[Asteron]

ambient sound when done right is pretty cool. i think it would be similar to normal navigation sounds but it loops and would cut out for media playback.

the electric drone of the ms dashboard is ok but think along the lines of

ocean waves / forest sounds for a nature based skin
halo type chanting for a fantasy theme
spooky whispering

i think this should be done in a similar vein to navigation sounds with options like skin default/none/custom. thanks

-ast

[timdog82001]

I have recently began a new skin and I very much like to have ambient sound (continuous background sound, such as that found in the stock xbox dashboard). It is actually a rather important part of the skin. Is there any chance of support for this being added? An ambient background sound that would play automatically and would loop smoothly, without showing up as a music track playing or anything, and would automatically stop when a video or music file is started, and automatically resume when they stop. I would really appreciate any consideration

[MrTourettes]

Would it be possible to have background music added to xbmc.

If you have seen sky tv you will understand what I mean. Basically as im browsing in xbmc I would like some ambient music playing. I dont want to play normal music which is in library or have any onscreen indication but just something like a dir that if you put different music files in it will randomly select one each time it starts the music and loop it.

It would work like.. Load xbmc and background music fades in and loops.

If you play your media like a movie of album or game or something the background music stops.

When you stop the media playing after a short delay a new background music file is selected from the dir and it fades in to play this music.

Would be cool to have a vol setting in options so you can specify how quiet you want the background music also.

[kortina]

I like it, sounds like a nice add on.

[bob_loblaw]

This is something I've wanted for a little while as well. I think the features it'd need are:
* Background playback volume setting
* Select a track, folder, or playlist to play in the background by default
* Whether or not to show track info as it's playing
* Possibly a playback startup delay (maybe one for initial boot and one for after playback finishes)

I'm sure this can't be too difficult to do, since music can play in the background already. If someone can point me in the right direction I may be able to have a crack at this, assuming I know whatever language is the most appropriate.

[azido]

Would it be possible to have background music added to xbmc.

Would be cool to have a vol setting in options so you can specify how quiet you want the background music also.

should be easy to drop some files to play into sounds directory of your desired skin, and have visibility conditions assigned to them, like i.e. on entering home screen play /sounds/home.mp3. you'd also have to make sure it doesn't play when music or video is active, but that could be triggered with "active" conditions, too.

not sure on the loop thing, though. also volume control would need a seperate task unless you want to change the volume of all the navigation sounds including this "ambience".

[joebrady]

You could just use PMIIIHD's feature for starting a playlist on startup. Then you can set it to be whatever you want, and I'm pretty sure you can set it to repeat.

[rausch101]

Would it be possible to have background music added to xbmc.

This makes me think of the ambient music on the Wii home screen, which is nice.

You could just use PMIIIHD's feature for starting a playlist on startup. Then you can set it to be whatever you want, and I'm pretty sure you can set it to repeat.

Yep, you can.

You can set it to just load a playlist on startup with one song in the list and have your playing conditions set on repeat. That way if you get sick of one ambient sound you can just modify the playlist.


I like this idea for a couple reasons:

1. It'd definitely be pleasing to the ears to have some nice ambient XBMC theme music. It'd help you feel a little more relaxed as your navigate through your updated-daily gorgeous skin of choice I do think it depends very much on the choice of music though.

2. The Wii home screen music is definitely part of the experience of the Wii, and we all know how successful that is. Granted some people would still prefer their own music choice at start-up, but I think a nice standard XBMC music theme might be pretty beneficial in the way of marketing and attention-grabbing. Just another way to make you feel at home when you're using XBMC.

[vtinoc]

Or like the xbox real screen it has an ambient for each menu like when you are in the main menu it has robots talking and in music it plays a sound that's smooth and relaxing. On the note

What if in the XBMC start-up menu it plays a smoothing sound and so on for each menu. thanks for the idea, i'll try to see what i can do.

[Netizen]

If I may bump this, I actually arrived at this thread while searching for the Sky EPG music..

http://skyepgmusic.co.uk/


While I'm sick of hearing the current tunes, you can at least get the old ones back and attempt to use them in XBMC (not in any official capacity of course)

I would like to support MrTourettes request to make this a xbmc feature and not just a skin feature. Would someone like to put it on Trac? As I've not used it before and wouldn't like to mess it up!

[spiff]

for once it's my pleasure to utter the words; 'patch not welcome'

[eskro]

Hi guys,

i know this must have been asked before,

but anyhow, i still suggest it!

Basically having some AMBIANT music while we surf the menus and stuff

would be amazing!!

but thing is, it needs to stop playing when i want watch a movie

and once i stop the movie or pause it,

the AMBIANT music should resume!



thanks alot for XBMC!!

[topfs2]

XBMC announces start, stop and pause to pythonscripts and jsonrpc clients.

As such you can start music when its booting (outside xbmc) and trigger stops on play and resume on pause/stop.

[eskro]

uhm, if im a PC noob, this explanation means?

i really dont know how to do that :/

[topfs2]

It will most likely never be a core feature hence you need to do it yourself via scripting. If you dont' have the energy to learn it you are probably best forgetting about it.

Cheers,
Tobias