X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/81dcad91122402117d11ca89e4b0b41e93017f97..5ee2584c6469e6d4e3dd98b13ff5ef44fa65ad0b:/blog/archive/2018/07/index.html diff --git a/blog/archive/2018/07/index.html b/blog/archive/2018/07/index.html index 870595ab9f..1d0a1d7cc1 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2018/07/index.html +++ b/blog/archive/2018/07/index.html @@ -21,6 +21,88 @@

Entries from July 2018.

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+
+ Sharing images with friends and family using RSS and EXIF/XMP metadata +
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+ 31st July 2018 +
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+

For a while now, I have looked for a sensible way to share images +with my family using a self hosted solution, as it is unacceptable to +place images from my personal life under the control of strangers +working for data hoarders like Google or Dropbox. The last few days I +have drafted an approach that might work out, and I would like to +share it with you. I would like to publish images on a server under +my control, and point some Internet connected display units using some +free and open standard to the images I published. As my primary +language is not limited to ASCII, I need to store metadata using +UTF-8. Many years ago, I hoped to find a digital photo frame capable +of reading a RSS feed with image references (aka using the +<enclosure> RSS tag), but was unable to find a current supplier +of such frames. In the end I gave up that approach.

+ +

Some months ago, I discovered that +XScreensaver is able to +read images from a RSS feed, and used it to set up a screen saver on +my home info screen, showing images from the Daily images feed from +NASA. This proved to work well. More recently I discovered that +Kodi (both using +OpenELEC and +LibreELEC) provide the +Feedreader +screen saver capable of reading a RSS feed with images and news. For +fun, I used it this summer to test Kodi on my parents TV by hooking up +a Raspberry PI unit with LibreELEC, and wanted to provide them with a +screen saver showing selected pictures from my selection.

+ +

Armed with motivation and a test photo frame, I set out to generate +a RSS feed for the Kodi instance. I adjusted my Freedombox instance, created +/var/www/html/privatepictures/, wrote a small Perl script to extract +title and description metadata from the photo files and generate the +RSS file. I ended up using Perl instead of python, as the +libimage-exiftool-perl Debian package seemed to handle the EXIF/XMP +tags I ended up using, while python3-exif did not. The relevant EXIF +tags only support ASCII, so I had to find better alternatives. XMP +seem to have the support I need.

+ +

I am a bit unsure which EXIF/XMP tags to use, as I would like to +use tags that can be easily added/updated using normal free software +photo managing software. I ended up using the tags set using this +exiftool command, as these tags can also be set using digiKam:

+ +
+exiftool -headline='The RSS image title' \
+  -description='The RSS image description.' \
+  -subject+=for-family photo.jpeg
+
+ +

I initially tried the "-title" and "keyword" tags, but they were +invisible in digiKam, so I changed to "-headline" and "-subject". I +use the keyword/subject 'for-family' to flag that the photo should be +shared with my family. Images with this keyword set are located and +copied into my Freedombox for the RSS generating script to find.

+ +

Are there better ways to do this? Get in touch if you have better +suggestions.

+ +

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: debian, english. + + +
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+
+
Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP @@ -126,7 +208,7 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
- Tags: debian, english, video. + Tags: debian, english, kodi, video.
@@ -141,7 +223,11 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 12th July 2018
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A while back, I was asked by a friend how to stream the desktop to +

PS: See +the +followup post for a even better approach.

+ +

A while back, I was asked by a friend how to stream the desktop to my projector connected to Kodi. I sadly had to admit that I had no idea, as it was a task I never had tried. Since then, I have been looking for a way to do so, preferable without much extra software to @@ -281,7 +367,7 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address

- Tags: debian, english, video. + Tags: debian, english, kodi, video.
@@ -514,6 +600,38 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address

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