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[benn600]

How do zones work and are they only in MC 12?  I can't seem to find them in MC 11.1.  Do zones or another feature offer any way to play music on other computers remotely?  I would like to be able to control all the MC programs in my house as long as it is open -- and name each to make it easy to figure out.  Is there also a way to sync the music so it lines up correctly without a little delay?

[britade]

Hi benn600,

Look under the Player | Playback Options | Zone Manager... menu option.   This allows you to create, delete, activate and synchronise zones.   You can then switch between zones using CTRL-T to toggle between the zones or alternatively select them off the Playback Options menu.

Britade.

[benn600]

When I add a zone, it does nothing!  I was hoping there would be a way to add a zone that would link with another running MC on the same network and then I could control it and play the same or different music on each zone (or computer).  When I add one, it just adds a zone but they seem to be worthless.  What is the next step?

[Yaobing]

The idea is to play in different zones from the same instance of MC. You choose a zone to play a song, then choose another zone to play something else (while the first song is playing in the first zone).

What is the next step?

Configure each zone to output to desired device.

[britade]

benn600 has raised an interesting feature request though.   It would be handy to be able to synchronise music between MC instances on the same network.  This would be similar to the functionality provided by Sonos which allows several zone players to be synchronised playing the same music.

I for one would love to see this feature introduced to MC as it would allow me to have MC on the 3 PCs in the house and get whole house audio.  When combined with like NetRemote, you have a system which is very similar in functionality to Sonos.

Is it worth posting this as a separate feature request for MC12?

[benn600]

Yea, I see that you can configure different sound card outputs...but that would mean a lot of running of cable.  We put in ethernet all over many years back and I still rely on those cables we ran through the atic and under the carpet.  I hate wireless if it isn't necessary.  I like ethernet because one cable really does a lot -- video, audio, internet, and so on...vs. two RCA cables which would take a lot of space and only get you audio--stereo, too, instead of many flac streams or dolby digital audio--etc.

I was kind of thinking this feature already existed but I guess not!

[britade]

Do you have spare Ethernet cables around?   Although I still prefer your first idea, it is possible to run audio (and video for that matter) over Cat5.  See http://www.kat5.tv/index1.html.

In fact, you may well be able to distribute it over the cable directly without using these modules.  If I remember rightly, the Kat5 modules turn the signal into balanced signals for distribution to cut down on interference.

[hit_ny]

It would be handy to be able to synchronise music between MC instances on the same network.  This would be similar to the functionality provided by Sonos which allows several zone players to be synchronised playing the same music.

Yes, i think its a decent request for 12.

Instead of Pull, that media server uses, push to different players. Sounds like a small modification to zones, you can already push different sounds to different zones anyway.

[benn600]

Here's what I would like to see:

Upon opening the zones page, it would have a button to scan for other running MC's.  It would search the network and then offer a checkbox type window where you could check computers you want to add as zones.  Then, offer auto naming conventions such as IP address, computer name, MC library name, or random sequence numbers (1,2,3,4).

Then, you could play things to each zone independently or all at the same time with something to keep it in sync!  I have always wanted a way to play music over my other computers (which I have got) but with an added sync method that would keep everything in very close sync.  You would think with a big pipe such as 100Mb ethernet there would be no delays at all and it shouldn't have any trouble keeping sync.

[britade]

What I'd really like is MC split as follows:

- GUI application (just used to control MC)

- MC ZonePlayer (to pinch Sonos terminology) which would run as a Windows Service and do the business of playing audio

- MC Media Library again another Windows Service, doing pretty much what Media Library currently does (but allowing updates as well).

This would have a number of advantages:

(1) You could install MC ZonePlayer on several PCs around the house.  These would appear as separate zones allowing you to implement whole house audio over the network.

(2) The GUI could be used from any user account on any machine to control what is playing in the various zones.  This is useful for the whole house audio example above. 

(3) Splitting the GUI and audio playing portions would also solve the problem that it is not currently possible to control MC from another local user account when using Fast User Switching.  This causes no end of trouble when my wife switches user to check her eBay listings leaving us with no way to control MC (Yes, I know she could use the web interface but this isn't intuitive not feature rich).

OK, I realise I'm day dreaming here.  However, it would make for a very powerful multizone system.  Unfortunately, I guess this would require a fair amount of rearchitecting of the current code, so we're unlikely to see this happen (at least not any time soon).

[benn600]

I definitely prefer the service method.  I had forgotten about that!  I have LogMeIn running on every computer in my house and that is so handy to just be able to log on whenever the computer is on--same as being able to JUST play music when the computer is on.  No hassles!  Nice to scare people, too.  I wouldn't think there would be a whole lot of changing of code--just a new, small program to accept audio and then something to send it from MC.

[aperkin]

This is EXACTLY what I've been looking for... as I would like to use our laptops to synch music all over the house during parties.  I was hoping that the JRiver Media Center had it.  I came up with a kludge way of doing it using WinAmp, Shoutcast, SlimServer and Softsqueeze...  Well, I'll keep looking around but I'll keep an eye out to see if MC12 gets this function.

benn600 has raised an interesting feature request though.   It would be handy to be able to synchronise music between MC instances on the same network.  This would be similar to the functionality provided by Sonos which allows several zone players to be synchronised playing the same music.

I for one would love to see this feature introduced to MC as it would allow me to have MC on the 3 PCs in the house and get whole house audio.  When combined with like NetRemote, you have a system which is very similar in functionality to Sonos.

Is it worth posting this as a separate feature request for MC12?