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[jmone]

Phase 3
Combine the working parts into my own speaker design
Sell the design to Jim

You know you will be competing with Matt when it comes to speaker builds!

[jmone]

Split my speaker build off here - Ghetto Wireless Speaker Build

[6233638]

For anyone that is trying to use this with video, I definitely still recommend the Airfoil Speakers client, even though it is not completely reliable with TuneBlade.
I've been doing more latency testing, and Airfoil manages to keep essentially identical sync every time you connect, and it doesn't seem to drift. (at least not over the course of 40 minutes or so)
The best I was able to get Shairport4w to, was either +33ms or -33ms from the target when using a buffer size of 73/74 frames with TuneBlade at 350ms, and this was somewhat variable.
AFS was generally within ±1ms every time I connected.
 
If it helps anyone get video set up in the right ballpark, from my testing the latency of each component seems to be:
Airfoil Speakers: 350ms
TuneBlade: Pretty much spot-on to whatever you specify. (350ms in my case)
Media Center + Hi-Fi Cable (25ms WASAPI buffer size): about 50ms EDIT: About 20-25ms of that seems to be VST plug-ins that I'm using.

My total correction was -770ms for exact sync, and while I don't have concrete information on my display, it should be about 20ms, which is where I got the 50ms for MC+HiFi Cable.
So those numbers may not be exact, and unless you can find a review with tests for your specific display, you'll have to guess how much latency it has (probably in the region of 20-150ms, on the higher end of things if you use interpolation) but it should hopefully be a good starting point.

[Hilton]

TuneBlade have released their own AirPlay WINDOWS client. It worked straight up first go.  Seems to work well so far! (with TuneBlade so far)

http://tuneaero.com/

Hi!

We thought you might be interested in our new AirPlay audio player application which is now available in beta: http://tuneaero.com/

TuneAero supports synchronization, so AirPort Express, Apple TV and other Apple approved speakers and receivers will be in sync.

It's too early, and we'll be adding more features, tweaks and bug fixes in coming days. We would really appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,
The TuneBlade Team

[6233638]

Ah you beat me to it.
I've been in contact with the devs regarding compatibility with AirFoil, and they mentioned that this was in development.
I just received an email from them saying that they had a beta version ready.
 
Hopefully this can replace AirFoil since it also supports sync.

[jmone]

Can't wait to try it out.... but I'm travelling for the next month.  Now if they would also do an Android version as I'm yet to find a good one.

[fitbrit]

Hilton et al:

Can this solution be used in the following ways?:

1) using the Tidal iPad app to play through MC's engine on a PC? No processing done by the iPad - it just acts as an airplay conduit to a dedicated audio PC. The iPad has Airplay built in, of course.

2) Using the Tidal app on a Windows tablet instead of the iPad above. Still playing on the audio PC. In this case, the Windows tablet will need to be the AirPlay "transmitter" and the instance of MC on the Audio PC the AirPlay "receiver".

I will go through this whole thread tomorrow to see if the questions may already have been answered! My goal is to get Tidal to play on audiophile PCs connected to very high end DACs via the WDM or MC's nascent engine, while using a handheld tablet to select the music, and NOT using any form of remote desktop. I DON'T need to sync playback between devices, but I do need lossless playback of Tidal's hifi flac files. Would I be better off with a DLNA solution?

[Hilton]

Hilton et al:

Can this solution be used in the following ways?:

1) using the Tidal iPad app to play through MC's engine on a PC? No processing done by the iPad - it just acts as an airplay conduit to a dedicated audio PC. The iPad has Airplay built in, of course.

2) Using the Tidal app on a Windows tablet instead of the iPad above. Still playing on the audio PC. In this case, the Windows tablet will need to be the AirPlay "transmitter" and the instance of MC on the Audio PC the AirPlay "receiver".

I will go through this whole thread tomorrow to see if the questions may already have been answered! My goal is to get Tidal to play on audiophile PCs connected to very high end DACs via the WDM or MC's nascent engine, while using a handheld tablet to select the music, and NOT using any form of remote desktop. I DON'T need to sync playback between devices, but I do need lossless playback of Tidal's hifi flac files. Would I be better off with a DLNA solution?

If I understand you correctly:

For
1) You won't need tuneblade, just use the iPad to send to an AirPlay client on the PC with the DAC and use MC WDM to the DAC. This will down-sample everything to 44/16bit though because ipad/iPhone airplay doesn't send raw uncompressed streams.
2) You need tuneblade on the tablet to transmit AirPlay to the receiving PC with an Airplay client using MC WDM to DAC. This may end up with higher bit rate and sample rates being sent but it's not confirmed. In my testing it appeared that the Tuneblade server did indeed send 96/24 and it may also do 192/24. Anecdotal evidence on the net suggests that if BOTH the AirPlay server and client support  192/24bit ALAC then the airplay protocol is capable of transmitting it. (possibly FLAC and other formats too providing the server and client can encode/decode - I believe both AirFoil and TuneBlade/TuneAero do support FLAC)

[fitbrit]

Thanks! I started reading the thread from the start, and it seems you've come a long way since you posted the prototype on the Beta board! I will try this out when my tablet arrives. I guess I need to get an AirPlay client asap. I hope I can get this to work - it's not for me, but for my clients. I will be implementing the whole shebang with the goal of syncing throughout my zones.

[6233638]

Can this solution be used in the following ways?:
1) using the Tidal iPad app to play through MC's engine on a PC? No processing done by the iPad - it just acts as an airplay conduit to a dedicated audio PC. The iPad has Airplay built in, of course.

iPad AirPlay output → TuneAero Receiver → MC WDM Driver

2) Using the Tidal app on a Windows tablet instead of the iPad above. Still playing on the audio PC. In this case, the Windows tablet will need to be the AirPlay "transmitter" and the instance of MC on the Audio PC the AirPlay "receiver".

• Tidal App → HiFi Cable → TuneBlade Server
• AirPlay → TuneAero Receiver → WDM Driver

I will go through this whole thread tomorrow to see if the questions may already have been answered! My goal is to get Tidal to play on audiophile PCs connected to very high end DACs via the WDM or MC's nascent engine, while using a handheld tablet to select the music, and NOT using any form of remote desktop. I DON'T need to sync playback between devices, but I do need lossless playback of Tidal's hifi flac files. Would I be better off with a DLNA solution?

Though you don't need sync, using TuneBlade Server to serve audio to AirPlay clients, and using clients which support sync such as licensed hardware or the TuneAero/AirFoil/ShairportSync software-based receivers should give you synced multi-room audio.
The only thing is that you can't adjust the sync on a per-client basis (yet?) so you can't account for say a device which has an additional 20ms latency. (like my TV speakers)
 
AirPlay does lossless 16/44. I'm not sure that higher formats are supported for music playback.

[fitbrit]

Thanks to you too for that, 623*****. I hope the Tidal Flac is not limited by AirPlay's apparent 44/16 specs.

[6233638]

Thanks to you too for that, 623*****. I hope the Tidal Flac is not limited by AirPlay's apparent 44/16 specs.

I think they're only streaming 16/44?

[fitbrit]

Just wanted to say thanks again. I have this working in both scenarios - from an iPad and from a Windows Tablet. I have enabled WDM, but not made it the Windows default device.
Tune Aero uses the WDM, as does the PC app for Tidal if playing directly on the HTPC.
The iPad was trivial, but TuneBlade had its issues for some time, causing all sorts of drop-outs and needing a router reboot too frequently. Then it just settled down by itself.

This thread should be a sticky!

[jmone]

Just did a Win10 Clean Install and now TuneBlade is doing something odd.  I have reset it up from memory so it could be PEBCAK

- When I play content from MC, TuneBlade shows all devices as "Connected" and the Monitor shows Streaming Correctly
- When Stop playing content from MC, TuneBalde shows all the devices cycling between "Connected" and "Buffering", and in the Monitor it cycles between "Connected" and "Connecting" and shows stuff getting streamed even though nothing is being send or heard. 

I've tried in
- MC different Audio Outputs / closing MC
- TuneAero different endpoints (HW Audio & VB-Cable)
- Win Audio different configs

It's like Silence is being sent every second and hence Streaming is toggling On/Off

I'll cross post over at the TuneBlade Forum as well

Thanks
Nathan

[jmone]

All fixed in new version to come!

Hi Nathan,

Thanks for reporting this issue.

We've fixed this in the upcoming release:
http://tuneblade.com/Tuneblade_Installer_1_3_4_0.exe

Please try and let us know.

(The problem happens in earlier version if capturing is being done on a different playback endpoint other than the current system default.)

Thanks,
The TuneBlade Team

[jmone]

Couple of New Releases:
TuneBlade :http://tuneblade.com/Tuneblade_Installer_1_4_0_0.exe It's not on their main web page but was in their forum.  Has some Win10 fixes if you have having issues

TuneAero : If you have not noticed, they have their own Windows Airplay Client to pump Airplay streams to Windows Audio Devices, you can use this to do stuff like:
- Play from an iOS to Media Center (using the MC WDM Driver)
- Play from an iOS devices to the Windows Sound Driver that TuneBlade is using.  Eg this lets you play from one iOS device --> TuneAero --> TuneBlade --> All connected Airplay receivers
- Play from an iOS devices to any other Windows Sound Driver

[jmone]

I had a play with Android Airplay receivers again.  I'm not sure if it the recent updates to TuneAero or AirReceiver and while not perfect it is much better than before!

For each different make/model of Android device, I had to manually tweak the buffer setting in AirReceiver to get them in sync initially but after that they just worked, including turning them on and off, coming in and out of WiFi range etc (note: when coming in and out of range it may start out of sync but quickly synced back up).  TuneBlade Monitor also showed pretty solid stats with few issues, and nothing huge or anything that I noticed audibly.  This was with 1 x Apple Airplay (wired), 3 x Pio Airplay Speakers (one wireless and two wired) and a couple of different Android devices.

I then started adding more Android Devices getting to 6 (total of 10 Airplay Devices) but started to hear issues with sync, dropouts etc (Wifi issues maybe?)

So the combination of TuneBlade and AirReceiver (which also appears as DLNA renderers in MC) is a step forward but I'm looking forward to a more hassle free experience when TuneBlade release an Android Client!

  

[jmone]

FYI - The TuneBlade devs have updated TuneAero to support multiple Airplay Receiver endpoints on a single Windows PC.  As an example the attached pic shows two TuneAero "Airplay Receivers" running on my PC from an iPhone (and how it looks in TuneAero and MC):
- JRiver Media Center (via the WDM driver)
- Whole House (which is the TuneBlade server connected to all available Airplay Receivers)

So you can now expose all your Windows Audio devices as an Airplay Receiver endpoint.

[jmone]

...and another thing that the TuneBlade devs pointed out is you can select in TuneAero multiple Audio Devices per AirPlay receiver. (eg in my above example I could Have my JRiver Media Center Airplay Receiver output both to the MC WDM driver and any other/all of the exposed Audio Devices).

[drmimosa]

Hilton, thank you for this thread. I've been running a Tuneblade house audio system for about a year now, I've got an Apple Airport, a two TuneAero PCs, and a RPi all playing music in sync. 

It's just awesome.

[Hilton]

TuneBlade update

[New Feature] Option to specify any additional delay (upto 500 ms) caused by a DSP or DAC in the receiver output audio chain causing the receiver to be out of sync from the rest of the receivers. TuneBlade will schedule the samples to play early by the configured milliseconds and causing the final output of the receiver to be in sync with other receivers.

[RussellS]

I tried to get this working early last year to get whole house synchronised music but had limited success mainly because at the time I didn't have any hardware Airplay receivers and was relying on AirFoil Speakers software. As my results were less than successful I abandoned it.

However I do now have some hardware Airplay receivers, 2 Pioneer SMA3 WiFi speakers and a Denon AVR and because I have been dissapointed with DLNA in the Pioneers I have now revisited this setup and all I can say is WOW. I am now playing music from MC21 via Tuneblade to all three devices with perfect sync. The only problem now is controlling Tuneblade to switch the devices on or off as my MC server is running headless in another room. It would be nice if a plugin existed for MC to use the Tuneblade API so that all the control could be accomplished from within MC as Nathan has been championing since late last year.

On another note, I have spoken with Tuneblade support regarding the Tuneblade remote control app for ios and asked if there was any possibility of an Android version. They confirmed that this had been requested many times and is high on the to do list and that hopefully in a few months we will have an Android remote app. So at least I will be able to have an app running alongside JRemote to control which Airplay receivers the music is sent to.

I would like to thank Hilton for the excellent guides to set this up and also jmone for all his efforts in attempting to get this integrated with MC.

Well done guys.
Russell

[jmone]

The plug is concept is still alive!  In my recent conversations with the TuneBlade devs regarding MC Integration and an Andriod Renderer/Control point.

Please stay tuned, It's just a matter of some more time when we're able to deliver the Android apps and JRiver MC integration.

[jmone]

...as we wait to see if closer integration is possible, I've solved one issue I had as an Android User in that there is no TuneBlade remote control outside iOS.

So I wrote a simple HTML/Javascript Based Tuneblade controller for their API and integrated it into WebGizmo (see pics).  It is pretty basic in that it will:
- List all the Airplay devices
- Connect / Disconnect them
- Adjust their individual vol.

In the zip file you will find:
- TuneBlade.html (new file with the code)
- library.html (will replace your existing library.html file, only difference between the two is it has a link to the TuneBlade page so you can navigate to it from the WebGizmo UI).
- images folder with some additional button pngs.

Install:  Just extract all the files into your "WebGizmo" folder, which for me is located in "C:\Program Files (x86)\J River\Media Center 22\Data\Panel\Gizmo\Default".  You may need admin permissions to do this, and keep a copy of your old "library.html" file if you want to undo it.

One thing I can not work out how to do in is how to use the Tuneblade "Zero-Conf Discovery" from HTML/Javascript so for now you will need to manually edit the IP address and Port in the "tuneblade.html" page yourself;

Code: [Select]

<script>
var TuneBladeURL = "http://192.168.xxx.xxx:51497"
</script>
Works well for me (tested on Chrome Desktop and Android).

[JMediaMan]

Hilton,

Great thread! I have just discovered some of the awesome features of MC and I have been trying to get my audio in sync. I have this working on my setup thanks to this thread. However, the volume on the airplay receivers are very low compared to playing directly to one of the them from MC. I was wondering if I missed something in the setup and looking at your 2nd, 3rd and 4th post in this thread, the screenshots are no longer visible. Can you repost those screenshots?

Thank you,
Jason

[jmone]

Hi Jason, There are a few places for VOL to check:
- In MC itself (it will output a vol level to Tune Blade)
- In TuneBlade (both for each speaker and also the Master at the bottom of the popup)
- On the Speakers (some have their own physical vol control)

[JMediaMan]

Hi Jason, There are a few places for VOL to check:
- In MC itself (it will output a vol level to Tune Blade)
- In TuneBlade (both for each speaker and also the Master at the bottom of the popup)
- On the Speakers (some have their own physical vol control)

Hi jmone,

Thank you for the quick reply. It was the volume sliders in Tuneblade. Not sure how I missed that.

[Hilton]

Fixed missing images. Damn Microsoft is expiring onedrive shares.. pics moved to Flickr

[JMediaMan]

Fixed missing images. Damn Microsoft is expiring onedrive shares.. pics moved to Flickr

Thank you!

[threephi]

After searching on and off for a while for how to make my airplay speakers play nice with MC, I finally stumbled across this thread.  I set up tuneblade and tuneaero and now I've got perfectly synced music throughout my entire house.  Bliss!  Thank you!

The one remaining wrinkle is volume control.  I get it that using this method, MC is essentially feeding audio to one output (the airplay/tuneblade group), so setting individual levels has to be done from the tuneblade application or at each speaker's hardware level, but I want to use JRemote for master control, which seems like it should be easy to do, and I can't get it to work.  I've tried each of the various options on the MC volume slider (application/system/internal volume) with everything else at 100, and the only one that exercises any influence on volume is "internal", which behaves like a very clunky damper.  The other two, application volume and system volume, do not change the actual output volume.  The mute control is also non-functional--hitting mute does not mute the output.  Note that this is all only when streaming to the airplay zone with tuneblade--when playing on the local "player" zone to my computer speakers everything works as it should.

I've read others' posts here saying they had _everything_ working perfectly through MC with this setup, and I assume that includes volume control through MC.  Did I miss something, or does anyone have advice on how to do it?

Thanks for any advice.

[gibman]

Once in a while TuneBlade seems to crash with a modal window:

"Whoops! A critical error occurred in TuneBlade."

I created a autoit3 script that deals with this.

It looks for this specific window.
If found it merely closes the tuneblade process and optionally restarts it.

You need to download autoit3.
It is also possible to compile the script into an .exe file and place it in your startup folder.

Code: [Select]


#include <MsgBoxConstants.au3>

RecoverFromTuneBladeCrash()

Func RecoverFromTuneBladeCrash()
   While true
 
  Local $hWnd = WinWait("Error", "Whoops! A critical error occurred in TuneBlade.", 10)
  Local $iPID = WinGetProcess($hWnd)

  If $iPID > 0 Then
;MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "", "The PID is: " & $iPID)
ProcessClose($iPID)
;Run("C:\Program Files (x86)\TuneBlade\TuneBlade\tuneblade.exe", "C:\Program Files (x86)\TuneBlade\TuneBlade")
  EndIf

   ; Wait for 2 seconds.
   Sleep(2000)


   Wend
EndFunc


Currently I have commented out the code that relaunches TuneBlade as I use another program for this.
Feel free to include this line if needed.

This is called ProcessAlive 0.9.1
It monitors processes and relaunches them as needed. eg jriver mediacenter etc.

regards
gibman

[drmimosa]

Threephi,

Internal volume control is how I manage master volume for the whole system. It sounds fine in my system. Search options for volume and you can see a few settings to test, including loudness on/off reference volume.

Also, it looks like a plugin for webgizmo is posted above, that looks like a good solution as well. Good luck!

[drmimosa]

I just figured out a way to use Pandora through JRiver WDM audio with this Tune blade setup. I have missed using some of the JRiver effects like virtual sub, EQ, and loudness, but with this setup all audio effects work and pipe to airplay clients in sync.

1. Set up a zone in JRiver that outputs to a specific audio device for capture. I call this "Whole House Audio" and use the computers mini RCA output. Don't use Wasapi exclusive mode, use Direct Sound output.

2. Make sure this zone is active in JRiver. I use the command line via bat file to make sure this happens whenever I use Pandora.

3. Set windows audio to JRiver WDM.

4. Set Tuneblade to capture 'Whole House Audio"

5. Run Pandora (or Spotify or any browser based audio source)

6. Audio with DSP streams in sync throughout house with following audio chain:

Pandora in browser > WDM driver > JRiver Audio> Airplay capture zone> Tuneblade Capture > Airplay streaming > Airplay Clients.

A TuneAero client can be used on the same machine, as long as a totally different audio output device is selected.

It's not a solution for "pure" audio signal paths, but it is nice to use JRiver Audio to crank up the bass throughout the house!

[jmone]

Who is still rocking Whole House Audio by playing audio from MC via Tuneblade to multiple audio renderers?

I tried using MC's own "Link" function again, but it still pretty hit or miss for me. 

So...., Reinstalled Tuneblade (had lost it after a clean install) and was up and playing Whole House Audio, all in sync, to a bunch of different Audio renderers, in no time flat.  I see they have not had a release for years now, but it still seems to be working well.

[bob]

Who is still rocking Whole House Audio by playing audio from MC via Tuneblade to multiple audio renderers?

I tried using MC's own "Link" function again, but it still pretty hit or miss for me. 

So...., Reinstalled Tuneblade (had lost it after a clean install) and was up and playing Whole House Audio, all in sync, to a bunch of different Audio renderers, in no time flat.  I see they have not had a release for years now, but it still seems to be working well.

Just for kicks I installed AirFoil on Mac which looks functionally equivalent to TuneBlade.
Used it to link multiple Id's together via their ShairPlay functionality and it worked nicely.

[bspachman]

Still working for me using AirFoil for Windows. The program isn't supported any longer, but still seems to be working under Win11! TuneBlade never worked quite as well for my setup, but it's good to have a backup (albeit also old)