Print

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

[mirdle]

I have used logmein.com  to control other computers around the house -- Very easy to use and very simple to set up. Highly recommended!


I wish I could figure out how to do this though:

I wish there was a way multiple networked computers could simultaneously use j rivers media center. I.e. I wish multiple computers could simultaneously see the now playing page and/or control the volume, playlist, etc. When one computer changes the current song, I wish all computers would see the change.

Is there anyway this is possible? This is possible with devices like logmein.com and remote desktop for only ONE user at a time -- only a single computer (not multiple simultaneous computers) can be controlling the application.

I'm not really talking about a web-based controller app like remote server but actual sharing of the same instance of the application in all its glory.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions!

Thanks,
Mark.

[slipknot]

Yes I need that too!

[Rob L]

If Remote Desktop would do the job apart from the single user issue, then use VNC (or something similar, but VNC is the best free app for remote control)

[mesue]

Have you looked at NetRemote?
http://www.promixis.com/products.php?section=netremote

[newsposter]

Well, the 'right way' to do this is to set up a Media Server and use that as your source on the home network.

Failing that, another way to do this (and this is loads more complicated than simply running Media Server) is to keep your music files on a shared network drive or nas (naslite.com, openfiler.com) and set up each home computer to have it's own database (metadata).

The replication of the metadata across all of the PCs could get interesting.  But if you designate ONE of the PCs as the 'metadata master' where new data (music) is input to the shared network drive (and metadata created) and discipline yourself to use the other PCs for playback only, it shouldn't be too hard.

By the way, both naslite.com and openfiler.com have said that they expect to add UPnP streaming to their NAS software 'Real Soon Now'.  I would expect that naslite.com will get there first.  Nice thing about using a NAS box as a UPnP server is that it's just there, sitting anywhere in the house at any point on the network, usually admined by a secure web interface.  It's a 'headless', closed box that ONLY takes care of disk and streaming.  No PC monitor/keyboard/mouse to worry about, etc, etc.  It **can** be a PC, but doesn't have to be. 

[Rob L]

Hm, I suppose it really does depend what you want to do - I read the question as really wanting to control the application itself for some reason, which obviously media server isn't a solution for.

So what are you talking about? Are you talking about playing the music back in one central place, or different places? The fact that you talk about changing the volume and the current playing track and having all the computers see the change suggests to me that that's what you mean, and if that's the case, you really do need some kind of remote control solution...

[mirdle]

I really appreciate all the responses.

I checked into Netremote last year and didn't like the interface that much.  I'd really like to maintain the J Rivers Media Center interface.

I am talking about playing the music back from one central PC which has audio outs connected to a multizone receiver that distributes the music throughout the house.   My plan is to have various small portable PCs throughout the house to control (and see what track is playing etc ) the central PC.  I think I really need all of the portable PCs to share the same instance of the Media Center application or possibly instead share the same instance of the user login on the central PC.

I'm just not sure how to do it.


Does anyone know if VNC allows multiple remote computers logged in to the SAME INSTANCE of a user login on the central computer?  If it did, then this would solve the problem I think.

[mesue]

I think that you can do what you want with Library Server.

From MC Help:

What is Library Server?

Library Server gives users access to their library from any computer on the network or on the Internet, as long as both computers run the same version and build of Media Center.

It provides on-demand streaming of files (music and images) from a server to a client. The server is the one that makes its library available to other computer, while the client is the computer that sees those files. It allows the user to share the library from one computer to another computer, or across the Internet.

The only thing is you can't write tags into your files from the client PCs.

[Rob L]

Yes, VNC does allow you to have as many simultaneous connections as you like:

http://www.ultravnc.com/


Library server isn't going to do the job, because the playback is all local, rather than central.

[mirdle]

Thanks for all the responses.

What I ultimately decided to do was use Netremote as a front-end for Media Center. It seems very customizable (although it looks like it will take me quite a while to program). Included with Netremote is a program called Media Bridge, which provides the functionality I was looking for above in that it connects any or all instances of netremote to the same instance of Media Center on the LAN.

During my research, I discovered that UltraVNC does indeed allow multiple remote computers simultaneously to control and see a single local user. This is something remote desktop does not do and something programs like logmein . com does not do. Very easy to set up. I was even able to get it to control a local user while I was locally logged in to a different user (although a bit of a hassle to setup).

Thanks for all the help and best wishes.