[MPlayer-users] Synchronizing multiple instance of Mplayer over the network

[Lehni]

Hi cbreak,

This looks very useful! Thanks for the code bits. I will soon give  
this a try, together with the speed_incr hint from Jan.

But first I need a little setup of a few machines with similar specs.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Lehni

On 28 Nov 2008, at 16:18, cbreak wrote:

>
> On 27.11.2008, at 20:44, Lehni wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am trying to find out if it is possible to synchronize the playback
>> of muplitple instances of Mplayer on multiple machines across the
>> network. I would like to create a video wall based on HD resolution
>> video files. Each of these files is a part of a video of an even
>> higher resolution, and each would be played back by its own dedicated
>> machine.
>>
>> I imagine one machine would be declared master (server), the other
>> slaves (clients) for the time signal.
>>
>> Is there such a feature? If not, how hard would it be to implement  
>> it?
>
> As the other replies already indicated, there's currently no such
> feature available.
>
> I did however write a script to at least allow syncronized starting of
> movies. The script is started by cron or via ssh, and opens a port
> where mplayer lists for commands. MPlayer is started paused.
>
> To start all at the same time, use something like
>
>> Controller
> #!/bin/sh
>
> PORT=44444
> SERVERS="alpha.local beta.local gamma.local"
> for DN in $SERVERS
> do
> 	echo pause | nc $DN $PORT
> done
>
>> Player Side
> #!/bin/sh
>
> PORT=44444
> FIFO=rconmp.fifo
>
> function tempname
> {
> 	# Generate an unlikely to be used name
> 	dd if=/dev/random bs=16 count=1 | openssl base64 | sed -e "s/\///g" -
> e "s/=//g"
> }
>
> FIFOFILE=${FIFO}.$(tempname)
>
> mkfifo ${FIFOFILE}
> nc -kl ${PORT} > ${FIFOFILE} &
> NCPID=$!
> echo pause | mplayer -slave -idle -input file=${FIFOFILE} "$@"
> echo killing nc with PID ${NCPID}
> kill ${NCPID}
> rm ${FIFOFILE}
>
>
>
> Needless to say that this will not address potential desync issues
> that arise during playback. Also, you should not do that on anything
> but a secure local lan, since an open pipe to mplayer gives a lot of
> rights.
>
> You can try to resync it by quitting all players and starting them
> synchronized again, or by skipping to a known position (like the
> start). An other possibility, if you use a playlist, is to feed that
> playlist piecewise to the player via the network, which would again
> give synchronisation points.
>
> cbreak
>
>
>>
>> Is anyone else interested in working on this?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Lehni
>>
>>
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>
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