Configure Extended Runtime Options

extended-runtime-options

<extended-runtime-options>

These options reside under the server tag and allow to additinally control the so called “runtime options”. The difference to the import options is:

Import options are only triggered when data is being imported into the database, this means that if you want new settings to be applied to already imported data, you will have to reimport it. Runtime options can be switched on and off without the need to reimport any media. Unfortunately you still need to restart the server so that these options take effect, however after that they are immediately active.

ffmpegthumbnailer

<ffmpegthumbnailer enabled="no">
  • Optional

  • Default: no

Ffmpegthumbnailer is a nice, easy to use library that allows to generate thumbnails from video files. Some DLNA compliant devices support video thumbnails, if you think that your device may be one of those you can try enabling this option.

The following options allow to control the ffmpegthumbnailer library (these are basically the same options as the ones offered by the ffmpegthumbnailer command line application). All tags below are optional and have sane default values.

video-enabled=...
  • Optional

  • Default: yes

Enables or disables the use thumbnails for videos, set to no to disable the feature.

image-enabled=...
  • Optional

  • Default: yes

Enables or disables the use thumbnails for images, set to no to disable the feature.

<cache-dir enabled="yes">/home/gerbera/cache-dir</cache-dir>
  • Optional

  • Default: <gerbera-home>/cache-dir

Database location for the thumbnail cache when FFMPEGThumbnailer is enabled. Defaults to Gerbera Home. Creates a thumbnail with file format as: <movie-filename>-thumb.jpg

The attributes of the tag have the following meaning:

enabled=...
  • Optional

  • Default: yes

Enables or disables the use of cache directory for thumbnails, set to yes to enable the feature.

<thumbnail-size>160</thumbnail-size>
  • Optional

  • Default: 160

The thumbnail size should not exceed 160x160 pixels, higher values can be used but will mostprobably not be supported by DLNA devices. The value of zero or less is not allowed.

<seek-percentage>5</seek-percentage>
  • Optional

  • Default: 5

Time to seek to in the movie (percentage), values less than zero are not allowed.

<filmstrip-overlay>no</filmstrip-overlay>
  • Optional

  • Default: yes

Creates a filmstrip like border around the image, turn this option off if you want pure images.

<image-quality>8</image-quality>
  • Optional

  • Default: 8

Sets the image quality of the generated thumbnails.

lastfm

<lastfm enabled="no">
  • Optional

Support for the last.fm service.

<username>login</username>
  • Required

Your last.fm user name.

<password>pass</password>
  • Required

Your last.fm password.

<mark-played-items enabled="no" suppress-cds-updates="yes">
  • Optional

The attributes of the tag have the following meaning:

enabled=...
  • Optional

  • Default: no

Enables or disables the marking of played items, set to yes to enable the feature.

suppress-cds-updates=...
  • Optional

  • Default: yes

This is an advanced feature, leave the default setting if unsure. Usually, when items are modified the system sends out container updates as specified in the Content Directory Service. This notifies the player that data in a particular container has changed, players that support CDS updates will rebrowse the container and refresh the view. However, in this case we probably do not want it (this actually depends on the particular player implementation). For example, if the system updates the list of currently playing items, the player could interrupt playback and rebrowse the current container - clearly an unwanted behaviour. Because of this, Gerbera provides an option to suppress and not send out container updates - only for the case where the item is marked as “played”. In order to see the changes you will have to get out of the current container and enter it again - then the view on your player should get updated.

Note:

some players (i.e. PS3) cache a lot of data and do not react to container updates, for those players it may be necessary to leave the server view or restart the player in order to update content (same as when adding new data).

The following tag defines how played items should be marked:

<string mode="prepend">* </string>
  • Optional

  • Default: \

Specifies what string should be appended or prepended to the title of the object that will be marked as “played”.

mode=...
  • Optional

  • Default: prepend

Specifies how a string should be added to the object’s title, allowed values are “append” and “prepend”.

<mark>
  • Optional

This subsection allows to list which type of content should get marked. It could also be used with audio and image content, but otherwise it’s probably useless. Thefore Gerbera specifies only three supported types that can get marked:

<content>audio</content>
<content>video</content>
<content>image</content>

You can specify any combination of the above tags to mark the items you want.