse in Yatse what you would like to watch or listen and Yatse is starting this file in osmc/kodi and is done.
Plex/PlexAmp is a streaming kind right?(continues connection.)
The Plexamp app on my phone (after choosing first song) is smart selecting new songs from my (plex)library on the Nass download this to my phone and play’s it and send it to my BTspeaker if connected.
Vero4K/kodi would stream also to my reciever if it could handle the same kind of autoselecting. The only thing Yatse would do is select the First song and cast this towards Kodi with the command search and play more songs in the same range of kind after this one is finished. (ideally speaking)
Your link is a “LastFMplaylistgenerator” does this use my library content or a external streaming site?
(geesh never thought it would be this tangled bag of worms when i though “it would be nice if i can do the same and play the music on my reciever…” )
That add-on uses the lastFM site to find similar content in your library and adds that to a partymode playlist. So it only plays your files but it uses an external source to find matches. Beyond that I would have to recommend you read through the Kodi thread I linked to. I installed it and did a quick test to see if it did what it said and that is the extent of my knowledge about it.
As for the casting/streaming thing if your using your phone then it will have all the music coming from your Plex server to your Phone and then your phone will send that to wherever you told it to go so it will produce a drain on your battery. I’m not sure how much draw as your talking about fairly small small amount of data being shoved around being audio only. I assume currently the only way around this would be to have PlexAmp running on another device and use your phone as a remote. I see that they now have that available as A Linux install for Pi OS. This may mean it is possible to run in OSMC as both are Debian based, but I’m not going to be the one trying to figure that one out.
I tried it and it didn’t start. Tried started a song with yatse(mobile) and with the osmc on tv.
Looking in the settings it seems that last.fm API key setting is empty.
Some google popped up this
Do i need to sign up and get one myself? Or should it start and is something else not right?
I believe in that thread it explains that it has a api key hardcoded but an option to add your own was added by request. The way this add-on works is a bit odd. In the side/slideout menu in the audio section turn on party mode. Go to your add-on’s and open the add-on. If it pops up a dialog box click yes and then open the add-on again. Nothing will appear to have happened at this point. You then go back to the audio section and play something. If you then go back to the side/slideout menu and select the show playlist option you should see that there were tracks added to the playlist by the add-on.
BTW this morning I setup some powered speakers in the back yard plugged into an airport express. I then started a plexamp mood radio station on my iPhone pulling the audio live from my server and the phone casting to the airport express. Two and a half hours later my battery on my phone when down less than ten percent.
Indeed, i hoped that if i activated the addon in settings that it just picked up the fact that one song was selected in stead of “add this album to playlist” and start from there.
This would help when i use Yatse to select the first song.
Will test this evening if your guide is easy enough for others.
That’s rather quick but logic.
Plex has a download functionality for offline use.
You could select a few Gb of music and store it on a SD or internal memory of your phone.
Then it only would need bluetooth. Much less powerconsumption.
I use in my car a Musicolet app and a 128Gb SD in my phone for listening music. No internet needed. And android Auto connected to my car. I am thinking of cleaning that and download a large amount of my music library through plex so i can use plexamp offline( not streaming) wile driving around.
Slimelining the amount of tools so to speak.
Still think that the user interface of kodi default skin need some upgrading in the way it works with this kind of usage. Specialy in music modes. Maybe a feature request on there forum?
That’s an entire days worth of playback time on a single charge.
Which is great for a road trip and not needing to use cellular data. IMO it is an unnecessary hassle if your at home with wifi coverage.
Airplay doesn’t use bluetooth, just your regular TCP/IP network. I’m not so sure on modern phones that wifi consumes much more energy than bluetooth either.
I think after playing with it a bit that the way to go for a setup that is going to see frequent use would probably be to setup Pi OS on some old hardware and run PlexAmp headless on that. On the phone app when you switch it over to remote control another instance it looks and acts the same as if you were on the same device. I was playing with it on an Android tablet controlling the playback on my iPhone and the interface was seamless and responsive.
Estuary is intentionally kept simple. I guess it depends on what you had in mind for changes as to how receptive whoever maintains that skin would be. It would be a Kodi forum thing as your not talking about the OSMC skin which is the only one that we (or rather Chillbo) maintains. It may be more productive for you to just try some other skins to see if another one already has something more to your liking.
that’s what i do.
i have a android old phone completely set up as remote for my yamaha, my vero4K, my BBQ meat thermometer and now my plexamp. on wifi and bluetooth active powered by adapter in the garden with screen alway on./active. when it’s in the drawer it 's old battery dies rather quick on me.
So my own phone is the most used remote in side. convenience.
read it again, i read in 2hours its down to less then 10%, 90% sucked out. but it is less 10% discharge of the battery! my bad.
i am 4-7 hours on the road every day so streaming could be a expensive thing. aldoh i have 16 and 10 Gb data.
i use the default OSMC-skin.(i think) i am not sure if the smart song-search protocol would be a skin thing or a internal coding in kodi/addon like now LastFM. (i just assume (i am not very knowledgeable on this) vero4k runs on a kodi version with OSMC skin over it with some device(vero4K) particuliar addons for maintenance and fine tuning.)
I am always rather simple in this. Don’t play to much with good running stuff if you don’t know the consequences of your trail and error playing around.
i do have my old cubox but i try to slim down devices, to avoid unnecessary powerconsumption/maintenance and replacement.
i will test my androidmobile on usb-c usb cable (the one with plexamp on it) stick it in reciever on the front usb socket and let it run. see if it is connection (no apple airplay doh so i afraid it won’t work.)
if it’s a skin thing, i f i am correct with skins that it is a interface between what’s inside the vero4K’s kodibased OS and not actual active feature addons. (it unlocks/reveals features rather then adding them so to speak.) would it be a hard thing to change and maintain in the vero4k/OSMC setup?
i have the same bump/error in my photo’s (a archieve on my nass for showing) with some short videoclips in the file folder in "diashow"modes. When you activate show diashow,let photo’s run, it doens;t work on mpeg4’s because then you need to switch to video modes in the mainmenu. (often you shoot stills and some small clips of video which only work if they showed in shootingtime sequences combined. ) workaround is creating a mpeg4 with stills as repeatable frames for 5 sec so it becomes a movieclip which become rather large files by the way and is also time consuming in creating.
Not something big, but i always think would it be difficult to create autoswitch in still and videomodes when dia/slideshow is chosen following the file types?
(A smart TV is often the “Hub” in most households for this kind of things but those OS are often not regulair updated and get by getting older problems in compatibility with evolving addons and the hardwarespecs can be a bottleneck. So it would be great if the Vero4K could be this Hub.
(like a Nuc-pc but then smaller and running on OSMC)
oh well one step at the time
Since Kodi does have audio mood tags I would think it would be possible for a skinner to add in some kind of widget based browsing keyed off of that. I think anything more would have to be some type of add-on. Given that the lastfm playlist generator is the only one I found of that type, and it doesn’t appear to have really changed much since its inception, I’m guessing there is either a lack of demand or an interested volunteer hasn’t showed up yet. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter how good the idea is if there is not someone with the knowledge and skill willing to work for free to add it to Kodi. It is a lot to ask of someone.
When you install OSMC the walkthrough asks if you want to use the “classic” or “OSMC” skin. The “classic” option is Estuary which is the stock skin for Kodi on all platforms. This can be changed at any time in settings>interface>skin. More skins can be downloaded from the add-ons section.
I don’t know what to tell you about the A/V slideshow. It’s not a part of Kodi I’m particularly well versed in. I just did a quick test by throwing some png files in a folder with a mp4 and started a slideshow and it played the video and showed the pictures one after the other in a loop complete with Ken Burns effect without issue.
Well got t working.
It crasht a few times when i tried to return too quickly to main tab.
You need go to addons to turn it off and then on again, then you see a banner top right to add one song.=> return to main menu by home and reselect music tab NOT arrow back then it crashes.
Then it fills a list. This list is also shown in Yatse. And editable
It’s running now. Set list to fill 10 songs and it made a 18 items list.
(i think i set it back to default 3 because it fills it now to 28. And thumnails album cover are greyed out.
Lets see if it’s can run longer then a few songs.
Answer OSMC skin. Checked.
Png? Most my stills are filename.jpeg or filename.jpg. If it worked by you i will test t again. I just made a folder with one video and few stills. Be back on that.
Yes your right, if it’s in the default setup of the purchage of the vero4k it would be “payed” only once if it’s in OSMC.
Not everyone uses spotify or sonos sytems and appleplay for there music demands there are a few oldfashion guy’s who have a buckload of flacs and mp3’s of there own preferred music stored on a Nass.
I yielded to plex because of multiple viewer/listening possibility’s for the household other then my main tv in the livingroom. I started with a classic Xbox hardmodded for xbmc, 20? Years ago and then for 10? Years a cuboxi with kodi til v16 became v17 i needed to change distro and with 19 it was unusable so i bought this vero4k. Just because i liked the idea and offline(shielded from outside) based library.
Still do.
Only i can’t program/code so i depend on smarter guys for that.
So if anyone can bring this old lastfm generator into the 2022 and add a easy quickstart button in the right pull menu of musictab of OSMC skin…this would get of me for ever.
Ps, (viewed in Yatse that is) playlist works (Lastfm addon), it doesn’t delete played songs from the list but that could be a playlist setting. And it only shows 8 album pictures in list. But it does show it in the"now played" view. Need to fine tune setting i think (edit: Didn’t find any setting to let the played songs disapear from the list.)
Present playlist in osmc does show album and info
By the way i think it drops /add 3 5 10 songs to the playlist every played number, it’s now up to 73 items. So default 3 is good.
Happy for now and my daughter too. Good speakers sounds much better then mobilephone earpeaces. She making homework from school as we speak.
)
of me for ever.