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[mattkhan]

NB: I'm not sure if this an MC issue or a jremote issue or both, I suspect it is an MC issue because of the MCWS response hence posting in this forum.

JRemote has an option for "app follows server zone" which allows jremote to track the active zone. This seems like it should allow jremote to consistently work as a volume control for a system using internal volume however it doesn't when that system uses the WDM driver as the active zone is not updated when the wdm driver fires up. It behaves more like the active zone is the zone a user last played something to.

To reproduce in my system, I can do the following;

configure 2 zones, say music and wdm
configure jremote to follow the active zone
add exclusive zoneswitch rules so library content goes to music and the wdm driver goes to the wdm zone
play something from the library, music zone is activated
goto http://mc:port/MCWS/v1/Playback/Zones and check which zone is active (Item.@name="CurrentZoneID" should point to the id of the music zone)
check jremote, it should be tracking the music zone
stop playback
play something on the PC which activates the WDM zone
goto http://mc:port/MCWS/v1/Playback/Zones , the CurrentZoneID has not updated
check jremote, it is still on the music zone

I would have thought the active zone should update when the WDM driver fires up.

I'm not entirely sure what the active zone means if you allow multiple active zones (e.g. if you have multiple physical output devices) though albeit that seems like a side effect of the zones for DSP config vs zones for physical output issue.

user impact = difficult to find a reliable way (for a non technical user at least) to use the volume control

[RD James]

I think it's intentional that the WDM driver does not set itself as the active zone, as many of us use this for 'background' audio local to the PC rather than having it play in our main zones.
I cant see how it might be annoying if you're trying to use JRemote to control the volume of it though.

[mattkhan]

some further searching gave me this thread https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=101856.0 in which mwillems mentions that changing the active zone stops video playback which appears to be an issue for those using the internal browser to watch video. Does that feature still work? I thought it had been locked down so it didn't but perhaps I'm misremembering (I don't use that feature).

I guess one approach would be making an advanced option available like "wdm can set active zone", bit of a hack but would do the job (for me anyway)

[mwillems]

You can still watch some video in the internal browser for sure (not so much netflix, but things like youtube) and the WDM stealing focus would break that.  When the WDM driver did steal focus, it was also really irritating when system sounds try to open the WDM (changing the active zone) when you're already doing something in MC (i.e. listening to music in your normal zone or building a playlist).  It's definitely painful for volume control, I know, but the alternative was definitely worse when it worked that way.  I agree its suboptimal if you're only using MC as a processor.

[mattkhan]

You can still watch some video in the internal browser for sure (not so much netflix, but things like youtube) and the WDM stealing focus would break that.  When the WDM driver did steal focus, it was also really irritating when system sounds try to open the WDM (changing the active zone) when you're already doing something in MC (i.e. listening to music in your normal zone or building a playlist).  It's definitely painful for volume control, I know, but the alternative was definitely worse when it worked that way.  I agree its suboptimal if you're only using MC as a processor.

I'm not familiar with that particular setup but wouldn't the sound come out anyway? i.e. something unpleasant happens regardless of the focus switching. I'm assuming the same output device is used by the wdm zone of course.

[mwillems]

I'm not familiar with that particular setup but wouldn't the sound come out anyway? i.e. something unpleasant happens regardless of the focus switching. I'm assuming the same output device is used by the wdm zone of course.

The internal browser doesn't use MC's playback engine at all, it just plays to the default output device (i.e. the WDM driver).  If it stole focus it would immediately stop playback, etc., but you actually want the sound coming out, if that makes sense.

[mattkhan]

Ok so not making it an active zone sounds like it is itself a workaround for that behaviour (whereby the active zone steals focus from the embedded browser).

It sounds like that browser should be a zone as well and/or provide a way to associate the browser with the wdm zone as the playback target.