Greetings all.
I've spent a several hours recently going thru threads here and some other web resources but not sure I'm working out an effective plan for multi-source audio.
First, for our new construction I will be putting in a Monoprice 6-Zone:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=10761
Initially starting with just the one device until we get around to finishing the basement and outdoor entertainment areas, at which time I will add a second (I'll be pre-running the speaker, line-level and cat5e for controllers). As a quick side-note here, I know the current plugin by happnatious1 only supports one device but from what I've seen in the monoprice manual their api is pretty well documented so this may be a good time for me to play with plugin work using the existing one initially and developing my skill before we purchase the second unit.
With that out of the way, I'm mostly still confused about source management. The Monoprice supports 6 sources. One of these will be for one of their bluetooth wall plates in the living room. But I'm not sure how to best manage the others to be flexible and useful. We've really just been single-threaded here on audio and am behind the curve seriously I feel.
Here's what we currently have in our home. Usually we just play the MP3s through a computer or download to a phone, or we use one of the streaming services through the bluray player or Roku tv in the living room or on our individual phones.
So currently, someone may have one Pandora channel going on the TV while I listen to Spotify on my phone while working and my wife has a different Pandora channel on her phone while driving.
Due to the flexible nature of the streaming services especially, what I was looking for is a solution of mapping some "source devices" to the five available Monoprice channels and then having a software solution to control that device. Each family member would "own" one source device/channel and can bring it up on any of the Monoprice Zones they wanted to.
I can have my wife be "channel 1", I'm channel 2, and each of the kids have a channel. Then my wife can have her music going on two or three Monoprice Zones while she's in the main part of the house while I and the kids have something different playing in whatever Zone we are in. This is the only option I've been able to wrap my head around but not sure if there are better ones I haven't considered yet.
Some notes:
* I will be moving all my music and movie burns over to a basic NAS for redundancy. and pointing a Plex media server at it as my back-end on a dedicated HTPC.
* I plan to run a Kodi front end client on that same HTPC but it will only be in use when the actual theater is in use, so relatively infrequent.
* I plan to run additional Kodi frontends on two RPi with one at each of our TV locations.
This was to cover the "video" portion of life (playing burned movies from the NAS, bluray player, Netflix, Vudu, etc.) but I have not yet considered the audio side. My TV-center designs already incorporate appropriate speakers so I have no interest to tie in those RPis to the Monoprice ceiling speaker system specifically. The Monoprice will be for music and other audio-only use.
So getting back to the audio source question, I wasn't sure though if it may be best to just run five additional, isolated Kodi clients somewhere, attach the audio output of each to one Monoprice Source and use our phone or local HS3 console to manage the source selection. "Audio Kodi #1" would be Source #1 but could be set to use whatever stream source my wife wants to listen to at that time, etc.
I've also seen a lot of suggestions on this forum from people that like squeezebox for audio, but am not familiar with it yet and not sure I want to run two media servers and present the family with two interfaces (Kodi & squeeze). In fact, too many different looks will turn off most of us. For example my wife likes to use the universal remote to control the TV, bluray and streaming services, but really dislikes having to use the two separate remotes.
If I go the route of five dedicated Kodi (or squeezebox ) clients, I think I am either looking at five dedicated RPis or another PC with five installed soundcards, each mapped to a VM running an isolated client...unless I'm missing an option I'm completely clueless about.
I do NOT mind having to put in time to customize a front-end, develop HS3 screens, etc. if needed. I am a strong in Python and Linux scripting; capable in Java / JS / NodeJS / HTML / CSS / XML / JSON / YAML; work with MQ, Java JVMs, WebSphere, Apache and am building skill in docker and ansible. So I love geeking out on some of this and am never intimidated on the tech side if I have some good references to work from. But to be honest I'm just overwhelmed on the options at this point.
So I really hope the collective wisdom here can help brush away my final webs of understanding of all these options. As I've had no need to play with real media management yet I feel I'm probably looking at things with an out of date perspective.
advTHANKSance!!!!!
I've spent a several hours recently going thru threads here and some other web resources but not sure I'm working out an effective plan for multi-source audio.
First, for our new construction I will be putting in a Monoprice 6-Zone:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=10761
Initially starting with just the one device until we get around to finishing the basement and outdoor entertainment areas, at which time I will add a second (I'll be pre-running the speaker, line-level and cat5e for controllers). As a quick side-note here, I know the current plugin by happnatious1 only supports one device but from what I've seen in the monoprice manual their api is pretty well documented so this may be a good time for me to play with plugin work using the existing one initially and developing my skill before we purchase the second unit.
With that out of the way, I'm mostly still confused about source management. The Monoprice supports 6 sources. One of these will be for one of their bluetooth wall plates in the living room. But I'm not sure how to best manage the others to be flexible and useful. We've really just been single-threaded here on audio and am behind the curve seriously I feel.
Here's what we currently have in our home. Usually we just play the MP3s through a computer or download to a phone, or we use one of the streaming services through the bluray player or Roku tv in the living room or on our individual phones.
- Storage with about 2000+ CDs burned to MP3 and/or FLAC. I access these very "old style" currently with just pointing a player to specific artists or albums or pulling together manual play lists. I would love to get more "intelligent" here based on final direction.
- Pandora - our family shares a single free account with about a dozen stations we've developed over a few years.
- Spotify - three separate accounts in the family. One premium and two free.
- Physical CDs (through the bluray player)
- Random other source...typically youtube music feeds or last.fm or such. Nothing consistent enough to consider dedicated
So currently, someone may have one Pandora channel going on the TV while I listen to Spotify on my phone while working and my wife has a different Pandora channel on her phone while driving.
Due to the flexible nature of the streaming services especially, what I was looking for is a solution of mapping some "source devices" to the five available Monoprice channels and then having a software solution to control that device. Each family member would "own" one source device/channel and can bring it up on any of the Monoprice Zones they wanted to.
I can have my wife be "channel 1", I'm channel 2, and each of the kids have a channel. Then my wife can have her music going on two or three Monoprice Zones while she's in the main part of the house while I and the kids have something different playing in whatever Zone we are in. This is the only option I've been able to wrap my head around but not sure if there are better ones I haven't considered yet.
Some notes:
* I will be moving all my music and movie burns over to a basic NAS for redundancy. and pointing a Plex media server at it as my back-end on a dedicated HTPC.
* I plan to run a Kodi front end client on that same HTPC but it will only be in use when the actual theater is in use, so relatively infrequent.
* I plan to run additional Kodi frontends on two RPi with one at each of our TV locations.
This was to cover the "video" portion of life (playing burned movies from the NAS, bluray player, Netflix, Vudu, etc.) but I have not yet considered the audio side. My TV-center designs already incorporate appropriate speakers so I have no interest to tie in those RPis to the Monoprice ceiling speaker system specifically. The Monoprice will be for music and other audio-only use.
So getting back to the audio source question, I wasn't sure though if it may be best to just run five additional, isolated Kodi clients somewhere, attach the audio output of each to one Monoprice Source and use our phone or local HS3 console to manage the source selection. "Audio Kodi #1" would be Source #1 but could be set to use whatever stream source my wife wants to listen to at that time, etc.
I've also seen a lot of suggestions on this forum from people that like squeezebox for audio, but am not familiar with it yet and not sure I want to run two media servers and present the family with two interfaces (Kodi & squeeze). In fact, too many different looks will turn off most of us. For example my wife likes to use the universal remote to control the TV, bluray and streaming services, but really dislikes having to use the two separate remotes.
If I go the route of five dedicated Kodi (or squeezebox ) clients, I think I am either looking at five dedicated RPis or another PC with five installed soundcards, each mapped to a VM running an isolated client...unless I'm missing an option I'm completely clueless about.
I do NOT mind having to put in time to customize a front-end, develop HS3 screens, etc. if needed. I am a strong in Python and Linux scripting; capable in Java / JS / NodeJS / HTML / CSS / XML / JSON / YAML; work with MQ, Java JVMs, WebSphere, Apache and am building skill in docker and ansible. So I love geeking out on some of this and am never intimidated on the tech side if I have some good references to work from. But to be honest I'm just overwhelmed on the options at this point.
So I really hope the collective wisdom here can help brush away my final webs of understanding of all these options. As I've had no need to play with real media management yet I feel I'm probably looking at things with an out of date perspective.
advTHANKSance!!!!!
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