Play

Play is a powerful command line Python media player over Omxplayer that allows you to play audio and video files and organize them in playlists. You can easily save these playlists (SQLite database) to continue them later on, starting from the file where you leaved.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/caumons/play.git
sudo mv play/ /opt/
sudo ln -s /opt/play/play.py /usr/local/bin/play
sudo chmod a+w -R /opt/play/ && sudo chmod a+x /opt/play/play.py

If you also want play to be available from your files browser to easily play files:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y xterm
sudo ln -s /opt/play/play.desktop /usr/share/applications/play.desktop

After doing so, you should be able to select the desired files, right button click, select "Open with", choose "Audio & video" and finally launch play. If the option doesn't appear, reboot your system and try again.

Playing files

You can pass one or multiple files to play them sequentially:

play audio.mp3 video.mp4

You can reproduce audio and video files via Internet streaming (http or https) too:

play http://mydomain.com/audiofile https://mydomain.com/videofile

Wildcards can also be used:

play *.mp3

You can also play files in folders. This will only play media files directly inside folder dir:

play folder

You can even play files recursively (-r, --recursive). This will play all media files contained in folder or in any subdir:

play -r folder

By default, play will reproduce any audio or video file. You can change this behaviour too using the type (-t, --type) flag:

play -t audio .  ⇐ Only audio files
play -t video .  ⇐ Only video files
play -t both .  ⇐ Default option. Plays audio and video files
play -t auto .  ⇐ Uses the type from the first media file found

Of course, you can mix all these options, even with local and streaming files e.g.:

play -r audio.mp3 video.mp4 https://mydomain.com/mediafile *.mkv folder

To play files already saved in a playlist you just need to tell play the list name:

play mylist

Important! When playing files from a saved playlist, please, make sure that play starts playing the next file before you quit the program, because updating the playlist occurs at the beginning of file playback.

Note: Before playing video files, it's highly recommended to configure the Omxplayer win option. Read "Omxplayer args" and "Settings" sections below.

Managing playback

You can control the file playback using the same shortcuts as Omxplayer, plus some more. In fact, it's Omxplayer the one that actually plays the media files. Here are some of the most important ones:

Pause/Continue: space bar
Stop playback: Control+c (^c). This will give you the option to play another file or quit:
- To exit hit Enter or type n and hit Enter
- To play next file type y and hit Enter
- To play another file write its index number and hit Enter
- To replay current file introduce any other value and hit Enter
Next file: ESC or q
Forward 30 s: right arrow
Forward 10 min: up arrow
Backwards 30 s: left arrow
Backwards 10 min: down arrow
For more options see Omxplayer help

Creating playlists

To create a new playlist (-n, --playlist) you have to give it a name and tell play which are the files (local or streaming). You can use the params to find the files as explained in the section "Playing files". Here you have some examples:

play -n playlist1 /path/to/files1/  ⇐ New audio/video playlist
play -rn playlist2  /path/to/files2/  ⇐ New recursive audio/video playlist
play -rn playlist3 -t audio .  ⇐ New recursive audio playlist (of current dir)
play -rn playlist4 -t video .  ⇐ New recursive video playlist (of current dir)
play -rn playlist5 -t auto .  ⇐ New rec. audio or video playlist (of cur. dir)

Managing playlists

Playlists (-p, --playlists): List user playlists

play -p

Update (-u, --update): Update playlist, re-reading playlist directories from disk

play -u myplaylist

Delete (-d, --delete): Delete playlist

play -d myplaylist

Delete all (-D, --delete-all): Delete all current user playlists

play -D

More options to play files

Bucle (-b, --bucle): Starts the list from the beginning after the last file playback ends

play -b *

Shuffle (-s, --shuffle): Plays files in a random way

play -s *

Limit (-l, --limit): Limits play to specified number of files

play -l 10 *  ⇐ Plays first 10 files

Offset (-f, --offset): Skips the first number of specified files

play -f 5 *  ⇐ Skips first 5 found files

Of course, you can combine all or some of these options too, for example:

play -bs -l 10 -f 5 *

You can even save the playlist resulting from the combination:

play -bs -l 10 -f 5 -n myplaylist *

Omxplayer args

Output (-o, --output): Options are: hdmi, local, both. Default is both
Window (-w, --window): First, you need to know your screen resolution. Then, set the position of video window with one of these formats: 'x1 y1 x2 y2' or x1,y1,x2,y2

Settings

You can create a file called settings.py at the same directory where play.py lives and define the following variables to override default values:

DB_PATH: Default is playlists.db at play directory
AUDIO_MOUNT_POINT (optional): Called for audio files with mount AUDIO_MOUNT_POINT
VIDEO_MOUNT_POINT (optional): Called for video files with mount VIDEO_MOUNT_POINT
OMXPLAYER_WIN (optional): Video files only. Adjust for better display, see "Omxplayer args"
EXCLUDED_FORMATS: Tuple of excluded media formats. Defaults to: ('.m3u',)

Note: You have to previously configure /etc/fstab to make AUDIO_MOUNT_POINT and VIDEO_MOUNT_POINT work.