Entertainer : An open mediacenter solution for you

One of the most important aspect of why I wasn't shifting from OS X to Linux was lack of good Media center capabilities of Linux, So this week I've been searching for one and found entertainer, a new simple elegant and fresh looking Media center solution for Linux Machines. I think I started changing my mind.

Entertainer

Entertainer is a simple easy to use media center solutions for Linux machines with Gnome and XFace desktop environments. It is developed in Python.The Entertainer is still a kid in the open world but the developers are working hard to make it better.



Features

So let us have a look at the features that Entertainer offers.

Movies and TV-series

You can watch movies and TV-Series from your hard drive or any drive linked over the network. Entertainer even has meta data and cover art support.

Music library

You can now play all our

favorite music tracks easily, there are options that enables navigation of music by artist album,etc.We can even create custom play lists.Entertainer automatically downloads the art work and music information.

Photographs

Entertainer includes a photograph library, which allows you easily find your best shots.

Headlines

This is a cool feature that helps you to watch your favorite feeds even while you are resting in your sofa.

Weather

Entertainer can tell you the weather forecast at your, or any other location for the next 4 days. Quickly check if you need to pack that umbrella or your shots today.

Themes

Entertainer supports theming ! It is a disappointing factor now, because I was not able to find any new themes in the official site.



Turnoffs :(

Entertainer doesn't have any remote support.Currently it only supports keyboards to control it.The other main thing is several times entertainer fails due to bugs.Hope some of you can contribute by working on them.


How do you install entertainer in Ubuntu?


Okey now let's have a look at how I installed entertainer in my System.I've been trying entertainer in Ubuntu Hard y Heron, I've some install instructio ns if you prefer to spice up your Ubuntu.In order to install entertainer we need to have some packages installed.

Prerequisites


sudo apt-get install python-clutter python-gobject python-gtk2 python-gst0.10 python-clutter \
python-pysqlite2 python-cddb python-glade2 python-cairo python-feedparser \
python-pyinotify python-eyed3 python-pyvorb is python-imaging python-imdbpy \
python-notify

You can copy paste this code in your terminal to get these prerequisites installed.Remember you need an act ive internet connection to do so.

Now get the source code

• svn checkout http://entertainer-media-center.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ entertainer

You can grab the source code from entertainer using the above code by just typing it in your terminal. Okey when the source code is completely grabbed change directory to entertainer (cd entertainer).

Copy the configurations to your Home

• cp cfg ~/.entertainer -R

when you are done,change directory to src (cd src)

Set Media Locations

Now we can add folders and locations where our media files located in our machine.

typing this code will show a window where you can add your media files.

• ./entertainer-content-management.py

Now we are almost done.

Preparing the index

Type ./entertainer-backend.py in the terminal and let the entertainer prepare for the work.

just type ./entertainer-frontend.py to fire-up the Entertainer.

Now it's time for entertainment

You can control your Entertainer using keyboard :(

• F - Toggle full screen on/off
• P - Toggle pause/play when video or audio is playing.
• S - Stop playback
• H - Navigate to home screen. Press this anywhere and main menu will be displayed.
• I - Toggle information view when watching photograph in full screen mode
• 1,2,3,4 - Change video playback aspect ratio
• Arrow keys - Navigate menus
• Enter - Select current menu item
• Backspace - Navigate to previous screen

Hope this is pretty easy work for all of you and you enjoy Entertainer, Please drop a comment if you need any help or if you have any doubt regarding the installation.

http://www.entertainer-project.com/ is the official Entertainer website.