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[iwf]

Having first come across MC mid way though last year I'm now part way through making it control playback through out the house.

Currently I use

1. MC 11 on the HAPC (Home AUDIO PC) piped through an external DAC to my lounge HI-FI

2. The DAC linked to another amp in my Bedroom and controlled using a PDA and netremote

3.  Active speakers linked directly to the soundcard and synced as a second zone in MC

and now for my next project. - The kitchen.

As it's so far way from the HAPC I'd like to use WIFI to pipe music to a PDA ( I have several lying about), and then to decent PC speakers, but I'm stuck.

Is there a way to sync an audio stream across a network with one playing in other rooms all controlled by MC. Clearly I can browse the indivdual audio files on the server and play them in any order I like. But I'm looking to have the same playlist playing throughout the house.

Any ideas ?

[Deivit]

The user "Mastiff" is the master of Multi-zone here in the forum

May I suggest that you pay a visit to his website if you still haven't done so. You sure will find it interesting and useful for your project.

http://home.powertech.no/mastiff/multizone.htm

Hope it helps.

[Mastiff]

Anybody call for me?  I'm afraid that WLAN approach isn't easy, and sound quality won't be good. I suggest doing what I have done - long cable runs even with cheap Radio Shack stuff, will probably be a lot better than what you're thinking about.

[milknkukis]

I was looking to do the same thing a while ago but didn't find a good enough solution. I did find an open source project which could stream audio to several other computerson a network, but that would have meant not using MC. I can't remember the name of it at the mo but i can find it i will edit this.
I ended up taking the messy option and crawled under the floor boards to lay wires.... horrible, but worth it.
cheers
mark

[iwf]

Thanks all for the contributions.

I realise now that I'm after an almost impossible thing. Assuming you can get an audio signal out of a sound card you'd then have to digitise it to push it across the network, then decode it at the PDA end

No wonder no-one doing it.  Oh well, back to the wire

thanks anyhow

[modelmaker]

Another alternative to long cable runs: transmitter/reciever from Radio Shack, good for up to 100ft, (http://www.radioshack.com/category.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F007%5F002%5F001%5F005&Page=1).

They're pretty quiet (2.5ghz band) and transmit video as well (as good as cable tv).

I have one of the older ones (900mHz band) and at any normal volume levels it just sounds like music. With no signal and level at full, the 900mHz version has a little bit of hiss, the newer 2.5gHz units are virtually noiseless (I have installed a couple of these in friends homes). Additional recievers are also available.

You can run into some occaisional cell and /or cordless phone interference, but there are 4 channels to choose from, one of them will work.

And it will also extend your IR remote control.

[linden_arden]

I use an FM Transmitter in my apartment to get whole-house audio.  I have been extremely impressed with the quality.  The key is getting a good digitial FM tuner and finding a frequency that is extremely quite throughout the house.  I have radios setup in the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and office, plus the Media PC powers the main stereo directly, as well.  Now I am working on getting 'remotes' setup throughout the house as well.  I have Netremote on a wireless PDA, but I'm going to have an old laptop in the kitchen and perhaps a few more here and there.   FM has been an extremely cheap and effective solution for me so far. 

[outsider]

Linden, what FM transmitter did you end up using?

I have tried this with less then stellar results. I tried 3 different FM transmitters from Radio Shack, and all had rather poor transmission. The hiss present was way too loud even more my standards (and I'm not terribly picky when it comes to audio), so I gave up on that approach.
Like you say, it would be a rather cheap alternative if I could find a clean FM transmitter.