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Author Topic: Zone Groups?  (Read 1889 times)

chstuart

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Zone Groups?
« on: December 18, 2019, 12:03:01 pm »

What is attracting me to finally upgrade MC18 to MC26 is the the Zone Group function. I have 3 different USB sound cards and 3 different Zones of audio in my home. One Zone is Kitchen, the other is Patio and the other is Bedroom. I want to be able to play music to each Zone individually or create a Zone Group called Everywhere that groups all these Zones together and plays the same music to all the Zones.

Unfortunately, I cannot seem to figure out how to make this work. I can play music in any individual Zone, but I have not figured out how to make the Zone Group Everywhere play the same music over all the Zones? Any ideas?
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jmone

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Re: Zone Groups?
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2019, 03:10:55 pm »

Right Click on a Zone under Playing Now --> Link Zone --> Select the zone to link (group).  You can then also play with Timing (+ and -) to get them more in sync, but pending on what the zones are (eg a mix of DLNA, Audio Renderers, MC Instances etc) it will probably never be perfectly in sync (tends to drift and will have different syncs each time).
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JRiver CEO Elect

chstuart

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Re: Zone Groups?
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2019, 09:19:33 pm »

I can Link Zones with MC18. Unfortunately, linking Zones merely plays the same audio over the Zones that are Linked. I was hoping that the newer "Group" function would allow me to play separate audio to the individual Zones or the same audio to a Group of Zones as a whole. Is that not possible?
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rec head

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Re: Zone Groups?
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2019, 07:33:05 am »

It has been a while since I did anything with Zones but can't you set it up this way?

Zone 1: Kitchen
Zone 2: Patio
Zone 3: Bedroom
Zone 4: 1+2+3

Sorry for wasting your time if that isn't possible.
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chstuart

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Re: Zone Groups?
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2019, 06:18:28 pm »

How would you do Zone4 = 1+2+3? By Linking the Zones? The problem with linking zones is then the linked zones all play the same thing. I need to be able to pay something different in each zone, but then have a Zone Group called Everywhere that plays the same thing across all the zones.
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jmone

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Re: Zone Groups?
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2019, 07:09:20 pm »

1) Use "Player--> Zone--> Add Zone" to create a copy of Zone1, Zone2, and Zone 3 etc
2) Group these copies in "Zone 4"

This way you have all of you original Zones as they are and any number of copies now groupable in a single zone.
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JRiver CEO Elect

chstuart

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Re: Zone Groups?
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2019, 08:07:24 pm »

Now that is a good work around and it works! Thank you!

However, it would be much easier and straight forward if JRiver allowed the Group function to work the same way. It almost seems as if the developers started the Zone Group function and then abandoned it because it really does nothing...
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