Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jake81]

Hello

I've just installed two MC18 HTPC's for a client. Is there a possibility to have the same music on the two machines.
As a party mode or something similar. The client got one in the sitting room and another in the next room, both are running MC18. The one in the sitting room is the master and will be controlled by an iPad and JRemote.

Thanks for the answer.


We've installed the last months several HTPC's with MC18

Regards,
Jacky Marynes
Belgium

[fitbrit]

You can link the zones from the computers, but not form JRemote. Network linking might be hit or miss for synchronising the sound. How are the two zones being amplified?
I have HTPCs in my living room and dining room, with an AVR in each.
As well as network cables, I'm running HDMI (split at the HTPC), RCA and optical cables between my living room and dining room, directly to my AVRs. This way, I can play the same music in both rooms using one instance of MC (split via HDMI at the video card), and am also able to play different music in different rooms, either by using zones, or the local PCs' MC copies.

[csimon]

Yes, that's the way I've gone for multiroom. I've taken an audio out from the main device and fed it into a Marmitek Audio Anywhere transmitter, then a receiver in other rooms which feeds powered speakers or an amp. I'm not likely to want different music in different rooms. Yet!  But I've still got the option of using a DLNA player in other rooms if necessary.

[fitbrit]

Great. Then you really do not have to involve the second HTPC at all. You can play the music from one HTPC to both zones using your non-PC hardware (Marmitek Audio Anywhere) for the second zone. That will easily be controlled by JRemote.

[nickba]

Adding an option to link zones using JRemote is a must and I think it is very simple to implement. It would make JRiver as the number one multizone solution.

[fitbrit]

Adding an option to link zones using JRemote is a must and I think it is very simple to implement. It would make JRiver as the number one multizone solution.

I do agree completely, but in this specific case it's unnecessary. In my case, it would definitely be nice to have.

[Jake81]

Okay,

I am gone give this a try.
The easiest solution is with the Audio Anywhere.
But I am still hope JRemote will come with a sufficient multi-room possibility.

Thanks anyway,

Regards

Jacky

[glynor]

Have you tried linking the two Zones?

It isn't quite good enough (latency wise) to synchronize them down to the millisecond (if you can hear both sets of speakers from the same listening position, this matters), but it is very close.  During parties and whatnot, I've often used two PCs with their zones linked to play music throughout a house or event.

Perfectly adequate for separate rooms.  The latency limitation is mainly an issue if you're trying to do something like bond 3 separate stereo devices together to make a Franken-5.1 setup, or something like that.

It is also quite easy to do:

Assuming that one of these systems acts as the Server, when you connect from the client to the server, both machines will add a new zone for the "other system".  So, here's my server system at home:



The one called Perequot is my HTPC (ignore my funny PC names).  It just automatically shows up in that list when you connect the system to the server.  On the client-side, it automatically "adds" all of the zones on the Server as well, prefixing them with "There:".  So, my HTPC's zones look like this:



All I have to do to link the two Zones from either side is this:



Then, anything you play from that box, automatically plays on the other.  It does make an attempt to synchronize the playback as much as is possible.

PS.  It just dawns on me that this may not work from JRemote.  I know you couldn't actually link them from JRemote, but you could conceivably just make a pre-linked zone on the server, and leave it linked all the time.  But, perhaps Linked playback just doesn't work at all.  Let me test...

[glynor]

So, I just tested this... It works.

You can play and control linked Zones from JRemote.  You just can't actually do the "linking" on JRemote.  But if the Zones are already linked, you can use them just fine.

The problem, then, is basically just that the Links don't persist when the Client shuts down or disconnects (this, effectively, unlinks them).  I did try restarting the server, and the Zones automatically relinked themselves then.  But if you close out of the client-side, then they "unlink" and you have to manually relink them.

So... It depends on your use case.  If you're going to use this occasionally (for parties and whatnot) then it works beautifully.  If you want an always-on, always-available "whole house zone", then it would be more frustrating.  You might be able to script it as-is, but it would be nice if MC would automatically relink disconnected Zones when they reappeared.  That would solve the issue completely.

[csimon]

A way of doing that would be the ability to create virtual zones which consist of one or more actual zones, rather than needing all zones to be there before they can be linked.  All zones, whether virtual or actual, would then be presented to external controllers. You might have 3 zones and in some situations want to link 1 & 2, in others 2 & 3 and in others 1 & 3. So you could have a virtual zone called Whole House Audio that links all zones, Downstairs that links only the downstairs zones, Upstairs that link sonly the upstairs zones....you get the idea.

[talyn21]

csimon, that is a great idea.