Multiroom audio using software

[raptor_demon]

Hi everyone,

I am new here and currently searching for a peice of home automation software to meet my needs.

HouseBot looks like it will do what i need however there is one thing i am desperatly trying todo.

I have tried searching and didnt find what i needed.

Basically I have all my music stored on aserver and i would like to be able to be able to send music to various touchscreens and pc's.

It would be a multi room audio solution but sreaming music to devices instead of playing it out of the server and distriubutin that.

Does anyone know how todo this?

Thanks
Raptor

[Osler]

Most of the software based solutions (HouseBot, XLobby, etc.) work on the principal of a central server with multiple soundcards to feed a reciever hooked up to a homerun of speaker wires. This is not what you want and to do what you want with HouseBot may be possible but will be a bit cumbersome. A major issue with any of these is synchronization of multiple zones. XLobby, by report, was pretty good at this; however, it has since been bought by a private corporation and I'm not sure if its even available anymore.

If you want distributed audio, I would look into the UPnP devices from Roku, SlimDevices, or Sonos. These can be instantiated as devices in HouseBot and controlled via vbscript with a bit of work. Roku and SlimDevices will require a seperate UPnP music server running on a computer while Sonos has the server and renderer built in, obviating the need for a seperate machine to serve music to your UPnP clients. All sonos needs is a NAS and it does the rest.

Osler

[roussell]

Probably the easiest way to do this would be to load the latest version of Winamp and the ActiveWinamp plugin on the remote touchscreen, then load it on the Housebot server as well (You only need the ActiveWinamp dlls, but the installer needs Winamp)

After it's installed in both places, run dcomcnfg on the touchscreen computer and allow remote access to the "ActiveWinamp Application Class" under DCOM Config and then enable remote access under the properties of "My computer" in dcomcnfg following this guide: http://j-integra.intrinsyc.com/support/ ... l#winxpsp2. Lastly be sure to turn off any firewalls on the touchscreen computer.

After all of that is done you should be able to run a simple script like this on the server to remotely play something on the touchscreen. Review the ActiveWinAmp documentation installed in the Winamp folder for more info (Winamp\plugins\gen_activewa.chm and examples at Winamp\Plugins\AWExamples).

Code: Select all

set aw = CreateObject("ActiveWinamp.Application", "[b]touchscreens ip address[/b]")
aw.play
msgbox aw.playlist(aw.playlist.position).ATFString("Current song: %artist% - %title%")

ActiveWinamp is pretty powerful so you should be able to do most anything with it. The only hassle is the getting the dcom stuff setup correctly.

Terry

[raptor_demon]

Thanks Guys,

Both of these seem like great ideas,

I will try activewinamp as it is free then try Roku down the line.

Raptor

[roussell]

Here's a quick script device to get you started. download and save the attachment and import it into HouseBot (File --> Import Configuration). It will place a device labeled "Remote WinAmp" into an Imported folder under devices and a vb script into the config\scripts directory.

Do the DCOM stuff mentioned above and then specify a \\computer\share\file and the IP address or name of the remote pc and run the script, it should play.

Good luck, post back if you run into any trouble...

Terry

[raptor_demon]

Thanks,
I'll try this later tonight

Raptor

[raptor_demon]

Well that failed

I get an error 0 permission denied"createobject"

from housebot when i run the script..
Any ideaS

Raptor

[roussell]

Yeah, that's due to security in your dcom setup, it's a pain to get right. Did you follow the instructions in the link and previous posts for setting up DCOM? What is the username that is logged into the HB server and SWRemote PCs? The HB server username will need to have full permissions to launch the ActiveWinamp process on the SWremote. Go back and double check that stuff - I'm on a Mac at the moment with no access to a Windows box to walk you through it. If you can't get it going, let me know and I'll try to do some screen-caps of the changes that I made to make it work.

Terry

[raptor_demon]

hi,

I did all the DCOM stuff but still nothing....

I didn't understand what you mean by permissions on the server.

I have housebot installed on my windows home server called "server"

my touch screen is called "laptop"

Raptor

[raptor_demon]

I gave up on winamp and i am going down the Squeezebox route.

So far it seems to be working.

Raptor