Chapter 13. Sound in Linux / 13.2. Multimedia Players | ||||
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 | Chapter 13. Sound in Linux | 13.3. CDs: Playback and Ripping |  | |
Chapter 13. Sound in Linux / 13.2. Multimedia Players | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter 13. Sound in Linux | 13.3. CDs: Playback and Ripping | | |
The amaroK media player handles various audio formats and plays the streaming audio broadcasts of radio stations on the Internet. The program handles all file types supported by the sound server acting as a back-end—currently aRts or GStreamer.
On first start, amaroK launches a , which helps set up amaroK. In the first step, configure your preferred look and feel for amaroK. Choose to display player and playlist in separate windows (see Figure 13.4, “The amaroK Media Player”) or combine their functionality in one single window. In the second step, determine where amaroK should look for your music collection. amaroK scans these folders for playable media. By default, amaroK is configured to scan the selected folders recursively (to include all their subdirectories in the scan), monitor changes to the content of the selected directories, and import any playlists located there. All the settings made with the wizard can be modified later by starting the wizard again with +.
On start-up, amaroK scans the file system for multimedia files according to the settings made in the wizard. The right part of the playlist window lists any playlists found. Play titles listed in it in the order of your choice. If no playlist is found, create one. The best way to do this is by using the sidebar to the left of the window. To the far left, there are a number of tabs that can be used to open different views. From each of these views, drag individual titles or entire directories and drop them into the playlist to include them in the list. The following is a description of the function of each tab.
With this tab, view information about your collection and the current artist. For example, the view informs you about your favorite titles, the newest titles added to the collection, and other details. The view provides statistics on your listening habits, listing your favorite, newest, and least-played tracks. provides data related to the track currently being played, such as the album cover (see Section 13.2.1.2, “The Cover Manager”), the listening statistics related to this track, and much more. If you are interested in the lyrics of the track, display them using the tab.
Use this view to manage and display your personal collection of titles. The collection view may include files from different locations. The wrench icon in the toolbar lets you determine what locations should be scanned for music files. Once you select the directories, the scan starts automatically. The result is displayed as a tree structure. Using and , organize the two top branches of the tree according to the criteria , , , and . Once the tree view is ready, find titles simply by typing them into the input field. The selection in the tree view jumps to the first matching entry automatically as you type. To update your collection data, initiate a rescan of the file system using +.
The playlist browser is divided into two parts. The upper part lists all your custom playlists created by dragging tracks into the playlist window and clicking . View the contents of them by clicking the next to the playlist's name. Modify these playlists using drag and drop. To load one of them, double-click the playlist.
![[Important]](admon/important.png) | Sharing Playlists with Other Players |
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Save playlists in | |
amaroK can compile useful playlists (“Smart Playlists”) on the fly. Use the bottom part of the playlist browser to select one of the smart playlists or click to define a custom smart playlist. Enter a name, search criteria, order, and optional track limit.
This tab opens a file browser. It corresponds to the standard KDE file selector dialog with the usual controls for navigating the file system. Enter a URL or directory directly into the text input field. From the contents displayed, drag elements to the playlist to include them. You can also perform a recursive search for a file in a given directory. To do so, enter a text string for the title and the location at which to start the search. Then select and wait for the results to appear in the lower section of the window.
amaroK features a cover manager to enable you to keep matching music and image data on the albums you play. Start the with +. A tree view in the left part of the window lists all the albums of your collection. The covers retrieved from Amazon are displayed in the right part of the window. With , choose what is displayed in the cover list view. lists all albums of your collection, regardless of whether they have a cover image. lists only those with a cover and lists those lacking a cover. To retrieve cover data, choose your then click . amaroK then tries to get covers for all albums contained in your collection.
Select the button in the player window or use the amaroK application menu to open a dialog in which to enable and configure several sound effects, such as an equalizer, the stereo balance, and a hall effect. Select the desired effects and adjust the settings, if available, for each of them.
amaroK comes with a number of visualizations that display a graphical effect for the music played. Native amaroK visualizations are displayed in the player window. Cycle through the various available display modes by clicking the animation.
In addition to the above, amaroK also supports the visualization plug-ins
of the XMMS media player. To use these, first install the xmms-plugins package then select
from the amaroK menu. This opens a
window listing the available plug-ins. XMMS plug-ins are always displayed
in an extra window. In some cases, there is an option to display them in
fullscreen mode. For some plug-ins, you may not get a smooth visual effect
unless you use a 3D-accelerated graphics card.
XMMS is another full-featured media player with robust audio support, so
that pops or breaks during playback should be very rare. The application is
easy to use. The button for displaying the menu is located in the upper
left corner of the program window. For those preferring a GNOME-like look
and feel, there is a GTK2 version of XMMS available, the Beep Media Player.
Just install the package bmp.
However, not all XMMS plug-ins are supported by this port of XMMS.
Select the output plug-in module with
++.
If the xmms-kde package is
installed, the aRts sound server can be configured here.
| Using the Disk Writer Plug-In |
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XMMS automatically redirects its output to the if it is not able to find a configured sound card. In this case, the played files are written to the hard disk as WAV files. The time display then runs faster than when playing the output through a sound card. | |
Start various visualization plug-ins with
++.
If you have a
graphics card with 3D acceleration, select an application such as the
OpenGL spectrum analyzer. If the xmms-plugins package
is installed, try the Infinity plug-in.
To the left under the menu button, there are five buttons with different letters on them. These buttons allow quick access to additional menus, dialog, and configurations. Open the playlist with and the equalizer with .
