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[Jozza]

Hi All,

This is my first post to this forum, so I hope it doesn't come across too green.

I've done my back in, so I've had the opportunity to scour this forum (and a whole bunch of others) over the last 72 hours whilst researching a future whole house A/V solution. We're building this year, and I want to make sure that I've got all my cabling runs designed for the pre-wire.

I've very familiar with the materials at Cocoontech for wiring, as that was my go to place for the security side of things. However, I was a little less comfortable when it came to the A/V side of things, and the concept of home running structured speaker cables, coax, HDMI and cables for IR distribution. Been through the rather outdated "Read this first" posts and links (Jim/Matt - you might want to clean up some of the early ones), as well as the wiki, and some rather long winded threads.

At any rate (sorry for the long spiel), I've garnered a fair amount of info, but come across a key new capability from AMD that doesn't seem to be discussed here yet. Thanks to a post from Glynor about AMD GPUs and power saving that caused me to look into it.

QUESTION: Has anyone setup their media PC to support multizone video, complete with audio, using the new DDMA functionality available in the AMD 7700 series (and above) graphics cards? The idea being that you use the DisplayPort to HDMI converters, and hence can have a server with essentially 4 HDMI outputs which also supports discrete audio per HDMI output. Couple this with a couple of 7.1 sound cards for a few more audio only zones, a quad digital tuner card...

If so, is there any experiences you can share regarding the number of zones that can be supported, and at what sort of output formats based on example hardware specs?

I'm trying to put together a design that essentially just relies on a single, centralised media server for a number of zones, and I'm trying to understand whether that can actually be a reality or not.

I'll try and post my design up here when I've got enough posts to actually allow me to. But if the response from this thread indicates that you can only really support three concurrently active zones at 1080i (2 with stereo and one with 7.1 surround) then I'll go back to the drawing board and chunk it up a bit.

Cheers

Jozza

[Jozza]

No takers?

I'm still not able to find anyone elses experiences around the net on this one.

Jozza

[InflatableMouse]

Well, not quite the same but I did consider using my disabled HD4000 to create a video zone for another room the house.

Issues with 4 hdmi on a single videocard could be performance. I guess it depends on much quality you desire on each of these, but enabling all features will bring a midrange card to its knees. And even if you manage to play 4 streams simultaneously, fans will run at 100%. I don't know where you plan to place your mediacenter pc because its not going to be a silent one .

I guess other stuff you need to think about is the quality of the video you like to play and whether the performance of the videocard you have in mind can handle that. Anothing thing you need to think about is control. How you plan to control each zone and how do you prevent someone else from playing something to the wrong zone, or clearing the wrong playlist (assuming you're not the only one using all the different zones).

Another option is to place a small pc capable of running MC as a client at each of the rooms. MC clients can still be controlled from the main pc or a tablet/smart phone.

[Jozza]

Hi InflatableMouse,

Thanks for chiming in.

I'm currently proposing on using two graphics cards (possibly Sapphire Radeon HD7750 Ultimate 1GB), so I'd have native HDMI from one port and can use a DisplayPort to HDMI dongle (haven't found out how reliable or not these things are yet) for a second. This way, its a maximum of two HDMI streams per card. Does this sound feasible? The quality question is the real kicker - I'm figuring to be able to run each card with one channel at 1080p (sometimes with 3D) and the other at 720p.

In terms of placement of the HTPC, its going to be under a stairwell (the "comms room") in an area which is well away from any rooms, so noise in this case is not an issue.

In terms of control, I'm proposing to use:
- a couple of centralised Global Cache iTach IP2IR devices I have that will have IR connectivity distributed via the structured cabling (Cat5e) and patched in at the end points near TVs and any potential local source devices. Need to do a bit of testing on this first, but I'm working on the assumption that the RJ45 plug/socket elements in the chain won't result in any transmission loss for the IR streams
- each Video zone will permit the use of both something like JRemote (for the house techheads), as well as some really simple dumb IR remotes that bring a "simple feel" for the luddites of the house. (The remotes I've had for a while because my wife just got sick of all the remotes, so I standardised on one per room in my old house.)
- each Audio only zone will only permit control via iOS devices with something like JRemote
- in terms of preventing people from being able to play something in the wrong zone, I don't have a clue how to tackle that problem, nor an idea how big a problem it will be. Thanks for posing this, I'll need to think about it, though I suspect I'll be at the mercy of JRiver/JRemote capability to address this item.

Other elements in the mix are:
- Some multichannel amps (don't yet own) to run the audio only stereo zones, with speaker wiring homerunned back to the stairwell "comms room"
- An ESI DigiPort HD+ to output the stereo only signals to the multichannel amp
- An Asus Xonar Essence ST + H6 card for output to the AVR (don't yet own) in the Multipurpose room that is the primary viewing place for "Movies"
- Some form of AVR in the Multipurpose room with additional local source devices (such as Playstation 2 with Singstar for my kids)
- I've been eyeing off one of the Quad channel Digital TV tuner cards for the HTPC as well, which was what originally got me started on this journey of a single HTPC for the home

I'm really hoping to remove the multiple devices around the place where possible (excepting that I can't get away from games consoles, and the odd disc player to keep my wife happy) and maintain it centrally.

Jozza

[Jozza]

I'm pretty confident that JRiver MC supports multiple video "zones" given the threads I've read with glynor and Mastiff.

So possibly another issue I'll come across is whether JRiver MC together with JRemote will support multiple video zones (with audio) being delivered from a single HTPC? Has anyone actually tried it and/or got it to work successfully?

Jozza

[Jozza]

OK. So it seems that glynor is one person that been doing stuff in this space. I finally found the correct terminology to search on, which was "detached display", so I've been able to read a bunch more and actually try it now as well.

So in essence, to get multizone A/V (or multi zone audio video or multiple displays or whatever people search on) to work I'll need to (based on MC version 18):
- Install two AMD type graphics cards and use some DisplayPort to HDMI adapters. Does anyone know if these need to be active ones?
- Use a basic monitor as the primary desktop for the HTCP with the built in graphics adapter
- [Personal Preference] Rename the primary zone to be "HTPC" (to help distinguish between HTPC display and other Zones)
- From the main display unit monitor, create four video content zones (Family Room, Bedroom 1, Garage, Multipurpose Room) herin referred to as custom_zone_name
- For each of the four new Zones, configure the video content to go to each display by:
  a. In the "Standard View", navigate the Tree menu to a video file ("Video -> Files ->" and select a file)
  b. Right click on the file and select "Send To -> Play (custom_zone_name) -> Play"
  c. Pause the video (just to give you time to make the changes)
  d. Right click on the video content, and select "Detach Display"
  e. Drag the Window titled "Display" to the specific Display unit monitor you want the display shown, and double click to make Full Screen
- For the first three zones (that will initially use Audio over HDMI), configure Audio to go to each display by:
  a. In the "Standard View", Under "Playing Now", click on the zone you want to modify
  b. Right click on the custom_zone_name and select "Playback Options"
  c. In the "Options" window, click on "Audio" on the left
  d. Click on "Output mode: zzzz" on the right and select the relevant Output mode (not sure which at this stage)
  e. Click on "Output mode settings..." on the right
  f. In the "zzzz Settings" (named depending on what your Output Mode in step 'd' is) select the appropriate Device and Channels you require to follow the HDMI
- For the last zone (which will be going via a Asus Xonar Essence ST), I would need to configure the Audio to use the Xonar Essence as the device

Now, this appears to work (in my limited testing with only one two displays). However, it seems you need to repeat the "detach display" step everytime I restart MC. I need to work out how to get that happening automatically on startup.

[Jozza]

Cool, so I've found the Found the MCC information to control MC from the command line (here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Core_Commands#Specifying_Zones and here
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/The_Command_Line) plus some examples of detaching screens.) and some examples in posts. In short, use a C:\WINDOWS\system32\MC18.exe /MCC 10037,1:1 type command, and possibly a delay before it if its the first time MC has started.

So now I'm good to go. Plus I need to become pretty familiar with all of this stuff to get the IR remote side of things working for those family members that just want a dumb remote. All the basics seem to be covvered under the MCC command line stuff.

Happy now it appears that its actually possible to have a single HTPC being able to deliver this. Next step is to do some testing with the TV tuner side of things, and hookup my iTach IP2IR devices to test out the simple remote functionality.

Thank you all for providing such detailed posts! Once you know the lingo to look for, it gets much easier to answer your own questions just by searching.