This looks very promising.  Are you planning on working with extenders at all?  I'm planning on having a zone for outdoor speakers which this application sounds perfect for.  But what should I do about our speakers in the kitchen?  I was planning on controlling them through an extender (XBOX360) connected to a wall mounted LCD.  Would your application be able to remotely control an extender as well?

Unfortunately I wont be able to test until May when we move into our new house with this setup.

Thanks,
-Bill

sent you a email,

loooks very good, i think ALOT of people have been waiting for a app like this, and like bill said extender(360) support is a must

do you have a list of support sound cards that will work

Hi bbseven
I hadn't really thought about Extenders as they're not available here in Ireland  except for the Xbox. That said, Extender support is now on the wish list.

Hi CaMs
The application has been successfully tested on soundcards that were to hand including SoundBlaster PCI, TurtleBeach PCI, Trust PCI, Intel Mobo integrated, ADI Mobo Integrated and unbranded USB sound boxes (from Maplin). Analogue, digital coax and digital optical outputs tested. In theory, as long as the sound card and drivers are installed, and the device(s) is (are) selectable as a Default device in Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices - Voice  - Voice playback, the application should be able to use it.

masbe,

I absolutely applaud your efforts with this, there is most definitely a gap in this area for many MCE enthusiasts.

After much consideration, I pulled the trigger and bought a (4) Zone Sonos system last night. That handheld wireless controller was too much for me to ignore. Hopefully SideShow remote will offer similar features for an MCE based system with something like the software you're working on.

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Randy Harris
http://www.MacSeven.com

masbe:

Hi CaMs
The application has been successfully tested on soundcards that were to hand including SoundBlaster PCI, TurtleBeach PCI, Trust PCI, Intel Mobo integrated, ADI Mobo Integrated and unbranded USB sound boxes (from Maplin). Analogue, digital coax and digital optical outputs tested. In theory, as long as the sound card and drivers are installed, and the device(s) is (are) selectable as a Default device in Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices - Voice  - Voice playback, the application should be able to use it.

Brain sounds good
Are you familair with KX drivers (http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/index.php?language=en)?

Im not sure on whats required for these drivers to work in MCE, but they would allow us to get 3-4 zones from one sound card...i know xlobby uses this for there zoned audio but it uses winamp as the backend, im not sure if this can be configured to work on windows media player..

CaMs:

Are you familair with KX drivers (http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/index.php?language=en)?

Yeah, looked into it but actively decided against it as it was felt to be too limiting in terms of hardware requirements.

Beta1 has been released. Those who requested it have been emailed a link to download it.

If you'd like the Beta, email mzaudiobeta at purplefoundry.com

Bye for now!

Great stuff!

Testing with Creative SoundBlaster Live 5.1 and Chaintech AV-710 (Envy24).  Works great!!!!  I've got the SoundBlaster with the local PC speakers (Zone 1) because I was getting some major interference with it running outside of the room (the card is crap to start with, and I'm using crappy cables on top of that).

Audio sync is right on.  No noticable difference between the two zones when running in Party Mode!  I was expecting a little bit upfront, but I was wrong.

A few things that need to be checked...

Zone1 turned out to be my zone for Party Mode playback, not Zone0 as noted in the Help.

I believe that you have to click "Party Mode" while nothing is playing for it work correctly.  If content is currently playing in my Zone1 it had to be stopped before Party Mode would take affect.  Clicked Party Mode and then clicked what I wanted to play and it would work great.  This took a few minutes to get down.

ffdshow issues can be fixed by disabling it from decoding MP3.  Open ffdshow audio decoder configuration from the start menu, click Codecs, and disable MP3.  MultiZone Media Server should now default to using l3codecx.ax to decode (I believe).

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Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

Any way to control the content playing in each room, from that room, w/o having a pc in that room?  How about this in-wall unit posted on Chris's blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2007/02/27/622667.aspx ? Forseeable?

bledsoe:

Any way to control the content playing in each room, from that room, w/o having a pc in that room?  How about this in-wall unit posted on Chris's blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2007/02/27/622667.aspx ? Forseeable?

Seems kind of like something that ACS would have to work to get going, they currently use RS-232 for control.

You can currently control it using the built-in web UI, so basic PocketPC access is already there.  It might not be keypad support, but one step at a time is always good. 

A few more little bugs while I'm avoiding doing my work. 

--System Tray "Pause All" doesn't work.

--Stopping Party Mode stops all Zones.  It would be cool if there could be some settings if what to stop when you do this.  For example I might want the ability to keep a specific zone playing after trying off Party Mode.  Right now, I would have to open the application back up and select what to play in that zone.

--"Pause All"/"Play All" seems to kick the audio back a few milliseconds-to-seconds based on how long it stays paused.  Stays in sync once playback occurs, but it does seems to jump back a bit.  "Stop" and then "Play" exbits the same.

--Need Artist ID3 tag to be correctly displayed somewhere.  Album is there, Title is too.  But Artist is seems to be sometimes displayed on the Album line (seems like it might be using Composer though).  Could really use it's own field for "Album Artist" being the best to use.

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Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

I definitely like the idea of keypad support, especially the one in  your blog with a readout...seems the most practical.  I didn't even think of pocket-pc web access though...so now I'm excited.  I'm starting to plan now...can't wait to try it!

@Chris
Glad you like it and happy to hear it's working (and in sync) on hardware it hadn't been tested on - which is exactly as intended

"...things that need to be checked" added to the list

Party Mode. Yeah! Thought about what would be the best way to have it function and figured it wasn't worth spending too much time pondering it at this early stage. The documentation needs to be improved!

And thanks for the feedback on ffdshow

@bledsoe
Control has been on the agenda from day one. Old, current (including ACS) and emerging technologies have been and are being considered. As Chris said, browser control is there now.

@All
If anyone has any preferences for control, let me know. Demand will dictate what's available when.

B

I totally understand the early limitations on control.  I'm ordering a new sound card when I return home from travel to start testing this app.  A couple of questions.  When you say this release is limited to 4 zones, I assume 1 is the host computer.  Does this have to be installed on a MCE machine?  I would like to run it on my home server which hosts all my music.  Secondly, if a potential "zone" already has a networked computer running there, how about a client app to install on that computer in that zone.  This would eliminate the need for an additional sound card and wire to the speakers.  Your softward would just tell the client what to play as long as the client had network access to the same library on the host computer.  Maybe this is already how it works - sorry if so.

I will be doing a lot of searching for possible control solutions.

Something like the Fujitsu Stylistic 3400 - check ebay for info - would be ideal...would provide wi-fi access for control, but could be permanently mounted in a wall or such.

Brain, So far its works good(very good for a beta) Im also having the problems chris mentioned, If possible can you add all the tag info(title,artist & album) while using the browser?

Im ordering a another sound card this week, but has anyone with a KX soundcard test this yet? It would be great to get this working with KX driver's - so we dont need all these cards in our PCs.

One more thing about the browser, i see its pointing to a default.htm file, can we edit this with our own design(kinda like a skin but using HTML) this can be a temp solution on getting it into our MCE GUI to control zones thanks again for this well needed APP, looking to the next version already ;)