About
Quasar Media Player is my attempt at developing a decent, fast and convenient media player for the Zaurus and other Qt(opia)-based (mobile) systems.
It offers many of the features we’ve come to appreciate in modern media players on the desktop, like fast library overview and filtering along with the ability to handle large libraries very well.
It adds several unique features that give it unprecedented flexibility on a mobile device, like auto-generated playlists from a set of locations (e.g. adds files from the internal Music directory + from a Media directory on an inserted SD card), a fast location-independent database backend based on SQLite and flexible support and handling of cover art images.
Quasar is highly configurable and can be operated completely via the keyboard or remote control, which makes it more versatile and easier to control than via touchscreen alone.
Quasar Media Player initially started as modification of ZPlayer but quickly evolved into a fork of the latter project with a completely rewritten foundation and database backend. Quasar in its current incarnation still uses parts of ZPlayers code. Thanks to AGAWA Koji (atty) and Atmark for their work on ZPlayer!
Like ZPlayer, Quasar Media Player is a frontend for MPlayer and thus relies on the playback and formats support offered by MPlayer. However, unlike other frontends, Quasar uses additional libraries like id3lib to add better meta-data parsing and also tries to alleviate some of MPlayers shortcomings on mobile devices (via file pre-caching for example).
Quasar Media Player is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2 and the source code is freely available.
Features
- Generic media player (video and audio) with a strong focus on audio playback
- Tag reading and playback support for MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg FLAC, FLAC, WMA, iTunes AAC, iTunes Apple Lossless
- Fast playlist filtering
- Overview feature
Categorizes the playlist into genre, artist, album and also supports filtering of the playlist - Supports simple and dynamic playlists:
- Simple playlist: pre-defined list of media files (e.g. m3u playlists)
- Dynamic playlist: a set of directories and single files that the playlist is created from.
Directories can be scanned for files recursively.
Dynamic playlists are especially useful if you often add new files to a SD card for instance. You just tell Quasar to rescan instead of having to add those files manually.
- On-The-Go playlist for temporary playlists (e.g. if you’re in a hurry):
- Copy selected files instantly from your main playlist to the On-The-Go playlist via hotkey or button click.
- There is no library!
You’re not forced into a library paradigm known from most media players on the desktop. Your playlist can be your library, but it can also be everything else. Combine this feature with Dynamic Playlists and you have your library. :) - High-Performance SQLite-based database backend:
- Holds all metadata once the files have been initially scanned
- High performance lookup and filtering
- Location-agnostic: You can freely move your media files around.
Quasar will recognize them without scanning them again.
- Cover Art support:
- Scans the media file for an attached image: MP3/ID3, Ogg (COVERART tag in Xiph Comments), FLAC (currently via ID3v2 or Xiph Comments only), M4A (Cover Art added via iTunes / “covr” MP4 atom)
- Scans for image files in the same directory as the media file.
- Recursively scans for an appropriate image file in a separate directory that contains cover art images.
For maximum flexibility it will match against directory and file names using straightforward heuristics.
- Highly configurable:
- Almost all functionality is accessable via configurable hotkeys (keyboard and remote control)
- File-format-specific MPlayer settings:
New file formats can be added when MPlayer supports them. - Global MPlayer settings
- Fancy GUI:
- Strong support for operation in landscape and portrait display modes
- Support for quickly switching between two predefined skins, e.g. for daylight and night operation in a car environment.
- Supports adjustment of font sizes in three steps, e.g. for better operability and readability in a car enviroment.
Downloads
Prior to installing Quasar on your device please make sure you have a working MPlayer installed.
After installing Quasar please specify the location of the MPlayer binary in the configuration dialog (Tools > Configuration…). This is necessary on pdaXii13, where the mplayer binary is named “mplayer2″.
Quasar will only work with VGA devices, i.e. Sharp Zaurus SL-C7×0 / SL-C860 / SL-C1000 / SL-C3×00 and SL-6000. QVGA devices may be supported in the future - it’s just a matter of adjusting the skin for 320×240.
Packages:
quasar_0.9_arm.ipk (Qtopia / SharpROM, Cacko)
quasar_0.9_armv5tel.ipk (X11 Qt3 / pdaXrom beta 3, pdaXii13)
quasar_0.9b3_1_armel.deb (X11 Qt3 / Debian EABI) Thanks ZDevil!
Add-ons:
QScrobbler - Last.fm / Audioscrobbler client
Additional files:
Default Keyboard Hotkeys Sheet (PNG)
Default Keyboard Hotkeys Sheet (PDF)
Sourcecode:
quasar_0.9_beta3_sources.tar.bz2
Changes
Version 0.9 / Beta 3 (2007-10-29):
- Several improvements and bugfixes for the video playback
- Switched metadata and tag reading framework to TagLib
- Better support for Unicode encoded metadata
- Faster initial scanning of media files
- Tag reading and playback support for MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg FLAC, FLAC, WMA, iTunes AAC, iTunes Apple Lossless
- Support for reading embedded cover art images from Ogg (COVERART tag in Xiph Comments), FLAC (currently via ID3v2 or Xiph Comments only), M4A (Cover Art added via iTunes / “covr” MP4 atom)
- On Qtopia Quasar will disable suspending the device when closing the lid
- Improved config dialog
- Tons of other minor changes and fixes to bugs reported on Trac
quasar_0.9_arm.ipk (Qtopia / SharpROM, Cacko)
quasar_0.9_armv5tel.ipk (X11 Qt3 / pdaXrom beta 3, pdaXii13)
quasar_0.9_beta3_sources.tar.bz2 (sourcecode)
Version 0.85 / Beta 2 (2007-10-06):
- Removed registration as Remote Control Master via QCop since it caused crashing of Qtopia on most systems
- Detection of machine type enabled on non-Qtopia systems
- Some configuration options removed on non-Qtopia systems as they are not supported
quasar_0.85_arm.ipk (Qtopia / SharpROM, Cacko)
quasar_0.85_armv5tel.ipk (X11 Qt3 / pdaXrom beta 3, pdaXii13)
quasar_0.85_beta2_sources.tar.bz2 (sourcecode)
Version 0.81 / Beta 1.1 (2007-10-03):
- Added support for embedded cover art in MP3 files.
quasar_0.81_arm.ipk (Qtopia / SharpROM, Cacko)
quasar_0.81_armv5tel.ipk (X11 Qt3 / pdaXrom beta 3, pdaXii13)
quasar_0.81_beta1.1_sources.tar.bz2 (sourcecode)
Version 0.8 / Beta 1 (2007-10-01):
- First public release.
quasar_0.8_arm.ipk (Qtopia / SharpROM, Cacko)
quasar_0.8_armv5tel.ipk (X11 Qt3 / pdaXrom beta 3, pdaXii13)
quasar_0.8_beta1_sources.tar.bz2 (sourcecode)
Support
Bugs and Feature Requests
If you think you’ve found a bug or if you are missing an important feature and would like to report it, please create a ticket on the development web site. This is the place where I keep track of everything. Please don’t post bug reports into the comments below. Thanks!
FAQ
How do I install the package?
Use you favorite package manager to install the IPK-file for your platform.
You can also install manually via the console:
sudo ipkg install quasar_*.ipk
The volume control doesn’t work on pdaXrom? What gives?
This is a known problem related to the way Quasar is controlling the volume by accessing /dev/mixer.
The default volume control in the Matchbox taskbar / controlbar completely locks /dev/mixer and thus has exclusive access.
In order to control the volume in Quasar (and XMMS too!), please remove the volume control applet from the bar.
Developers
Trac
If you want to keep track of the current development status, here is the right place:
http://trac.katastrophos.net/quasar
SVN repository
The SVN repository is available here, in case you want to grab the latest sources:
https://svn.katastrophos.net/quasar
svn co https://svn.katastrophos.net/quasar/trunk
will get you the latest development version.
The SSL certificate is for secure.customerinterface.de. Don’t worry, it’s my server.
If you want to participate in the development, please contact me directly. See here for details.
Twitter Updates
Please do not post bug reports into the comments. Instead use the project’s Trac web site to create a ticket. That way I can keep track of everything. Thanks a lot!
hoho, I did not read the blog carefully before.But I realy think Quasar was a native player which not require other player (MPlayer or VLC). Anyway, Thanks a lot for the work.
btw: Did you want write a player use MPlayer or VLC ’s code ?
Tighter integration of MPlayer, yes. But I won’t add custom player code into Quasar any time soon - although I have been thinking about it before. Perhaps for common formats like MP3 and Ogg Vorbis… We’ll see. For everything else MPlayer is sufficient.
Is the pdaxrom v0.85 newer than the version you had for testing that was still labelled 0.80?
Either way the 0.80 that showed the imbedded album art still works great! No Problems.
Dale, sorry for the confusion. I somehow missed to raise the version number in the about dialog to 0.81. 0.85 (Beta 2) is newer than the previous two versions.
I’ll probably release a new version next weekend. Stay tuned! :)
very good work, the first new high quality app I’ve seen for QT in a LONG time. Make’s the old Cacko “kino2″ application seem quite basic.
Finaly somebody made it.
Its really great, much better than the original player.
Its a great achievement for the zarus.
keep on workin.
Hi, is Quasar also running on Angstrom? Now, that I have the player I always wanted to have on my Cacko installation, I would not like to miss it, when trying out Angstrom on my Akita.
Quasar is really one of the best applications for the Zaurus! Thanks for the nice work!
I haven’t tested Quasar on Angstrom, but ofels has a recipe ready. Please check out this thread on OESF:
http://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=24839&view=findpost&p=169110
Also, if you’ve got Qt3 and a working GCC running on Angstrom, you can also compile Quasar yourself, if you’ve got experience with compiling apps.
Thank you! Thank you!
I quickly discovered that kino2 has a limit of 33 files per playlist. When I went looking for why, I found Quasar. It immediately sucked in a 128-file playlist. Keep up the great work!
Great work, I’ve been trying to find a media player to put on my old Zaurus so i can give it to my wife, very functional, looks great, and is easy to use. Thanks for releaseing the source :).
Awesome works!
To our regret, I have not used Zaurus any longer. But, I was really surprised.
It says again. Awesome works!!!
I love this thing !!
It rocks…. seems better than kino2 from the playing I have done.
I think I have a couple of things I would like to have it do also though.
Thank you.
This is an excellent media player for Zaurus! Thanks for your great work.
Hi,
Firstly I’d like to say that this software is excellent and along with the fixes you’ve made to the audio is the answer to some of the issues I’ve been having with my Zaurus.
You should get yourself a Paypal account because I for one would donate.
I would like to make a feature request
- Random Album
I know it sounds silly but a lot of music I listen to are albums which are designed to be listed to from start to finish so I’d love the ability to randomly select an album from a dynamic playlist.
Thanks,
Stephen
I’d be really grateful if you could make this accessible to qvga zaurus users!
@JB and @slewis69au, I’ve added your requests to my Trac.
And for everybody else that feels the desire to donate something I’ve added a link to the site’s PayPal account above.
Would it be easy to make a mac os x binary?
I tried (using fink to install qt3 libs), but without success … lots of errors, starting with
/usr/include/string.h:81: error: ‘size_t’ has not been declared
Thanks for any help
Actually I am developing Quasar on OS X using the Qt3 libs of Fink. However, I haven’t updated my Fink installation in quite a while, so perhaps some things have changed. Also I got Quasar running on qt3-mac once, so there is no need to use X11, but that is no longer working.
Right now I am finishing features for the next release so I don’t have much time to try anything new.
Do you have the Qt4 libs installed? Perhaps it’s colliding with the Qt3 stuff.
export QTDIR=”/sw/lib/qt3″
What does
ls -la /sw/bin/qmake /sw/bin/moc
print?
You can send me the complete log of the compile if you like. That way I can check it out. Just check “About” above for my contact details. Thanks.
Thank you very much for your kind reply.
I was trying with qt3-mac, that’s probably why it didn’t work.
I got it compiled today (with qt3, qt3-shlibs, and ccache from fink).
Best regards