Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[linden_arden]

As long as I have been fooling around with mp3s I have been fooling around with whole house audio.  I have been researching the topic for a while and a cheap and easy solution that fits my needs just hasn't come around yet.  The problem always seems to come down to cost, wiring, and 100% synchronization of the zones. 

I started doing a little more research about the topic here and, of course, stumbled onto Mastiffs' writings.  His solution, as I understand it, is to drive several sound cards on one computer and send their output to the input of another sound card inside another computer.  It is certainly one of the most creative solutions I have come across, and I will be testing it out in the near future. 

However, his solution is still wired, and I have been brainstorming how to come up with a wireless or 'less-wired' solution.   Consider this: a media server drives several USB sound cards, which then drive speakers throughout the house.  Obviously, in a traditional setup, you are going to have tons of USB wire running everywhere.  That is the case, unless you could control a USB device over IP.  Then you could connect a USB sound card to any networked computer and then have the media sever control that sound card via IP.  Or, you could have a sound card attached to a networked USB port powering a reciver and speakers without needing a computer in the location.  Obviously, if your network were wireless, you would now have wireless whole house audio.

Good news and bad news.  The good news is that I think this is possible.  There is an open source software project developing USB over IP (http://usbip.naist.jp/), but the bad news is it doesn't look like there is a working version out yet.  More good news is that there is a networked USB server on the market (http://www.everythingusb.com/hardware/index/Keyspan_USB_Server.htm), and it runs around $100.  There are also more of these products coming to market soon, from what I have read.  Eventually they will be wireless as well, I'm sure. 

The last bit of bad news is, who knows if this solution would work?  I'm sure there would still be all sorts of problems to deal with, like delays, etc.  But, nonetheless, it seems promising. 

Again, this is just some random brainstorming I was doing.  Just throwing the idea out there.  Has anyone tried anything like this or have any additional information or insights to over? 

[cncb]

I'm not sure what advantage this would have.  If you have networked computers, why wouldn't you just run Media Center on each and directly output to the sound card instead of controlling the USB sound card from another computer?  Also, how would you do the sync?  I think you are better off just sending the audio signal wirelessly from the server in this case.  There are a number of devices that already do this (Terk Leapfrog, etc) and I think more to come.