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[rec head]

I quickly played with Zones in MC and things didn't go as expected. Before I spend much time configuring I am wondering if it is even possible to do what I want. I'm looking to always send HDMI audio and video to the main zone (TV room) and optical or even analog to AUDIO ONLY to zone 2. I always want this active. I don't want to do any switching. This would allow me to take the HDMI splitter out of my setup. Any switching would greatly decrease the WAF of the setup.

Here's my current setup: HTPC via HDMI ->Splitter via HDMI and optical -> AVR.

HDMI audio and video are used in my TV room only. The optical is used for audio only in other zones in the house.

[mojave]

Yes, you can do this with JRiver. Create two zones and label one Video and the other Music (or whatever you want to call them). Set your audio output in Tools > Options > Audio > Audio Output so that that video zone uses HDMI and the audio zone uses optical. I prefer to use internal volume control for both.

Once your zones are setup you can use ZoneSwitch by going to Player > Zones > ZoneSwitch. Click "Add" to create ZoneSwitch rule. Call the first rule "Music" and make it play Media Type = Artist. Set it to play in the music zone. You can't have it stop playback in the Video zone if you don't want simultaneous playback. Create another rule for the Video zone.

Now when you select your media it will always play to the correct zone. You can read more about zones in the wiki:  http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Zones.

[rec head]

Thanks mojave,

I might not have been clear but I want to always send the same signal to both zones. My avr does not send HDMI inputs to it's other zones so I use the splitter to also send optical to the avr.  I don't often need to hear music in the audio zone but I listen to music in the TV room a lot. Will your suggestion allow this?

[mwillems]

Thanks mojave,

I might not have been clear but I want to always send the same signal to both zones. My avr does not send HDMI inputs to it's other zones so I use the splitter to also send optical to the avr.  I don't often need to hear music in the audio zone but I listen to music in the TV room a lot. Will your suggestion allow this?

If you always want to send the same signal to both zones, you probably don't need to setup zoneswitch, but instead should "link" the two zones.  Then they will always both play the same things.  You can do this by selecting the "link zone" option in the context menu when you right click on a zone (or under the player>zones menu tree).

[rec head]

I tried using the linked zones and it told me that z2 didn't support video when I started a movie and I didn't get any sound in the TV room. I had to then go to the menu and select z1.

[mwillems]

I tried using the linked zones and it told me that z2 didn't support video when I started a movie and I didn't get any sound in the TV room. I had to then go to the menu and select z1.

Got it, I seem to recall a thread about that exact issue now that I think about it: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=79687.0

So here's a thought on a workaround:  set up three zones: two that play to your HDMI (z1 and z2) and one that plays to your optical out (z3).  Link the optical out zone (z3) to one of the two HDMI zones (let's say z2).  Z1 would be unlinked.  

Then set up zone switch more or less as mojave described, so that video will always play only in z1, and audio will only play in z2.  The linkage between z2 and z3 should ensure that audio goes to both locations, but video will only go to z1.  Pay especial attention to the "stop other zones" tab in the zoneswitch set up box, as z1 and z2 obviously can't both be playing at the same time.  

That should work, but I can't test it right now.

[rec head]

Thanks I'll give it a shot later.

[johncaul]

Hi Rec Head (or anyone else!); did you resolve the zone issue you had? I have a similar issue. I want to output video over HDMI only but audio over HDMI and SPDIF simultaneously. I've been playing with zones, zone link and zone switch and thought I'd cracked it. When playing video first then audio everything works as it should. However when playing audio then a video I get an error message (Linked zones only support audio playback. Would you like to unlink the zone and continue playback.) Any suggestions on either what's going wrong or on how to configure MC to play video over hdmi only and audio over spdif and hdmi simultaneously would be gratefully received.

Thanks
John