UPDATE: 17-April-2008 18:30: I have just released a beta version of PyAccelREMOTER. I released the source code together with instructions of how to set it up. I will release a standalone SiS file when I find the time to deal with the hassle that Symbian has caused with the certificates/signing process. I look forward to your impressions, problems and anything else related to this application. You can contact me directly at ender42.wiggin@gmail.com or you can report bugs and feature requests directly on the Sourceforge page.
Download: PyAcceleREMOTER@Sourceforge.net
===============================================================
An N95 accelerometer based remote controller for mplayer on Gnu/Linux machines.
The application uses a server running on a computer which the phone connects and sends commands to. Once the server is up and running (which is as simple as running a python script), everything is controlled from the phone. You can browse through your folders, choose a video and start watching it. You then control the video by hand movements such as tilting right/left for fast forward/backward etc. At any time you can change the video that you are watching by navigating through your video folders directly from your phone. The application also senses when you have incoming calls so that the movement of picking up the phone to answer it is not translated to hand-gesture commands. Furthermore the user can explicitly lock the accelerometer by pressing the “select” key for the same reason (i.e. to avoid random hand-gestures to be translated to mplayer commands). There are also a few things you can configure from the phone such as the responsiveness of the accelerometer and the mplayer seek/volume increments. Any comments, ideas, suggestions are welcome. I am also thinking of later changing the name to something that will reflect the mplayer relation. Any ideas there would also be appreciated!
[popular links]
http://boycottnovell.com/2009/11/16/pyacceleremoter/
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/projects.html (mplayer frontends)
Impressive, looking forward to this, great job!
Yes, very nice. Looking forward to the release of PyAcceleREMOTER. Should work with N82 and other accelerometer based N-Series Phone, shouldn´t?
Look at this Article about your Software at my Blog..
http://www.smabo.de/322-bald-pyacceleremoter/
Gsir and Hasan, thanks for your nice comments. Well I have to thank babelfish too for helping me read your blog Hasan!
You can now download the application and give me some real feedback!
Updated the Article at my Blog
But i don´t now anyone with an Linux-Machine. I´m MacUser.
Maybe someone of my Visitors could give Feedback
Hello!
I’m experiencing some problems on my Ubuntubox. When I try to connect the phone seems to fail. It finds the computer/server and starts to connect. After a few seconds a message says “Something, somewhere went terrible wrong”. I think it has something to do with the auhorizing on the computer. Are there some setting to allow the phone to connect?
Thanks for a great program and a great idea!!
/Allwise
@Allwise
have you made your bluetooth device properly discoverable? There is a small app about bluetooth found under System->Preferences->Bluetooth Preferences on my Gutsy Gibbon box, that allows you to do this. The setting I use is “Visible and connectable for other devices”. If this doesn’t work try pairing the phone to the bluetooth device before running the application and try again. Furthermore make sure that at least for the first run not to choose one of the devices that the Bluetooth list provides you with but to click on “More devices” so that the application can find the advertised services of the server which are specific to this application. I suppose your problem should be solved with one of the above suggestions. If not let me know and I will look into it.
Thanks mate!
I finally got it to work. I think it didn’t work because I used a bluetooth-dongle that wasn’t configured before. This made that I didn’t have any bluetooth settings nor icon. I installed gnome-bluetooth and gnome-vfs-obexftp but without success.
The solution for me (not an apropiate way though) was to install kbluetoothd (and authorize the phone in that program) on my Feisty Fawn. (A bit old system, I know, but I’m only using it as a HTPC.)
The problem it self worked, but I was disconnected after a while everytime I tried and did only success to reconnect a few times. I see in your file that this is something you are working on.
A new feature suggestion is that if your shake the phone hard the video will quit. This maybe could be done by saving the last coordinates, and if the next coordinates differ “enough” mplayer will quit.
I.e. if(abs(x – oldx) > 50 ) || abs(y – oldy) > 50 ) || abs(z – oldz) > 50 )) {
ExitVideo();
}
I’m looking forward to the next beta!
Thanks for a great great idea and program!!
/Allwise
Well, I am glad it worked! The problem with the lost signal/reconnection is a known one and I am working on it. Two ways to avoid this is, don’t get too far away (i.e.change room) with your phone from your computer, and of course don’t disconnect the BT dongle while the application is running. Other than that once you get a connection the application should work smoothly for a long time. By the way, your proposal for exiting the application is quite an interesting one. I will take it into consideration. Thanks a lot for your feedback, ideas and supportive comments !
If there is any other issue I am unaware of I would like anyone to let me know. This beta version was released for this exact reason, i.e. to find bugs and problems and to listen to impressions and ideas for the future. Please keep in mind that you can email me anytime at kserko_REMOVE_THE_UNDERSCORES_AND_THIS_TEXT_@users.sourceforge.net or you can file bugs or feature requests directly at Sourceforge under Tracker ->Bugs and Tracker ->Feature Requests
It would have been great if this app was compatible with Windows OS.
Whenever I run the server script I get an error saying that there were no files found in my VideoServer folder.
Please be patient while I am retrieving all your videos…
No contents found. Please update your VideoServer ( /home/steven/VideoServer ) with media or symbolic links to your media on your disk and re-run me.
steven@antec:~/PyAcceleREMOTER_ServerDir$
_________
Anyone know how I could resolve this? I’ve placed AVI and MP3s in the folder.
Steve there is an instructions.txt file in the download archive where this is explained. You must not have loose media files under the /VideoServer directory. Instead, create at least one ( or any number of) directory inside it such as /VideoServer/MyVideos and put your media in there. The application will successfully read any folders recursively but will not bother with loose files in the /VideoServer directory. Hope this helps!
[...] PyaccelerRometer N95 accelerometer based remote controller for mplayer on Gnu/Linux machines. [...]
Is this signed and does it work on N95 8GB version?
I have released the source code and not a binary SiS file, so it does not need any signing. Just follow the instructions in the downloaded archive for installing it. Yes, it should work on the N95 8GB.
[...] Autor ist ein Student aus Lancaster. Accelerometer, Linux, Nokia N95, Python, Sensor Hasan Kommentare abonnieren [...]
Cool app. Very nicely thought out.
but was there some reason you dont use the [ ] keys of mplayer (adjust playback speed) for fastforward?
I just suggest that because i think that would look cooler than just skipping forward 5seconds or a minute.
then you could use the analog feature of the tilt.
just my 2 cents. awesome app though.
@Genome,
thank you for the nice comments. However regarding the point you make for the fast forward operation, to be completely honest with you, it never occurred to me to use the change in playback speed to move forward in a movie. I think this is because it looks somehow ´unnatural´ to me. Here are some further thoughts on the aspect:
I think that going fast forward is quite different from changing the playback speed. Firstly, by changing the playback speed (to which there is a limit) you cannot really go as fast forward as you would with the normal fast forward operation. Secondly, I think most people when they use a dvd player and want to go forward for quite some time in the movie they are watching, they most probably use the >> fast forward button instead of changing the playback speed. Lastly but I think most importantly is that if I were to use the change in playback speed to fast forward, slowing down the speed would not result in going backward, and in that case the interaction of going forward and that of going backward would be different, which I don´t find as the right way of doing things.
However the feature of changing the playback speed through some kind of gesture is an intereting one and I will think of a possible way of providing that kind of an option in the future.
[...] PyAcceleREMOTER for S60! [...]
serk01 Thanks for the great app. I am facing issues in running the client app.
Server is running on Hardy Heron,
Python version 2.5.2-2ubuntu4.1,
python-bluez 0.14-1ubuntu1
mplayer 2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu13
On Client (N95)
I have Python 1.44
Blue tooth pairing is working fine and I can browse my phone from my laptop however when I connect to Mplayer the client fails and gives error : Something somewhere is terribly wrong. I’ve tried the settings you suggested in an earlier post. Still no luck.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
@Deepak Singh,
I would suggest to take a look at the previous comments/discussion I had with Allwise in the beginning of the comments section for the same problem. I hope you can find a solution through what we discussed over there.
@Serk01
Thanks Mate. I’ve got it working. I changed my laptop the old laptop might have had some hardware issue. I am currently running it on Intrepid Ibex and its working nicely.. Great App.
Many thanks.