| Introduction. |
| |
| A number of programs have been written which access the Silicon |
| Graphics CD-ROM player. These programs all use the interface defined |
| in readcd.py (see readcd.doc for documentation). |
| |
| Specifying music stretches. |
| |
| The programs that are capable of reading music CD's all use the same |
| syntax to describe which part of the CD is to be read. The syntax |
| closely corresponds to the available methods in readcd.py. |
| |
| The music to be read is divided into stretches of music. Each stretch |
| must be specified as a separate argument on the command line. A |
| stretch can be a whole CD track, specified as a single number; or it |
| can be a start time and a end time. The start and end times must be |
| specified as a tuple, thus: ``(starttime, endtime)''. Don't forget to |
| quote the parenthesis to the shell. Both starttime and endtime can be |
| ``None'', a simple number which refers to a CD track, or a tuple |
| consisting of either 3 or 4 elements. A starttime of ``None'' refers |
| to the start of the CD, an endtime of ``None'' refers to the end of |
| the CD. A tuple of 3 elements is an absolute time on the CD. The |
| three elements are (minutes, seconds, frames). A tuple of 4 elements |
| is a track-relative time. The four elements are (track, minutes, |
| seconds, frames). |
| |
| When one stretch ends at the end of a track and the following stretch |
| starts at the next track, there is the option of either playing or not |
| playing the pause between the two tracks. When either the end time of |
| the first stretch or the start time of the second stretch is specified |
| using absolute or track-relative times, the pause will not be played. |
| When both times are specified as simple track numbers, the pause will |
| be played. |
| |
| If no stretches are specified, the whole CD will be played. |
| |
| The programs. |
| |
| Currently, the following programs exist. |
| playcd [ stretch specification ] |
| Play (part of) a CD through the system loadspeaker or |
| headphone set. |
| cdaiff [ file [ stretch specification ] ] |
| Copy (part of) a CD to a file. The file will be written in |
| AIFF format. If no file is specified, cdaiff will write to |
| the file ``@'' in the current directory. |