Interactive show software

[ItsMeBobO]

Since I have nothing to do except work on my Christmas display...
I have been developing interactive show software to allow guests to vote to advance the song they want to see in the playlist.

I am calling it MIIP Mobile Internet Interactive Playlist. Don't tell me you hate the name since I already paid $15 for the domain! Besides I want the name to be really short and easy to remember.

You can see it in action here. http://miip.mobi/?s=TCLH

The site is formated for a Blackberry or iphone or mobile internet device but you can see it from any browser.

If you have a blackberry and want to help me test it out I am looking for a few volunteers. This is still being developed and is Beta software. So I can't promise 100% satisfaction yet.

When it is complete anyone will be able to use it for their own display. The cost, if any has not been decided, but for now its free and working enough to test.

Here is a DRAFT explanation document.
http://miip.mobi/help/MemberDocumentation.html

[dougd]

Looks very interesting. I am not doing a whole lot with my display right now but look forward to how this is playing out come september. I will be very interested in using the software for this coming season. I dont use a blackberry, I am a windows mobile user if you need a tester for that.

[ItsMeBobO]

Send me your email Doug and I will enroll you in MIIP for testing Windows Mobile. I appreciate your help.

If you have the time to start up the Schedule editor you can see how the whole thing works. You don't need any lights or controllers hooked up, just need to have the adapter plugged in.


There are still features I plan to add to MIIP including
Additional views of the schedule
Support to control BetaBrite
Member reports of votes and views

[J_Plak]

Yes, Looks very interesting.

looking on my BlackBerry it is working
now on

Show is not playing.
Voting disabled and votes are cleared.
Show plays Friday 2:00 am to 12:00 pm
Christmas Classics
# Song Title Plays
Next Votes
Up/Dn 1 Dueling Jingle Bells 10:14:57 0 / 0 2 Star Trek 10:17:02 0 / 0 3 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 10:17:49 0 / 0 4 Linus And Lucy 10:21:18 0 / 0 5 Lovely Love My Family 10:24:24 0 / 0
this test Line #3 show up like but on my BlackBerry Line #3
it show like this :

3 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 10:17:49 0 /
0

there two much character per line and the table cell don't show
also just looking the header show up like this
Christmas Classics
# Song Title Plays
Next Votes
Up/Dn


all align left Characters, it easy to say tables not working on the BlackBerry.

Jerry

[ItsMeBobO]

Thanks Jerry! I need this input. My own BB has it formatted correctly. It looks very different on each browser I have tested so there is a look of css tweaking ahead.

If you are able to snap a picture I would appreciate the help.

Here is my BB view.

[J_Plak]

Bob I will be back as soon my battery for camera gets charge.

Jerry

[J_Plak]

Bob,
have an update for you, I look at my browser options and found that browser conf
support HTML Tables and support Style Sheets was unchecked now that there are check it's is looking like it should be :-)


Jerry

[ItsMeBobO]

Thank you Jerry!

[paulcav151]

Looking good on my BB too. Cool idea!

Once votes start rolling in, how does the display owner use the data?

[tomskillman]

Bob,


Looks great on both my Windows Mobile (Samsung Jack) and Android (Motorola Cliq) phones. I'd love to test the display side interface as well....I can fire up my display to run without the controllers.

[ItsMeBobO]

paulcav151 wrote:

Once votes start rolling in, how does the display owner use the data?

The MIIP client software controls it all for you.
It will Poll the server to see if there are any votes and get the most asked for song. It will then replace the Show file with a new version that has that song in it. The show player notices the change and reloads the show starting it from the beginning. So there are no intro and outtro songs in the interactive show. You can do them with a Pre-show and post-show.

[ItsMeBobO]

A new beta release of MIIP is uploaded. v0.9.3

Now you can get a report of the plays and votes up or down the playlist for the selected date range and show.

Thank you to all the testers. If there are ideas or needs to make this work for you please post them or pm me.

[grandad]

Bob,
The interface looks good on our iPod touch, using our WiFi connection obviously.
Maybe I would open up our network, temporarily, during showtimes using this app.
I shall watch with interest

Martin

[ItsMeBobO]

grandad wrote:

Bob,
The interface looks good on our iPod touch, using our WiFi connection obviously.
Maybe I would open up our network, temporarily, during showtimes using this app.
I shall watch with interest

Martin

Thanks for your interest Martin. I have been working on this while unemployed but I got a job today ! So the updates are going to slow down after I go back to work in two weeks.

You just added another thing to my to-do list. The available time zones are just USA but there is no reason they can't all be in there. Are you GMT? The app must know the local time so it can calculate the schedules for everyone. My server is in Maine and I am in St Louis Missouri.

[csf]

Very cool Idea.

I have an I phone if you need more testing.

Not sure how this program works completely, so not sure if this would be possible, but might as well through out an idea I had.

Would there be a way to control you LOR show from an I phone or other smiler device?

What I was thinking was, turn the display on, turn the display off, pick what sequence you want to play, pause / resume play. Basically a remote control for your display.

[ItsMeBobO]

Thats nearly what it does already. Now it gets the next song a moment before the current song ends. If I understand you correctly, you want to allow nothing to play unless a song is requested. This would appear like it was not running to the viewer.

To make that work you would have the schedule enabled with an empty show file. The interface would insert a song into the show file and then after its detected and the song starts it would then empty the show again. Song would end gracefully and play nothing until it got another command. It would not pause or interrupt a playing song.

I will contact you for more detail on that.

If you had a bunch of very short sequences they could be triggered in order. Lets say a right-left double arch leap, a mega rotate, and a star spin. The interface could let you tap, tap, tap, to get those short sequences to play in the same order as the taps. When the queue is empty it would play nothing or we could put in a loop with instruction message. This is like a set of buttons but would it have a queue and would not interrupt the playing sequence.

[grandad]

ItsMeBobO wrote:

grandad wrote:

Bob,
The interface looks good on our iPod touch, using our WiFi connection obviously.
Martin

You just added another thing to my to-do list. The available time zones are just USA but there is no reason they can't all be in there. Are you GMT? The app must know the local time so it can calculate the schedules for everyone. My server is in Maine and I am in St Louis Missouri.

Hi Bob,
Good news about the job.
Yes, we are GMT at the moment, obviously daylight saving changes that towards the end of this month when we go GMT+1
Martin

[Frank A.]

Hi Bob

I don't use those techy devices

but what a cool product your designing

Almost makes me want to by one of those

techy boxes just to use your software

Great project

Good news about the job also

Frank A.

[ItsMeBobO]

A new Beta version of MIIP is released today. 0.9.5.0

This is the version which will be demo'd at SLAM on May 1 in St Louis.

New features

Member may mark 'songs' as a non-voting repeating announcements.
It will repeat every xx seconds no matter what songs the guests select. Here is where you put your announcements and prevent the guests from bumping them to the bottom of the playlist.

MIIP now detects the exact length of a media file so you don't have to open the sequence editor to see. Works for all media including video.

NEW ! MIIP now reads the ID3 tags inside your MP3 files and pulls them into your song profile. The Title, Artist, & Album from the MP3 can be used or you can over type them.


Upcoming features.
Reports of distinct voters by IP.
Filter out your own test votes by IP.

[grandad]

ItsMeBobO wrote:

A new Beta version of MIIP is released today. 0.9.5.0

This is the version which will be demo'd at SLAM on May 1 in St Louis.

New features

Bob,
Just thought I would give your gizmo a try. I downloded v0.9.5.0 this morning but it refuses to run on my P4 / 3Ghz / 2Gb /XP Pro machine. Immediately bombs with the usual MS "Encountered error...." message! I cannot copy the details of the error report, but the "Error Signature" that I managed to copy is thus:-

EventType : clr20r3 P1 : miipclient.exe P2 : 0.9.5.0 P3 : 4bd316f3
P4 : miipclient P5 : 0.9.5.0 P6 : 4bd316f3 P7 : d P8 : c6
P9 : system.invalidoperationexception

if that helps!?

I know I haven't enrolled, but it doesn't even seem to access the 'net before it bombs.
Just my heads-up of my experience. Keep up the good work.

Martin