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Poddy Home - Usage

Overview

Poddy Home is designed to be used as easy as possible so that not only you but also your family will love a box that now replaces all of them: your CD- and DVD-player, the video recorder, your full CD- and DVD-collection and the video cassettes that wasted much space until now. Therefore only some simple keys and operations are necessary to control the whole thing. And to not to introduce a completely new handling concept that uses similar keys with a different functionality like a well-known and widely used portable music player the remote-control key mapping and their functionality within Poddy Home is mainly compatible with that music player.
-> Keys -> CDs -> DVD -> Videos -> VCR

Keys

Poddy Home can be used by both: a keyboard (what makes sense only for testing) and an infrared remote control. To set up your remote control to be used with Poddy Home please refer to the provided .lircrc file that comes with the installation. Please adapt the different button names to be used with the ones you have defined for your own remote control. Within that file you also find a suggestion for the xine setup of these buttons, possibly thats a good starting point for you.
Following both are described: the keyboard keys and the names of the remote keys. So for an example if there is written something like [Pg Up/menu] that means the related operation can be reached by pressing Pg Up on the local keyboard or by pressing that button on your remote control that has been assigned to the lirc-command menu.
In general the whole application can be controlled by using cursor keys for the different displayed entries and by using a selection key [return/set] for starting an operation.

Managing CDs

Poddy Home is able to manage all your CDs. To do that these CDs first have to be stored on the local harddisk of the box where this application is running at. After that Poddy Home can access all your CDs fast and easily - no more searching for a special CD that should be somewhere, all of them are ordered by artist, album and tracks. The audiodata itself are compressed in an lossles format so you do not lose any quality by the storage process.

Storing a CD

To store a CD please perform the following steps
  • put the CD into your local drive
  • select the menu CDs by using the keys [cursor up/up] and [cursor down/down], then enter the CD-menu by using [Return/set] (afterwards you can leave that submenu by pressing [Pg Up/menu])
  • choose the menu item Create new CD by pressing [return/set]
  • now the CD is read, its data and track information are retrieved from the internet
  • next you get an overview of CD data that may fit to your CD, if there is more than one possibility please select the entry that fits best to your CD and choose it using [return/set]
  • within the following window you get full overview about the CDs data, if everything is correct prove that by pressing [return/set]
  • now in background the storage process of the CD starts, the disc itself is ejected automatically when that process is completed
  • as a next screen you get an overview of cover images that may fit to your CD, please choose one by using [cursor right/right] and [cursor left/left] and select the best one by pressing [return/set];
    Please note: these images may be copyrighted, you possibly are allowed to use them for private purposes only, distribution of them may violate somebodys copyright and possibly can be treatened by law
  • as soon as the CD was stored you can go back into the CD menu and will see a new entry there that has the same name like the artist of that CD; below of that you (go there by pressing [return/set]) find an entry with the album name of the CD and below of that all the tracks of the CD - later on when you have stored more CDs you of course will have much more artists and more albums for the several artists

Replaying CD data

You can replay all your CDs using different methods. After you have entered the CD menu you can
  • replay all your CDs in alphabetical order by selecting "Replay All" with button [return/set]
  • randomly replay all the tracks of all your CDs by selecting "Shuffleplay" with button [return/set]
  • replay all CDs of one particular artist by selecting the artists entry with button [F11/play]
  • go into a specific artists list of albums by selecting the artists entry with button [return/set]
After you have entered the hierarchical level of an artist you can
  • replay all CDs of that artist in alphabetical order by selecting "Replay All" with button [return/set]
  • randomly replay all the tracks of all CDs of that artist by selecting "Shuffleplay" with button [return/set]
  • replay all tracks of one particular album by selecting the albums entry with button [F11/play]
  • go into a specific albums list of tracks by selecting the albums entry with button [return/set]
After you have entered the hierarchical level of an album (equal to your formerly used CD) you can
  • replay the full album by selecting "Replay All" with button [return/set]
  • randomly replay that albums tracks by selecting "Shuffleplay" with button [return/set]
  • replay one single track by selecting the tracks entry with button [F11/play]
  • replay the album starting with a specific track by selecting the tracks entry with button [return/set]
As long as you replay more than only one track you always can jump to the previous or next track by pressing [cursor left/left] or [cursor right/right]. When a shuffle play mode is selected the next or previous track is one that is randomly selected.

Managing DVDs

Poddy Home is able to manage all your DVDs. To do that these DVDs first have to be stored on your local harddisk. After that Poddy Home can access all your DVDs fast and easily - no more searching for a special DVD that should be somewhere, all of them are ordered logically. And if you store DVDs that belong to series they are ordered by name, season and disc. The DVD data itself are not touched so the quality will not be changed by this process.

Storing a DVD

To store a DVD please perform the following steps
  • put the DVD into your local drive
  • depending on the type of DVD select the menu "Series" or "Movies" by using the keys [cursor up/up] and [cursor down/down], then enter the desired menu by using [return/set] (afterwards you can leave that menu hierarchy by pressing [Pg Up/menu]); here series will be sorted by Name -> Season -> Disc and movies are sorted by Genre -> Movie
  • choose the menu item "Create new DVD" by pressing [return/set]
  • now the DVD is read, its data and title information are retrieved from the internet
  • within the following window you get full overview about the retrieved DVDs data, if everything is correct prove that by pressing [return/set] or edit the displayed data before if necessary
  • now in background the storage process of the DVD starts, the disc itself is ejected automatically when that process is completed
  • as a next screen you get an overview of cover images that may fit to your DVD, please choose one by using [cursor right/right] and [cursor left/left] and select one by pressing [return/set];
    Please note: these images may be copyrighted, you possibly are allowed to use them for private purposes only, distribution of them may violate somebodys copyright and possibly can be treatened by law
  • as soon as the DVD was stored you can go back into the related menu and will see a new entry there that has the same name like the DVD; in case you stored a series DVD below of that you find an entry with the season number and below of that all the discs that belong to that season

Replaying DVD series

You can replay all your series by some simple clicks. After you have entered the "Series" menu you can
  • choose the title of the series you want to replay with button [return/set]
  • then choose the season of the series you want to replay with button [return/set]
  • as last choose the disc and start replaying with button [return/set]
When the series is started you can use the buttons defined in .lircrc for control and navigation within the DVD.

Replaying DVD movies

For movies the whole thing is much easier. After you have entered the "Movies" menu you can
  • select the genre the movie belongs to by pressing [return/set]
  • choose the title of the movie and start replaying of it using button [return/set]
When the movie is started you can use the buttons defined in .lircrc for controlling Xine and navigation within the DVD.

Managing Videos

Poddy Home is able to manage all your existing videos. To do that these videos first have to be copied into the directory that was defined during the setup of the application. If you want to modify the path of the video directory simply stop Poddy Home and execute the setup application again by calling 
setup.sh
. Then copying the video files to the that directory has to be done manually, e.g. by using a network share (NFS or something similar).
if you use the integrated VCR the recorded telecasts will also appear in this directory within an subfolder "VCR".

Replaying Videos

To replay the videos that have been copied to their directory you first have to enter the menu "Videos" (choose it using [cursor up/up] and [cursor down/down] and enter it by pressing [return/set]). There you can see the directory listing of the video directory - with automatically beautified video file names. To replay one of the videos, select it by pressing [cursor up/up] and [cursor down/down] and start replaying the selected video with button [return/set].
When the video is started you can use the buttons defined in .lircrc for controlling Xine and navigation within it.

Using the Video Recorder

When there is an TV capture device available and set up properly Poddy Home is able to handle schedules for recording TV broadcasts. All the required functionalities can be found below the main menu VCR. Here some initial setup is necessary. First of all you have to scan for stations in order to get a list of TV stations that can be used for recording. After that you can edit these stations in order to give them easy to remember and clear names (as long as not automatically detected). After that you also can sort the order of the available stations as desired. If you have registered for the remote interface of Poddy Home and if you have entered the user name and password you have choosen for the remote interface within the setup after that procedure the list of stations is sent to the web interface so that you can access them there too (a working internet connection is required for that).

Programming the VCR

To program a new schedule for recording a telecast please perform the following steps:
  • enter menu VCR and select Create recording by pressing [return/set]
  • now you can jump up and down through the different elements of the programming panel and select the desired parameters
  • select the station to record the telecast from
  • select the date of the day where the program is broadcasted
  • optionally set a name for your recording
  • jump to the hour where your telecast starts, press [return/set], jump to the minute within that hour and press [return/set] again
  • now the starting time is programmed
  • jump down to the hour where your telecast ends, press [return/set], jump to the minute within that hour and press [return/set] again
  • now the ending time is programmed
  • confirm and store these data by jumping down to the button OK and pressing it by choosing [return/set] or cancel the complete operation by pressing [page up/menu]
The telecast you actually program by this operation is displayed by a blue box over the specified days timeline. Other schedules that are already programmed for this day are displayed within the same timeline using gray boxes. Here none of the boxes are allowed to overlap because currently only one telecast can be recorded at the same time. If there is a overlapped schedule, the one that would start later will be ignored. Such schedules additionally are listed in red color within the VCR menu.
When a recording was finished successfully the related video can be found in menu Videos submenu VCR.

If you have registered at the remote interface you also can program new schedules via the web. Here a synchronization is done between the web and your Poddy Home at home. A synchronization between both is done every 15 minutes. So if you program a new schedule using the remote interface it may need up to 15 minutes until that information is available for your Poddy Home media center. The same is true vice versa: if somebody programs a new schedule at home it may need up to 15 minutes until you can see that new schedule within the web.

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