Zoned Audio (1 Viewer)

[hwahrmann]

Sure it can work.
Basically, i can play any number of streams using ASIO in Kernel mode.
however the current architecture of MP simply prevents that.
we have it on our drawboard for a future release, not top priority, but it is there.
don't ask me, when it'll come, i simply don't know.
of course, i'll do things first, which i myself will use.

 

[Jean-Marc]

I don't understand.
I plan to use one MP client in each room (everything connected with a star ethernet connection) and I want also to plug Hard Disks (RJ45 with MP3, films, etc...) to share their contents between the different clients.
If the client in bedroom 1 aks for a song, another client in bedroom 2 will not have access to another music (or the same song)???
Thank you to explain , this is very important!

 

[Marcusb]

Jean Marc, the way you plan to use MP is the only way this will work, and to me ssems like the most practical way.
If you don't want a client in each room, then the other option, which the OP is after, is to be able to have one MP machine directing music to many different zones. At this stage, this isn't possible in MP.

 

[Jean-Marc]

Thank you very much Marcusb for your explaination.

Now I understand vey well the difference between the 2 configurations, and obviously I plan to have independant clients in each room!

Can you also confirm me that RJ45 HD is enough (no need for a PC as server, except for TV; am I right?)

Thanks again.

 

[Marcusb]

normal RJ45 should be all you need.
Most people are fine with running via wireless so 100Mb/s will work well.
I have three PC's running over a standard wired lan at home, all fed from the server and all is good.
I don't use the TV server yet, so all clients have their own TV cards, but multpiple users can watch a movie on the server's hard drive and never have any stuttering.
You can even watch recorded DTV (a 1hr show is around 1.5Gb) across the network with no issues.

 

[hobbes487]

Just want to express my interest in zoned audio as well! This would definitely set MP apart from other media centers.

cams:

There will be in wall touchscreens in each location with its own speakers

how would connect the touchscreens all to the same server? just clone the screen on each of the touchscreens, so they would all display the same thing?

 

[druid9]

Correction, the all in one unit I was thinking of was from Fujitsu, not Hitachi as I mentioned previously, see here

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/fujitsu-tx-series-allinone-media-center-166469.php

 

[cams]

Bump, is this planned for MP II

 

[KUL]

Hey Guys,

First post and just re-discovered MP. I have distributed audio "ADA" system in the house which I currently control via touchscreens and interfacing with a music player program called J River Media Center. J River has a complete set of core commands for control/feedback AND allows for multiple sound card streams. So from a touchscreen I can select/control and get feedback from Media Stream 1 or 2 or 3 and this information reflects globally on all touchscreens.

That being said many times touchscreens are overkill and I am looking for a good remote control/On screen system to simplify use in certain areas of the house...such as the family room or Bedroom.

The biggest hold back/hole/missing link I've found in all media center style systems is that "My Music" is always expected to be for local playback from that particular PC. That may be fine for a very small house or condo but in larger homes with 8 or 16 audio zones where all the equipment and server are in a rack down in the basement it simply does not work. What we really need is the onscreen control/feedback of music playback from a remote PC via Network or IP or port or whatever.

Here is a typical setup

In the rack:
Music Server directly connected to Distributed AV as a source
Distributed AV equipment
Shared Music NAS for file storage
All CD's are ripped to the NAS via whatever music player from any PC location
In a given room I have a HTPC movie player I use for streaming HDD movies so putting the MP onscreen is a non issue.

So again the missing link here is an onscreen menu system which works the same as "My Music" except it is sending/controlling the Playback/Feedback commands across the network to the Media Server in the rack. If I select music to play from the master library it is not play locally...it is play remotely.

Since this can easily be done via touchscreens, I'm wondering why this is such an obvious missing link in the onscreen control systems.

I am assuming that when hwahrmann says "yes it can be done" that this is exactly what we are talking about...but just needs some 'motivation"?

I'm not a .net or VB programmer. Is hwahrmann the one to discuss and build something like this?

 

[driezl]

Hello,

First of all - as this is my first post on the forum - I would like to congratulate the mediaportal team for the amazing product they are producing. I've been using and testing mediaportal for some time now and compared it to many other media center software. Mediaportal has by far the most features and flexibility when it comes to choices of hardware p.e. Thanks and keep up the good work !!

Now, to the point of zoned audio:
There are many different ways to architect a multi-zone audio setup in a single PC setup:
What you will always have is at one end the music, radio, CD-streams playing (=the sources) and at the other end soundcard(s) connected to amp(s) (=the zones).
It's everything in between (the routing between) the sources and the zones that can be handled differently.
there is software (like JRiver or Winamp with a plugin) that allows to play one stream to one or more zones of your choice. Playing to more zones 'simultaniously' will likely produce an out-of-sync listening experience (annoying when zones are close to each other) though.
the out-of-sync outputs can be tackled by using a multi-channel soundcard that allows routing on the card.
I have a 4 source (playing simultaniously), 5 zone setup with perfect zone sync. Here is how it works:
I have soundcard 1 that allows to output 8 channels (4 stereo pairs) and 1 s/pdif output
I have soundcard 2 that has 6 input channels (3 stereo pairs), 1 s/pdif input, 8 output channels (4 stereo pairs connected to a multi-channel amp) and 1 s/pdif output (connected to my surround amp)
the outputs of soundcard 1 (=the sources) are connected to the inputs of soundcard 2. With the soundcard 2 software I can route whatever input to whatever output (=the zones).
Only problem with this setup is that there's no integrated software solution supporting all of this (I found expensive software though that does it, being with a proprietary multi-channel soundcard). Technically it is possible and if I had the time I would help out mediaportal with this one.

Now, one first step in the good direction for mediaportal to support this setup is to allow playing TV, Radio, music, CD ... simultaniously. Mediaportal already allows for selecting different sound cards for the different 'modules' like television, DVD, music, ... but wihout the possibility to play the 'modules' simultaniously I don't really see the use of this.
Reflecting all of this in the interface is yet something else, I know, but Rome hasn't been build in one day neither, has it ?

Does this make any sense to the mediaportal development team ?