How to: Easy Announcement Configuration

[DotNetDog]

I'm planning on building a new home and I plan to add home automation. I am currently researching voice interaction and audio. I don't really care about distributing music since we would probably just use the stereo. I really just need voice interaction (i.e - announcements).

Here are my current requirements:
- 10 to 12 zones
- Zone specific annoucements (turn off other zones)
- Zone specific volume control (from HS)

I've looked at Nuvo Essentia and it's definitely pricey. Would a couple of muli-channel sound cards work? How would I control volume from the HS PC?

[completelyhis]

multichannel sound cards should work. they'd need to be powered by an amp/amps, of course. the volume could either be done by controlling the volume of the amp (via IR or RS232 if the amp supports that) or you could control the volume level of each channel on the sound card via scripts. this could be done using a mixer plugin (I forget who makes it). There are some "hacked" drivers around on the net that enable a SB sound card device to be given independant mixer control of each channel. It only works with certain cards, so do your research.

Drozwood and DanielBo are two guys that are really good at this stuff, btw. I'm sure others too, but they come to mind because they've been more vocal about it on the board lately.

[DotNetDog]

I found another interesting solution from this thread:
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread...ntercom&page=2

The idea is to just buy cheap receivers for each zone that you need. I think it would work like this:

The sound card feeds into each receiver. The receivers serve as the amp for the zone-specific speakers. Each receiver is IR controled which allows for turning on/off each zone. This also allows for each zone to have automated volume, bass and treble via the IR control of each receiver.
OK, this sounds like a cheap solution...but... for accouncements and voice recogniztion/response, would this configuration switch fast enough to be usable?

Thoughts?

[Rupp]

You would more than likely need to keep your amps on. I power my single amp on and off based on house occupancy.

[DotNetDog]

OK, so I leave all receivers turned on. Would using IR to mute/unmute provide fast enough response time to work?

I'm concerned that the time for the Ocelot to send the IR mute/unmute commands could result in too long of a delay.