WHA experts: help with my well laid-out DIY plan

[fdiddy]

Kitchen
• In-ceiling speakers
• Dimmable/remote controllable light switches
• Microphone for human interfacing [see Music Rules below]
Living Room
• In-ceiling speakers
• Music PC/Blu-Ray Audio Player/CD Player
• Dimmable/remote controllable light switches
Bathroom
• In-ceiling speakers
• Dimmable/remote controllable light switches
• Microphone for human interfacing [see Music Rules below]
Patio/Deck
• In-ceiling speakers
• Volume control
Wiring Closet
• Networked storage drive
• Pico automation PC: kitchen
• Stereo receiver: kitchen
• Main automation PC
• 7 channel receiver: living room
• Pico automation PC: bathroom
• Stereo receiver: bathroom
• Pico automation PC: patio
• Stereo receiver: patio

Goals
General
• Every aspect listed above will be hardwired and will be run in a raceway for future access.
• There will be two identically configured PocketPCs that will be able to control every aspect as well as override all of the automation (e.g. if the light is on in the bathroom, the remote can turn the music off manually [see Music Rules below]).
Music Rules
• Lights will act in place of motion sensors to move music around the house (e.g. turning on the light in the bathroom will add the music playing in the living room to the bathroom). Turning the light off will kill the music in a room.
• The human interfacing microphones will be used for simple music commands such as on, previous and next tracks, play and pause, mute, off and whole house off.
• There will be a key word such as ‘music’ followed by the desired operation such as ‘next track’.


Insight, suggestions are welcome.

I want each zone to be independent so that I could conceivably have a different source (or different songs from the hard drive) playing in each. I'm hoping there is an easier way than having a pc for each source.

I would like to use girder and netremote for this, but if that just can't happen or other programs such as Charmed Quark would be miles better, let me know.

This will be 100% DIY. If Nuvo or Niles or Russound etc. are suggested, please make sure that I will be able to legally (and without learning an entire proprietary programming language) do it myself.

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post and I appreciate your replies.

 

[bfisher]

it appears you want each amp in each room? That means if you are centralizing your storage, each amp would need a way to get the signals.

The other option (that I went with) is to centralize the amps and run speakerlevel wiring to each room. The PC is using a Delta 410 card - basically 4 stereo outputs. This way each amp can have it's own zone. I use JRiver for managing my music.

You can see more about it in my cocoon thread (in my signature). It's very outdated (it's on the todo list to update it) but should give you some idea of what I'm talking about. (Scroll down for the Audio stuff)

 

[sic0048]

Just a couple of thoughts. Adding voice automation is going to be complicated and error prone unless you want a computer style microphone in the room that you walk up to and speak into. Just having open air microphones that pick up all voices in the room just don't work well yet. As such, most of the automation programs out there don't support it because it just isn't reliable. One exception I believe is VCrib which is also free, so you could try it out and see if it works well. But in general, "Not too complex" and voice activation don't go together with todays technology (at least affordable technology - if you are Bill Gates you can (and did) get it done).

I looked at the VCrip site and Vaughn is definitely still doing voice activation. However, it looks like even he moved to a dedicated microphone setup with a switch to activate it. In his earlier videos he use to have an open air microphone, but obviously the reliability wasn't there. Now he has a small microphone next to his couch that he can use. There is a small contact switch next to the microphone that he presses while speaking (kind of like a walkie talkie). That way the microphone isn't "On" all the time picking up random conversation and noise.

I also think that using the lighting switches to control the media player may get old quickly. I'm sure there will be many times that you turn on a light and don't want music to play (watching TV, etc). If the voice activation system is quirky or requires speaking into a specific microphone, I think you'll find that more of a pain in the rear. Also, what are you going to do about music during the daylight hours when you don't need lights on in the house. If it is still going to require turning on the lights, then you'll be throwing money down the drain in extra energy costs.

Just a couple of thoughts. Please don't take them as being critical as they are not intended to be.

 

[nexus99]

It sounds like you need something that integrates the audio very closely with everything else in the home. I am not a fan of using a PC for control so I went the HAI route. I believe it is able to turn sound on and off in a room according to whatever trigger you choose (motion or light on/off).
The system easily supports 8 zones and 6 discreet inputs. I am sure you can expand beyond that but I havn't looked at that yet.

For sound I am using iTunes with iPod Touch from remote control. That gives you control from any room for any zone... but I don't think that adresses your need for every zone having a different source controlled by the wireless device.

For me I plan to have 1 input from our main media server running iTunes. If we want to listen to something else we would manually choose a local input and select a song form there. There are only the two of us + 1 child so we don't have to have 8 different things playing at the same time.

Please let us know what you choose!

 

[jwilson56]

Take a look at my showcase for info on my 6 zone WHA system

 

[SnyperBob]

Take a look at my showcase for info on my 6 zone WHA system

Yeah, I think jwilson's setup is pretty much exactly what you want to do. I would study his setup, I'm going the same route jwilson went as well.....only I'm doing it on the cheap, lol.

 

[fdiddy]

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated.

bfisher: I actually want all of the amps together in the wiring closet with the speaker wire running out to each room. I like the idea of your sound card with 4 stereo outputs, but I want to be able to have different audio playing simultaneously in each zone and don't think one PC can do that. I also want to be able to listen to surround blu-ray audio in the living room. I'll check your writeup.

sic: I will reluctantly agree with you that adding a microphone to a system makes it much more difficult and complex. I will consider scrapping the mic idea since it is more of a novelty than a necessity (who would've thought any part of HA was a necessity! When I was a kid we used to listen to one radio station, bare foot, in the snow, up a hill both ways!) The light thing should actually work regardless of the time of day because the only rooms where this is in effect are the bathroom and kitchen which always (in my case at least) have the lights turned on during extended stays. The music will only play automatically if there is music already playing in the living room, so it won't turn on when I'm watching TV for example.

nexus: I have always liked the idea of using a PC but perhaps that's because I don't know anything about things like HAI, Elk, Homeseer etc. Is there a concise source that I can find out what these different options do and don't do? Could you expand on what you did in your home and how it works?

jwilson: Thanks for the links, I will take a look at your showcase and bug you when I have questions :huh:

 

[felixrosbergen]

I think it's possible to have 4 different instances of iTunes or WinAmp or whatever runnin on the same PC each using 1 of the 4 outputs of the sound card...soundcards are also very cheap so you could just add additional cards, but that eats up PCI slots pretty fast.

The question is how to get the iTunes/WinAmp instances to play/stop, skip to next song, etc. I haven't studies this in detail but my guess is that Girder/NetRemote/CQC type programms can do this for you.

I plan on using Nuvo and think i can get CQC to capture the keypad events which in turn then tells the itunes instances to do whatever the need to do. Not that it's likely keypads will be used that often since nobody wants to get off their but to walk to a a keypad...but a remote for the Nuvo would then do the same trick..

If only i could get some power to my new house one of these years i woudl be able to get this stuff installed and experiment...

 

[sic0048]

I think there are two basic ways to get multple concurrent audio streams out of a PC. One is to use a studio mixer card like the M-Audio 410 or 1010 cards. These cards are designed to have several stereo outputs going at the same time. I have a 410 card and can output as many as 5 stereo outputs at the same time (I regularly have 3 different stereo pairs outputting at the same time). Keep in mind that normal 5.1 or 7.1 audio cards will not have this ability. Even though they might have up to 8 outputs, they cannot play different streams at the same time.

The other option is to add multiple audio cards as already suggested. But tey do eat up PCI slots and I would always be worried about compatibility issues. For example, you might have to have different brand cards for each one. At least I would research to make sure I could put in two identical cards and have them work well together.

 

[bfisher]

bfisher: I actually want all of the amps together in the wiring closet with the speaker wire running out to each room. I like the idea of your sound card with 4 stereo outputs, but I want to be able to have different audio playing simultaneously in each zone and don't think one PC can do that. I also want to be able to listen to surround blu-ray audio in the living room. I'll check your writeup.

JRiver supports multiple independent zones in 1 software instance. So using the Delta 410 card, I have 4 unique zones available using 1 PC. You don't need to use the 410 card, there are probably others out there... My music PC is also my Sage server - so it's truly a multimedia server - all 6 zones of my music (up to 4 unique which is more than I need) and 6 HD TVs.

 

[tmbrown97]

this is a dangerous forum. I barely have my SagePC coming together, and I'm ready to order a 410 card to throw in it with JRiver! That really sounds like the way to go from what I've read about on here.

 

[DavidL]

this is a dangerous forum. I barely have my SagePC coming together, and I'm ready to order a 410 card to throw in it with JRiver! That really sounds like the way to go from what I've read about on here.

Keep in mind you don't need a 410 card for multizone playback via J river. The motherboard audio 7.1 sound card will work just fine for whole house audio needs. You can also add a second sound card of most any flavor.

 

[samgreco]

Also keep in mind that if you have ONLY a sound card to provide the multiple zoned outputs, synching them will be almost impossible. Meaning, if you are having a party and want all of the zones playing the same thing, they will most likely be out of synch. Think endless echoing throughout your house. Not pretty. That's why I picked a matrix switch. Or you could go with a Russound, Nuvo, etc., matrix/amp units.

Any professional audio recording sound device will give you multiple, selectable outputs. I use the Delta 1010LT and it works flawlessly. It feeds my Xantech matrix/preamp. With that, I can have 4 simultaneous streams going into the matrix. Leaving 4 more inputs on the switch for tuners, etc. You can also use multiple cards for more outputs, but at the cost of PCI slots. Although there are external USB and Firewire devices from M-Audio and others too.

 

[electron]

If you find a good deal on that card, let me know

 

[jwilson56]

I use a Delta 410 PCI with a Xitel HIFI Pro and HIFI Link USB to achieve 6 independent zones. I also have the ability to do hardware syncing using the HIFI Pro by using its simultaneous output of the TOSlink Optical which feeds my Sony ES receiver and its line level output. By feeding the line level to a Xantech Distribution Amp ($65) it can then drive all 5 auxiliary zones that can individually switched to the AUX input via IR. This achieves true hardware syncing between any number of zones with little added hardware.