3 Configuration of the player
The FTP MP3 Player can be tailored to suit number of environments. As a result of this, there
are many configuration settings, however normally, only a few of them are actually needed to
be set to non-default values to achieve the desired behaviour.
It is important to understand that configuration of the system falls in to several categories:
•
Configuration of the Barix hardware: assigning IP address, netmask etc in section
Web Interface
•
configuring the behaviour of the software: where to get playlists and music from,
how often to update the time, etc. in section Configuration of the player
•
defining how the player will play the music: playlist priorities, etc. starting in section
3.4 Playlist configuration
3.1
Standalone Player
In its simplest configuration, with a correctly loaded USB stick, the application can be used
without a network connection
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.
In this case, the music files must be present on the USB memory in a directory /PLAYER,
typically these would be pre-loaded from a PC. The /PLAYER directory must also contain a
playlist containing the names of the music files.
In this simplest configuration, the only entry needed in the player.cfg file is the setting of the
playlist:
PLAYLIST=playlist.m3u
where “playlist.m3u” is the playlist name.
Note:
the playlist must be formatted correctly for the application: see section 3.4 Playlist
configuration.
With this configuration, the FTP MP3 player will start playing
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the files available on the USB
stick immediately after boot.
3.2
Updating the music over network
With a network connection available, it is possible to automatically update the configuration,
playlist and music files over the network.
At least the
PLAYLIST
and the
MUSIC SERVER
have to be set, for example:
PLAYLIST=playlist.m3u
MUSIC_SERVER=musicserver.example.org
If set this way, the FTP MP3 Player tries to contact the MUSIC_SERVER with the following
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With factory default settings the device tries to discover a DHCP server upon boot, which can take
up
to two minutes if there is no network connection. To prevent the network discovery, either set the IP
to
a static address or set the IP to “0.0.15.0” and switch off the SonicIP to prevent the announcement
of
the IP address. This way FTP MP3 Player starts right after the boot.
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The device does not have hardware clock, so in case there is no network, its time may be wrong
due to the lack of connection to get time from the NTP server. If the playlists contain time information (a line
starting with “#BARIX-4”), they may not be evaluated and played correctly. Using playlists without
time
information is recommended in this case.
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Configuration of the player