Sorry, I apologize, I was totally off track. You're right. It does, and to perfection! This will make for some interesting posts, like the one I could truthfully write now: "Listening to Alphaville in the bedroom, Anvil in the living room and Andrea Bocelli in the bathroom".
So playback not only works, it works flawlessly (at least the first couple of tracks that I had time to hear). But the control issue is a bit more complicated. Because the main problem there is that I need to be able to control all aspecs from a remote, without ever turning on a monitor. The thing from a home automation veiwpoint (which is my viewpoint) is that it should be possible to assign remote commands in such a way that when you press stop on the remote that's programmed (via Girder, of course) for the living room, this should stop playback in the living room. And the same should apply for every other remote command. Right now it stops the active zone (the one you'll se in the MC window).
One way to do this would be to have multi group commands that first selects the correct zone and then stops playback, but this might give a time lag (how long I do not yet know, since I can't try it yet because of the way you change between zones, see below). Another way could be to use command line commands, like "media jukebox.exe -z1 -stop" or something. But I don't know if this would mean a time lag as well. The best way would probably be to make the Girder plugin (or MC itself) accept command messages that in plain text would be like "zone 1 stop", without ever having to change the active zone.
Now if I have understood this correctly (and I believe I have), you change between zones with one key combination that toggles zones. I'm confident that this solution is temporarily, since home automation/remote control with a multigroup command at the very least needs the ability to select the zone you want to control (probably in a key combination with numbers to select the zone). But then again if the ability to accept commands directed at a certain zone is implemented, this is not necessary.
The final issue is selecting playlists via a remote. This is probably best done with the command line method (media jukebox.exe d:\playlists\999.m3u). As for choosing tracks/albums via NetRemote/Web Remote it now displays the active zone, but I guess it should be quite easy to implement a "change zone" command in Web Remote (I
guess since I'm not and have never been a programmer. On my best days I consider myself a power user, but no programmer in any way, shape or form).
Anyway, all my nagging and nitpicking aside, this is the first application that can replace the really expensive hardware multi zone sound systems from ADA and such companies. I guess my switch to MJB a year or so ago was the smart move I hoped!
So keep up the good work, this is getting ever closer to a home automation fan's dream!
Author
Topic: Introducing: MULTI-ZONE PLAYBACK !!! (Read 3312 times)