One thing I wish for a future release is the ability to stream the output from one MC client, to be played on another client.
The problem: I have MC12 installed on my server, my Laptop, and a few other PC's around the house.
There is a Roland sound card on my server with 'line out' patched to my living room Amplifier. (I also have headphone out + TV Out modulated as a Nicam Stereo Cable TV channel, so I can listen in stereo on any TV in the house!)
Currently I use a MS Remote Desktop session to control Media Center, which works '
OK'. Limitations are that the server screen is diverted to the laptop, and DirectX doesn't work, so it is not possible to display Video or Images at the server (& therefore on my 'private TV channel'!). But this is acceptable if you mostly are interested in Audio.
The Remote Desktop solution however is not easy enough to pass W.A.T. (wife acceptance test!), so the only other solution to control MC on the server is to use Remote Server, which is incredibly basic, rather unfriendly and unintuitive, and has not been improved since
forever. Even if with a huge amount of time invested, Remote Server will never be an elegant solution for controlling a remote Media Center installation, and of course developing it further would inevitably stop Remote Server working with PDA's and other very thin clients.
The Solution?So.. if there was a possibility for my Server Media Center / Media Server to act as a 'Zone', this might be a simpler option, instead of extending the very basic remote control functionality?
In other words, when opening a client instance of MC that is by default loading its media library from a library server, it would be great if you could also optionally stream the output via that servers own sound card. (
optionally, since often you would want to play the output to the client, as originally intended)
I guess there are many ways to crack this, but my dream is to enable others in my family to control the media on our server, using a local install of Media Center connected to the library server, using Theater view. When pressing play, (or as a menu choice) they would then see an easily accessible menu choice to output the resulting stream to the Server
OR to the installed MC client.
Any other takers for this?