J River Media Center questions

[shenandoah75]

Well, I just blew over a grand for whole house audio so my MinaLobby / CQC decision is a ways off

However, in the mean time, i'd like to be able to easily access/play audio in the 2 zones/8 rooms i have setup... I can go with pluto to try, but more than likely thinking i may want to go with J River longterm - for $100 and it's ability to integrate with Main Lobby / CQC down the road it seems like a good investment....

Questions

1) Server Client Usage
Reading their doc, they seem to offer single and server/client control.... In a discusion i had with David a while ago, mainlobby definately supported a hybrid server/client on one box with outside clients also accessing the same server. I'm assuming the same capability is available standalone? At a minimum, what i'm really looking for here is:

Box1 (currently my wife's pC) running J River in server mode and acting as the client for Zone 1 (main area)
Box2 (currently my laptop in the office) running as client for Zone 2 (my outbuilding) but accessing the repositoryon Box1

But, what i'd really like is to use Box one to also control Zone 3 (my master suite). I can get Maudio card to get multiple outputs, but i don't think the client can run two instances on the box to allow this. (Reason for wanting this is the ease of dropping one of my IR output to USBUIRT in one location for controlling all main house zones and also the desire not to have to purchase my HTPC right now).


2) IR Remote Control

Since i have IR in all zones, and sense Jriver supports remote control via USBUIRT, i'm good to go. But i'm curious if anyone else has set this up because i'm concerned about how intuitive this will be without onscreen feedback on an LCD/montor in the room you're using the remote in. I have 1000's of songs, what types of button mapping commands would i use? Thinkin in Itunes, i could advance genres/artists/albums but that would not be quick and it's be a guessing game if you tried to do it fast...



thx in advance for any tips you can offer...

-brad

 

[MikeB]

I may not be able to help you, but I am using J River to dump MP3s and internet radio throughout my house.

What whole house audio equipment do you have?

Or are you going all PC-based?

I run a Russound CAV66 that interfaces with J River, with in-wall keypads in each room - and it's fantastic.

 

[jwilson56]

I would look at using Netremote with JRMC. The skin that comes with Netremote seemlessly integrates with JRMC for true multizone setups. If you looking for a sound card to use I would suggest the Delta 410 PCI 10 channel card. It has great specs. Netremote also does IR and multiple clients.

http://www.promixis.com/products.php?section=netremote

John

 

[shenandoah75]

Thx to both of you... Ya i've seen a lot of psts on girder w/ net remote - i'll look deeper. Big thing is i'm trying to hold back on cost for the short run, but those wouldn't set me back too bad.


MikeB, As for my setup, still in progress, but:

short term:
1 will have only two zones, not 3 with the master suite/living area all 1 zone and a local pc & speakers for the outbuilding
within the week i shoudl have my old denon AV receiver for source selection + an external amp
these feed 8 Niles muting/ir VCs feeding the in ceiling speakers in each room
a xantech IR distribution block with potentially a USBUIRT if needed

So not entirely P/C based, just see that as primary (but not only) source since i've ripped all my CDs to mp3...

long term
i will be upgrading a denon A/V receiver with 3 zones for source selection, allowing me to spliting the master from the rest (and add the pool)
upgrading the equipment in the outbuilding to more than PC speakers and using an receiver to control A/B speakers in shop/office


thx again
-brad

 

[shenandoah75]

John,

i installed girder/netremotelast night.... the latter is indeed prety impressive and now i finally get exactly what Nowplaying does!!!! (girder i'm iffy because of the imbedded HAI support, but not the same for elk)


Some questions:

1) i'm assuming if installed the Maudio card, the media bridge would correctly/automatically recognize/show me multiple zones instead of just one? andit would allow multiple connections to jriver?

2) in my outbuilding case, i was leaning towards using a PC as a seperate "client/player", but i could also just use balans to send one of the maudio's stereo outputs over cat6. If i went with the first option (and did not run line level/speaker level between the buildings), i would have to install media server/Jriver on that PC as to use the first option (using a mapped drive back to my main server to get the music).

3) i'm thinking i could pick up a couple of cheap PPCs on ebay. What IR mode are you using in your case?. I could save some bucks if i lose the wifi, and go with a PPC with IR Direct only into the Xantech distribution, but wouldn't be able to surf locally (nor control Girder easily that way i guess?). I had toyed with global cache, but since i have IR distribution via niles/xantech, might be nice to leverage that.

-brad

 

[jwilson56]

John,

i installed girder/netremotelast night.... the latter is indeed prety impressive and now i finally get exactly what Nowplaying does!!!! (girder i'm iffy because of the imbedded HAI support, but not the same for elk)

I know there is an Elk plugin being developed. One of the guys here using G5 with his Elk.


Some questions:

1) i'm assuming if installed the Maudio card, the media bridge would correctly/automatically recognize/show me multiple zones instead of just one? andit would allow multiple connections to jriver?


If you have multiple sound cards (or they show up as multiple sound cards) configured correctly under windows then JRMC will be able to use them correctly.


2) in my outbuilding case, i was leaning towards using a PC as a seperate "client/player", but i could also just use balans to send one of the maudio's stereo outputs over cat6. If i went with the first option (and did not run line level/speaker level between the buildings), i would have to install media server/Jriver on that PC as to use the first option (using a mapped drive back to my main server to get the music).

Not done that before but I do believe Mediabridge can handle that with no problem. BTW I only use Girder to handle the HA stuff and my IR control. I do believe that NR can handle the IR directly. I would post over on the Promixis forum.

3) i'm thinking i could pick up a couple of cheap PPCs on ebay. What IR mode are you using in your case?. I could save some bucks if i lose the wifi, and go with a PPC with IR Direct only into the Xantech distribution, but wouldn't be able to surf locally (nor control Girder easily that way i guess?). I had toyed with global cache, but since i have IR distribution via niles/xantech, might be nice to leverage that.

All my IR is done through Girder and the Slink-e interface. Again I would post some questions on Promixis forum for you specific needs. All my equipment is centrally located including the PC servers. I only run speaker wire to all my zones. I don't like running line level signals that far. Also I have ripped all my CD's using APE which is a lossless format. If your into quality sound then your library will suffer with mp3. I have done comparison tests and you can notice the difference.

-brad

 

[DavidL]

Shendoah,

What you would need MainLobby software wise for multizone audio:

MainLobby 3 combo $179.99
MusicLobby 3 $59.99
J River media Center 12 $39.99

With that you can do what you want and expand to a super powerful system from there.

This would allow you to connect from up to 5 concurrant connected PC clients where you can manage your playlists, what's playing at each zone, volume at each zone etc.

J river is where the zone to sound card channel association is being done.

MusicLobby is where you can display any of those zones and what's playing.

Your USB_UIRT is supported by MLServer's free USB_UIRT plugin. This allows very versatile usage of IR both to receive IR and do whatever you want it to do, as well as send IR to most IR devices.

The above software pricing supports up to 5 clients (which is a lot - more than most ever use) and up to 3 zones (which can be added to when you are ready).

We also now have a MLMaudio drivers for very discrete control over your sound card (if you need it at all).

 

[shenandoah75]

David,

choices/choices

thanks alot as always... I just downloaded and will be testing Cinemar and CQC trial versions hopefully within the week. I actually don't have the UIRT yet... only the xantech connecting block. So i was open to global cache or whatever.

Two questions on cinemar's offerings specifically:

1) i'm assuming you support pocket pcs as clients correct (not just touchpad displays on pcs) - your website mentions tablets and all the screen shots i see are in large format? UPDATE: found musiclobby PPC... but does this mean i can't use plugins like Elk/denon from the same PPC and they have to go on true PCs? This could be a decision point for me. My wife and would like to avoid bulk (but i still want convenience - lighting/elk from PPCs not tablet)

2) for IR control (struggling with this in all solutions), with 1 zone, maybe 3/4 max down the road, will i be able in cinemar's offerings to assign specific IR commands from each client/ipaq to a specific location

i.e. say i get 3 global caches - one for three denon receivers + global device control. Can ipaq 1 be assign to GC#1's IP, etc?

I read your websites section on globalcache as well as their docs... Their docs don't help much at all, but you state the immitter outputs are "independant". So if i got the smaller one, can i use IR output #1 for denon #1, #2 for denon #2, #3-6 for all global components via the xantech block?

thx
-brad

 

[IVB]

One point of clarification: CQC doesn't use JRMC as the renderer, it's got it's own built-in audio player.

It only uses JRMC for the music repository portion. you export the library to an XML file, and CQC imports it. After that, JRMC is no longer needed.

You'd only recut the XML file if you added new music to your collection that was mp3 only (ie, you didn't buy the CD which CQC could just rip).

In my case, I no longer use JRMC as it's unneeded, and i'm a big fan of using as few programs as possible to accomplish the task.

 

[shenandoah75]

IVB, but with CQSL , i wouldn't need jriver at all, i could do all ripping within the CQC's own toolset right?

 

[DavidL]

"1) i'm assuming you support pocket pcs as clients correct (not just touchpad displays on pcs) - your website mentions tablets and all the screen shots i see are in large format? UPDATE: found musiclobby PPC... but does this mean i can't use plugins like Elk/denon from the same PPC and they have to go on true PCs? This could be a decision point for me. My wife and would like to avoid bulk (but i still want convenience - lighting/elk from PPCs not tablet)"

There are a few PPC specific offerings with flash based user interfaces to control MusicLobby / DVDLobby / XMLobby and Russound CAV66. These are considered clients with respect to the overall system. Today, there are no Flash equivelants for control or viewing of the ELK (one example). There are means for one to develop HTML pages that would run on MLServer that you could interact with in a PPC browser. Not that difficult, but more difficult than the 10 minutes it takes to enable one of the Flash based PPC apps (as comparison). Anyone that can put a webpage together can do it. Not as easy as developing a scene in MainLobby scene Designer for a full PC (another relative comparison). We intend to create some HTML templates to make this much easier in the near future, but have only provided two samples to date that is example of how to do this.

'2) for IR control (struggling with this in all solutions), with 1 zone, maybe 3/4 max down the road, will i be able in cinemar's offerings to assign specific IR commands from each client/ipaq to a specific location '

The most versatle IR is to use Cinemar's USBIR6 6 zone output transceiver. With that, you can do what you are asking.

"i.e. say i get 3 global caches - one for three denon receivers + global device control. Can ipaq 1 be assign to GC#1's IP, etc?"

If you are using the USBIR6 and have all IR LAN lines running to it, there is no need for a GlobalCache. If your Denon receivers support RS232 - there is a plugin to control the receiver via RS232 instead of IR (much better than IR).

"I read your websites section on globalcache as well as their docs... Their docs don't help much at all, but you state the immitter outputs are "independant". So if i got the smaller one, can i use IR output #1 for denon #1, #2 for denon #2, #3-6 for all global components via the xantech block?"

Normally you would tie all of your IR equipment on one zone. The purpose of IR zones isn't to control different hardware on a different zone, it is to control either similar hardware (respond to same IR signal) independently (each on a unique addressable zone) or to control sets of hardware that is used in one area vs. another area (a zone).

 

[IVB]

IVB, but with CQSL , i wouldn't need jriver at all, i could do all ripping within the CQC's own toolset right?

yes, if all you do is buy CDs . if you purchase mp3 files directly, then today you need jrmc as cqc needs to do the ripping itself.

I don't purchase mp3 files as I prefer a lossless format, so I don't jrmc at all.