Sorry, my brain's been on vacation for a few days... Here's the answers I can give you:
The A/V contractors that he's been referred to all push the fully integrated Creston approach, but I can't implement all of what he wants in one shot like they can, so it helps me to break things up a bit.
Actually you can, but that will demand a lot of homework first. Crestron is turnkey, yes, but that's because they normally program it before they install it. And they have a rather large base of unit setyps to choose between. But so does the combination of NetRemote and Girder.
Also, his speakers are all wired directly to his media room, so driving them locally would require some contractor coming in to rip open the walls to splice the speaker wire to enable that to happen. Not that big a deal, but not something I want to have him do unless absolutely needed. After all it was wired perfectly for a Crestron system! :-)
Not a problem. Get a bunch of cheap (why not used?) receivers or integrated amps, perferably with remote control. Then set the volume of those amps in such a matter that full volume from the sound card and MC doesn't blow the speakers or the house owner's ears (well, if he's like me, it will probably be his wife's ears that decides it...). Then you can use MC's internal volume control, so there's no need for any extra complications. Fire the output from the sound cards directly into those amps, and you're good to go. Remember that one five channel amp will give you two stereo zones and one mono zone, so it doesn't have to be that expensive. And you can put up touch screen panels with NetRemote (preferably based on some 32 bit Windows version or a later model CE) to control it, or even use cheap IR remotes with a remote extender (like the X-10 Powermid) to send the IR signal to the place you have the computers and the IR receiver. That way you won't have to see any computres or stuff in that room. Also you can use my system for choosing playlists, together with the plug-in for play list creation and XML Export to make printouts, so anybody can look up any album in that printout and simply punch in the necessary digits (like in my systems punching 666 will play Merciful Fate's Don't Break the Oath (classical black metal, of course...). Then the only thing needed in the room is the IR remote, the printout and the IR extender. Very neat and wife friendly!
Mastiff, thanks very much for your explanations - they help a lot. I too have found PC's to be very reliable, even running windows, if you strip off excess software and dedicate them to a single function. Then they work OK, and computers are cheap enough these days, even quite powerful ones that there is no reason to combine functions.
Exactly the way I think, even though I do have dual functions on my multi-zone computers - one is also the main server on the net and the other one is a home theater PC as well.
Using a full ATX system should have room for about 4 PCI sound cards, but I could go USB connected if needed to get the channel count up. 8 cards is a bit much, but are you saying that I can get 8 pairs of line outs by using 3 5.1 cards and not use the kX drivers? I have no experience with multiple sound card configs so this is shaky ground for me.
No, I'm saying that
with the kX drivers you can get three zones (or pairs of line outs) from each 5.1 card, so three cards is nine zones, and four is 12. I don't know how high it's possible to go, though. And yes, you can use cheap USB sound cards as well, I use one for music to the HT (since I don't want to go into the receiver's menu and set it to stereo instead of surround I have another optical SPDIF out connected to it, so I simply choose a different input, with the sound set to stereo when playing music.
I see what you are getting at by using SPDIF inputs and muting to get synced sound - you basically play nothing in a zone, but unmute the digital in to get the zone 1 sound playing elsewhere. I guess you could use this for paging too, which could be helpful (my next project with him is to use homeseer for some lighting and HVAC control that the Crestron guy wants him to use other technology for).
Can netremote present a clean interface for this kind of zone synchronization? The configs I have seen so far don't seem to present a UI that does this sort of thing, but I haven't pursued this element in depth yet.
Yes, it can be used for paging and just about anything you want to. The two main limitations when it comes to a setup with NetRemote and Girder are really your imagination and your ability to implement it. The first part I can't help you with, but the second part is easy to get help with, go to the NetRemote and Girder boards at
www.promixis.com, there's a lot of helpful people there. And NetRemote can present a clean interface for just about anything, perhaps except for taking out the trash...
It all depens on how you want to do it. Creating setups is pretty easy, really.
I have heard that MC11 might support this kind of synchronization in a more elegant way - does anyone here have more authoritative info on whether or not it will?
Yes, it does support zone sync, but I haven't been able to get it good enough, if you need 100 % sync. If a few tenths of a second doesn't bother you (like playing the same music in the bathroom and the living room in a party) then it's ready.
Also, he does have the CAT5 wiring to support IR backhaul for volume control, so I can make that work if needed. But if he has a bunch of netremote clients (one in each zone), I assume that can be handled with wifi and not backhauling IR. I think making playlists and selecting them in different zones with traditional IR remotes seems a little complicated for my friend, and if he can pay for a few dell axim's that run NR, I think that would be an easier way to do room control. Also, this would obviate the need to cut into the wall to add a pad for local volume control too.
But of course! For the money he saves not buying Crestron I'm sure he can get a house full of Axims! And having them in the cradle means that they can be running all the time, so there's no connect delay at all. Of course you will then map the volume buttons for every Axim to control the main volume in the zone they're mounted in. And you can use for instance Arkon car holders as wall holders if you don't want to have the cradle, but I would suggest putting the cradle on a small shelf or something.
I just wish I could point him at a contractor that can do this and support it, but he's enough of a friend that I don't want to see him pay 10X what he needs to for a lot less functionality, and I know he's going to want changes that will cost a lot of money to implement if he went the Crestron approach, and I don't want to learn how to program a Crestron system either. :-(
Then you're a better friend than most! And Crestron is quickly becoming old school, but of course custom installers don't want to listen to that, since they make a lot of money both supporting and creating those systems. If everybody could make their own systems with NetRemote and Girder, they would loose a lot of money...
Again, thanks for the replies and thanks in advance for continuing to help me. If I do convince him to go this route, then I'll document what I do so the path will be easier for the next guy.
No problem, and you could have him look at my page, at what I have done (even though it hasn't been updated for a few months), I would say that it tells a lot about what's possible with this combination.
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Topic: Multizone support questions from a prospective user (Read 3802 times)