[kwlug-disc] Distributed Sound system - Questions and presentation offer

[CrankyOldBugger]

Do please keep us up to date on your progress.  Wifeski has been bugging me
for years to put music throughout the house but I keep changing the topic.
My biggest problem is that we can never agree on what music to listen to.
I would love to hear of a good solution that can containerize the music per
room/occupant.


On Wed, 26 Oct 2016 at 14:05 Raul Suarez via kwlug-disc <
kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> First things first:
> I remember that a few years ago Richard Weait gave a presentation on
> setting this up. He showed some hardware devices to receive the sound in
> each room connected to the amplifier or speakers.
> I can't remember what those devices were, does anyone here remember?
>
> The whole story
> I am in the process of setting up a distributed sound system for home. I
> want to be able to play music on different rooms either the same music of
> different music on each room.
>
> I want to be able to play my own music as well as streaming services such
> as Google Play or Spotify.
> I want to do it as inexpensive and energy efficient as possible.
>
> I am almost all set and I can offer a presentation if I ever get it to
> work exactly as I want or at least to show the pitfalls I found
>
> This is what I have done up to now:
> First try
> - I have an old headless computer connected to my sound system running VLC
> on start up
> - I use VLC Mobile remote on the android to control what is playing on
> that room.
> Pro:
> - Sergiane is happy enough with this set up. It is a small home and
> cranking up the volume you can hear in every room.
> - Very easy to set up with little to no technical expertise, very easy to
> use.
> Con:
> - It only controls one room and only the music on the laptop. While VLC
> can access UPnP servers, I haven't found an Android VLC remote app that
> allows me to select the DLNA source.
> - It is only practical if there is only one person at home or we both are
> in the same room and want to hear the same thing.
>
> Second try
> - I also have a RT-N54U router that I set up as a DLNA (UPnP) server with
> my music on a USB Drive
> - On the laptop I installed "rygel" with the playbin plug in
> <https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Rygel/Plugins> which allows me to serve
> as a UPnP rederer (it plays music it receives through UPnP
> - On the android phone I use Bubble UPnP and can select local music or
> music from the DLNA server and play it on the phone or forward the music to
> the laptop renderer.
> Pro:
> - As I change rooms I can select a different renderer for a "follow me"
> experience (e.g. my Chrome cast)
> - I can also play music on my games room using the PS3 getting the music
> from the router
> Con:
> - I can only play content provided by a DLNA server. Google play music,
> Spotify and others do not provide DLNA
> - I cannot play the same content simultaneously on two rooms
> - A bit more complex to use as the user needs to select the server and the
> renderer. (Very small learning curve)
>
> Third try (in progress)
> - There are a few Android applications that can get any thing that is
> playing in the phone and send it to one or multiple a DLNA renderers
> (AllStream, AirAudio)
> Pro:
> - I get all I want and need for now
> Con:
> - The phone needs to be rooted to work properly
> - The user needs to controll the player and controlling the upnp forwarder
> app.
>
> ToDo:
> - Root one of my devices and try AirAudio
> - Try leapcast on the old laptop to "ChromeCast" from the phone to the
> laptop.
> - Get Raspberry pi devices to work as sound endpoints for different rooms
>
>
> Raul Suarez Technology consultant Software, Hardware and Practices
> _________________ Twitter: rarsamx http://developerpractices.com
> http://rarsa.blogspot.com/ An eclectic collection of random thoughts
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>
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