OSD Marquee Editing On-The-Fly, Black Screen, OSD via VNC

[Hawaii Guy]

I just bumped into VLC. Someone should have knocked me into it a long time ago! I think it's great and had something that I've been thinking would be a neat feature but no one had it until now (I think) - but I need a variation of the OSD Marquee... I need it to be interactive without spending hundreds of dollars for a video injection unit that imposes text over a video signal. Without too much explanation (although thinking out loud, other practical uses can come from this), I would like the OSD Marquee to be changeable on-the-fly. I don't want to stop the video, edit the Marquee line, and start it back up again. Is this possible?

Then, is it possible to display a logo, a black screen, or some jpg/png file while the media player is switching from one video file to the next? I've seen my desktop briefly, then the VLC hat over a black screen, but wanting to know if I can show something else instead.

Also, can someone direct me to information on using the Remote OSD over VNC feature as I think that would be cool to this from home while my screen plays through a window at my office and I can change the Marquee line based on real-time happenings. But when I turned it on for kicks, it bombs the program at start up. Thanks in advance!

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Use RSS filter or the logo filter.

[erwan10]

I would like the OSD Marquee to be changeable on-the-fly. I don't want to stop the video, edit the Marquee line, and start it back up again. Is this possible?

Changing OSD marquee or logo on the fly is possible with the rc interface. This can also be integrated into a shell/batch script for easier use.

Then, is it possible to display a logo, a black screen, or some jpg/png file while the media player is switching from one video file to the next? I've seen my desktop briefly, then the VLC hat over a black screen, but wanting to know if I can show something else instead.

This is an unfortunate behavior that is only partly solved in vlc1.0. Not much can be done at the user level.

[Hawaii Guy]

Erwin10 wrote: Changing OSD marquee or logo on the fly is possible with the rc interface. This can also be integrated into a shell/batch script for easier use.

Very much appreciate the feedback, Erwin10. Unfortunately, the reply from j-b is what makes VLC frustrating - they say to read all documentation, wiki pages, and google, yet I couldn't find anything that talked about the settings in Tools/Preferences/All. I guess the assumption is that we are all C programmers. I'd love to use the RSS feed feature - but wouldn't I need to send RSS data? How? I can so easily do this by purchasing a Text Generator for $250 ...but I thought when customers ask how I'm doing that they'd be interested in my promoting VLC. But back on track...

Edited add-in:
The rc interface seems like a possibility from what I could read - but can you initiate the player from the GUI and then send commands via DOS, or would I have to initiate the program from the command line and then send subsequent changes the same way? I was also wondering about OSD via VNC as this would be cool to make changes from home while the tv's play and are viewable through the store window. But again, couldn't find documentation on it.

Think you can help me do it??? lol It's really not a lot of text I want to send and it's worth a McDonald's gift card (promise the card won't be blank and will be a Hawaii collector's card!).

The signal gets fed to approximately 25 tv's throughout the office. I need to let customers know that their product is ready for pick up. It's only a few words like "Bill C. pick up". I would like this to flash onscreen for maybe 5 seconds, pause 5, and repeat that sequence maybe 6 times.

I tried to do something with the logo but I could not get it to repeat nor could I figure out how to keep it onscreen. The milliseconds timer doesn't keep good time - I set it for 1000 and it stayed on forever; I set it for 100 and it stayed on for maybe a second. I have spent some 12 hours researching the ability to create a .png file from text. That was a very good posibility except I don't know PhP nor could I get their sample to compile with some freebie compiler programs. I thought I could create a logo file and have it flash but that too was a bust. I was able to create the text .png and had it read the file,but I couldn't test to see if it would read the logo file over and over again, otherwise it would be the same logo image created the first time flashing for hours on end (I'm sending a live tv feed like the Food Network or CNN). Sometimes I will play movies that I have stored on my computer as image (.nrg) files. Here is where I found the text-to-png which I thought was real cool but oh well...
http://visionmasterdesigns.com/tutorial ... using-php/

So, what do you think?

[erwan10]

You can do something along the line:

=> vlc --extraintf rc --rc-host="localhost:9999" --sub-filter=marq@my_marq .....

and in a shell script

#!/bin/bash

nc localhost 9999 <<EOF
@my_marq marq-marquee $1
logout
EOF

You should also try "vlc -H" and the rc help which give the comprehensive set of options.

Erwan10

[Hawaii Guy]

You can do something along the line:
Erwan10

Sorry Erwan10 ... I have no idea what the script is doing, let alone know how I need to set it up or run it or ... I really do appreciate your trying to help, though. Thanks much!

If anyone can help me out with this, please let me know. I will figure out how you/I can contact each other directly.

[Uthark]

My current setup:

• Debian GNU/Linux Squeeze 64-bit
• ICEWM Graphical Interface
• VLC 1.1.3-1squeeze1

I want to configure VLC as a fullscreen video player, to be used locally (no network streaming) and launched automatically, playing several files in an infinite loop. VLC runs at start (by editing ~/.icewm/startup), with the following command:

Code: Select all

vlc -I oldrc --rc-host localhost:9999 --vlm-conf ~/main.vlm --fullscreen

The main.vlm's contents:

Code: Select all

### MAIN CHANNEL ### new ch1 broadcast loop enabled setup ch1 input "/home/user/media/video1.avi" setup ch1 input "/home/user/media/video2.avi" setup ch1 option sub-filter=marq@label control ch1 play

What I want it to do, is to edit a marquee on the fly, so I can run a BASH script that sends instructions to the RC interface and show messages over the video. I have this script, sample.sh

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash nc localhost 9999 <<EOF @label marq-marquee $1 logout EOF

But when I run it, like ./sample.sh LABEL, nothing happens. Any clue to see what's missing?

[VLC_help]

Does the sub-filter work at all? (did you try e.g. with sub-filter=marq@label{marquee=aaaa} in VLM)

[erwan10]

From what I recall, the rc interface gets the input item being played back via the playlist API.

Inputs managed either by vlm or libvlc are another story (they are not managed via the legacy playlist). Therefore chances that it works are slim