Is this poject dead? Looks like the last time Dan, the author of the app, posted anything was over two months ago. Anything we can do to get this project back on the front burner? Maybe someone with some skills could pick up where Dan left off?

Yeah any updates on this.

Would love to see a mce interface for it, especially if it worked on the xbox360 extender!!

Any news?

Cheers

Gareth

finally able to get it working and use it all the time. the sync is a little off and haven't been able to fix it. trying playing with the time manually but it made it worse. Hope there are some updates soon. i was having problems with gettting the time to work with the client install so i installed the server one on client and just run the client software and it works ok.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to let you all know that I will be restarting development of this add-in shortly.  Accepting feature requests, just send me a message or post here.

Dan

Dan, welcome back! I'm thrilled to hear that you will be picking this project back up.There is a big need for a multizone audio solution where we are not required to spend thousands of dollars and hire a custom installer to install a solutoin. Here's a short list of things I would like to see with the program:

-M-zone on a single computer with a multichannel audio card, or multiple cards
-Integration with russound, niles or other onwall keypads


Here's a link to another forum where someone has created a solution to use a russound system to control J Rivers Media Center v11 and it's multizone abilities. This appears to be a very robust and simple solution for multi zone audio in the HTPC realm. If there were a way to translate this to MCE or create a GUI that controlled the J River solution.

Glad you're back!

I too am thrilled to see this project is being worked on again. 

I agree with MrTybalt in regards to multichannel sound cards.  This is one huge
area that is lacking in Mediacenter right now.

If you need any help with development or testing, please let me know.  Thank you again for starting this project backup

I'm excited about this project as well.  I have attempted (with success) a MCE multi-zone audio setup using a matrix switcher attached via serial server and controlled by touchscreen.  It works well, but having a single PC setup has several obvious advantages (especially price).  Here are a few links:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=728285

And pictures:

http://public.fotki.com/benjh1028/mce-home-automation/

Ben

Interesting :D

I think I'll take a look at the JRiver solution again, it might be easier to write an interface.

Nice setup Ben, quite ingenious :D

Hi Springy,

Hugely interested in this development, I'll be looking closely at this thread in the future !  I hope all goes well.

Cheers,

Richie.

 

Guys -

JRiver Media Center, along with an M-Audio 1010LT sound card, plus an Axim X51v running NetRemote (www.promixis.com) is currently the slickest multi-zone audio solution.  It is also possible to use SlimDevices/Logitech SqueezeBox devices instead of a multi-channel audio card, if you don't have wiring in place to distribute analog audio to multiple zones from your PC.

 

I'm greatly looking forward to Dan's MCE interface -- I want to move to MediaCenter, and it's just plain crazy that they don't offer multi-zone capabilities out of the box.  Ultimately, this seems like it will be a superior solution to JRiver Media Center.

 

- Tim

I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to create a multi zone server using multiple sound cards on a single computer. It would be cheap to use a single machine with multiple sound cards and a matching (cheap?) amp per card. The code could then thread separate players on each sound card zone.

A simple web interface could be created for the client thus enabling multiple clients of different configs to control playback. The amps could be in the server room or at the speaker end depending on what you wanted to run the wires from (amp or soundcard).

Using the IR transmitter, the zone server could turn on off/switch the amps. Too complicated or too simple?

I have played with Java (1.5) code to control multiple sound cards and play different MP3s but that is all I have tried so far.

Any thoughts?

mcrusty:

I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to create a multi zone server using multiple sound cards on a single computer. It would be cheap to use a single machine with multiple sound cards and a matching (cheap?) amp per card. The code could then thread separate players on each sound card zone.

 

The aforementioned J River Media Center does it.  XLobby does it.  And there are a couple of higher end products that interface with J River, like MainLobby and Charmed Quark (the newest version does not require JRiver any longer).

 

I have tried all of them.  They all work to one degree or another.  Currently I am playing with XLobby using touchpad PCs to control a server with an M-Audio Delta 1010LT running 4 "zones."  Unfortunately, NONE of the apps I've tried will play all zones in synch.  So I bought a hardware multizone preamp.  Now I need to control it via RS-232.  XLobby does not do that directly.  The others do, but cost more.  Actually XLobby is free.

Hey Springy

Any new updates on MZone

any new info on a MCE interface..

Im sure me and ALOT of other users would be interested in this

 

I assume this development is dead now as well?

Was a MCE Multi Zoned Audio solution ever finished ?

Cheers