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[mmadd29]

Hi all,

I have been reading posts and trying to learn about using zones in MC23.  I am obviously not grasping a simple concept because I know what I want to do works, but just can't seem to figure it out.  I will explain below, and if there is an article I did not find that would be great too.

I have Media Center on a main computer called Studio.  The hard drives on this machine contain all the music.  I have two Libraries called "Live" and "Main".  I have media center on a computer in my living room attached to my TV and soundbar.  I have media network running and am able to connect to the Studio machine and play music from the library running on Studio.

So.....I created a zone called Living Room.  I toggle to the zone Living room, on the machine connected to the TV, and it will connect to the Studio machine.  But it only opens the library that is loaded on the Studio machine.

What I want is that the living room always opens the "Main" library when started.  The Studio I will pick which library I want.  I tried everything I could find and think of to make this happen to no avail.

Could someone please explain to me how I can do this, as there is something I'm just not understanding.

Thanks to all.

[JimH]

Have you found the wiki topic on Media Network?  It should help.

[mmadd29]

I did.......Media Network works because I connect with my Iphone in my barn with no issue.

What I think I'm missing is that if I share my media drives on my network, and build a library on the Living Room computer, that should work.

I did not try this and will this evening.

I'm just confused about zones in that I can toggle between them from any MC machine, but don't know how to handle output.

I need something like "Zone for Idiots" where it is explaned at 5th grade level....

[RoderickGI]

You are asking for a MC Client to switch Libraries on a MC Server. There is no standard functionality to do that. A Client will connect to the Server it has been told to connect to, and show the contents of the Library that Server is running, whatever that happens to be.

It could be done with scripts or MCWS commands. Zones are not Libraries, and visa versa.

This is why the best advice is to have one library, in this case on your Studio PC which is the MC Server, and use Views, Smartlists, etc. to find and manage the distribution of media from a Server to Clients.


So the question is, why do you have two libraries, and do you really need to have two, or could you use one?

[mmadd29]

You are asking for a MC Client to switch Libraries on a MC Server. There is no standard functionality to do that. A Client will connect to the Server it has been told to connect to, and show the contents of the Library that Server is running, whatever that happens to be.

It could be done with scripts or MCWS commands. Zones are not Libraries, and visa versa.

This is why the best advice is to have one library, in this case on your Studio PC which is the MC Server, and use Views, Smartlists, etc. to find and manage the distribution of media from a Server to Clients.


So the question is, why do you have two libraries, and do you really need to have two, or could you use one?

Yes I need two libraries, but this exactly what I was not understanding.  I was confusing libraries with zones.

I disconnected my TV machine from the server, and killed the zones and libraries on it.  I created a new one and pointed it at my NAS drives.  It now does exactly what I want.  I have also added connected media on the TV machines as well. 

So I basically have a separate library on each machine, which works for me as it does what I need MC to do on each machine....

Thanks to everyone for the help.