MultiRoom-Now Playing

General discussion about the media server. Feature requests. Hints, tips and tricks.
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mrl_twonky
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MultiRoom-Now Playing

Post by mrl_twonky » Sun May 13, 2007 10:47 pm

Did a bit of research today on this. From what I can tell this functionality was dropped mid 2006. Can anyone confirm that for me? I have edited the ini to add the following:

# Now playing
nowplaying=Now playing

but when I stop and restart the server the lines are removed. I would like to be able to stream music to mutliple devices all of the same make model, WMLS11b from Linksys. Is there anything out there I can use to add this functionality? I found Cidero but really don't think that is what I was looking for. TIA.

MRL
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twonky-christian
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Post by twonky-christian » Mon May 14, 2007 7:00 pm

yep - nowplaying was dropped - we did not manage to get all players in synch

mrl_twonky
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Post by mrl_twonky » Tue May 15, 2007 1:00 pm

Thanks for the reply. Are there any add on products that might allow for this functionality?

MRL
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twonky-christian
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Post by twonky-christian » Tue May 15, 2007 1:42 pm

it is a common upnp av problem - which can not be solved with this protocol. UPnP AV renderers "may" event their current playing position - with about an accuracy of a second. This is not enough for synch playback.

w7
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Post by w7 » Wed May 16, 2007 2:59 pm

I can confirm that the feature most certainly did not work. Too bad that it never will, but thanks for trying, Christian.

Wolferich
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Multiroom playing

Post by Wolferich » Thu May 17, 2007 10:44 am

twonky-christian wrote:it is a common upnp av problem - which can not be solved with this protocol. UPnP AV renderers "may" event their current playing position - with about an accuracy of a second. This is not enough for synch playback.
I really wouldn't mind if it does not play in sync. I just liked to here the same song when I move from on room to another one (on antother floor).

I really wished that this feature would come back.

guysivey
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Post by guysivey » Wed May 23, 2007 10:45 pm

http://www.twonkyvision.de/Products/Two ... index.html

quoting the main characteristics (v4.3) from the above:-

"synchronize the same music on several media players throughout the home"

an earlier version (3.1?) used to do what Wolferich wants, but I seem to remember it was an unsupported feature. It definitely did work, because I used to use it a lot. There was a delay of up to 30 seconds, which could be a problem sometimes (!).

Now we seem to have a supported non-feature.

does 4.3 support it or not?

Guy
WinXP SP2
iTunes
Firefly server
Roku M500+M1001
abandoned Twonky when now_playing discontinued

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twonky-christian
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Post by twonky-christian » Thu May 24, 2007 6:31 am

sorry - we will update the web page :?

this feature was removed

mrl_twonky
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Post by mrl_twonky » Fri May 25, 2007 1:19 pm

Sure would like to see that come back as an option as well. Delay or not.
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fartwinkle
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Multiroom Playback

Post by fartwinkle » Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:15 am

Hi All,

I've have multiroom, synched playback working pretty well off an NSLU2 running Twonky, using the Cidero Media Controller with a pair of SoundBridge players.

I'd like to get the Cidero SynchProxy running on slug, but I'm not sure if it would cope, or if the java app would even run.

It does lose synch every now and again, and it can be a bit cranky, (stopping and starting the feed again sorts things out,) but 95% of the time there's perfect synch between the two players. It's very, very cool and I'd like to see support for the Cidero proxy function integrated as part of the core Twonky feature set.

:D

mrl_twonky
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MultiRoom-Now Playing

Post by mrl_twonky » Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:48 am

Glad to hear you got something working. Can you provide a bit more detail on how you set this up and how to run Cidero in conjunction with Twonky? Thanks.
MRL

fartwinkle
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Multi Room - Working Config

Post by fartwinkle » Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:33 pm

OK Here goes:

I have a stock Linksys WAG54g, which provides my WAN connectivity. The wifi from this is extended onto a Linksys WRT54g, (running third party SVEASOFT firmware,) into which my Wintel server and NSLU2's are plugged, (I have two NSLU2's, one stock, the other configured for Twonky with uNSLUng.)

For players, I'm using two identical Pinnacle SoundBridge's, (OEM Roku devices.)

As identified above, I'm running Twonky on an NSLU2 to serve music to the SoundBridges.

To enable multiroom capabilities I've had to implement a third party application Cidero (http://www.cidero.com) which acts as a uPnP media controller.

In addition to standard upnp controller functionality, Cidero includes the ability to synch multiple players, (I don't know if this will work with more than two,) for which it uses it's own software proxy which seems to be some kind of software upnp render device.

(I currently have the proxy installed on my Wintel server, but would like to run it directly on the slug alongside Twonky.)

Still with me?

Right, now it gets fun:

With both my players switched on and connected, I fire up the Cidero Media controller on my laptop. Confirm that all settings are correct, and chain the two players together.

Then it's just a question of selecting traks to add to the playlist and hitting the play button:

Out of both players I get perfectly synched music playback! :D

I have a friend with a similar setup, (same audio players, same media server setup) who can also manage multiroom, but has had more issues with synch and playback, (his house is bigger and his wifi setup, (Netgear,) doesn't have the extended range of mine.)

it seems to me that the Cidero controller is telling Twonky to stream the requested audio to the proxy, and directing both the players to receive the stream from there, almost as if it were an internet radio station.

It's a shame that the dev team have given up on this functionality, as it's a killer feature and much sought after. I've read a lot of the associated posts in this forum and most of those who attempted multiroom seemed to have had totally unrealistic setups. Most people seemed to expect that Twonky should successfully synch the hotch-potch of kit they had connected to their network ,and screamed blue murder when it didn't work.

If I can find an old NSLU2 compiled version of Twonky that supports the multiroom function I'll maybe give it a whirl.

Hope that helps :)

pdchristian2
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AV Hardware:Synology DS107+, 3 x Freecom Musicpal, Siemens M740 AV

Re: MultiRoom-Now Playing

Post by pdchristian2 » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:33 pm

Hi All,

I have TwonkyVision running on my Synolgoy DS107+ it works perfectly fine. The only thing I am really missing, is a simple solution to have multiple clients (3x Freecom Musicpals) play the same music.

It would be great to have a way to use.

# Now playing
nowplaying=Now playing

As the Clients are in differnt room an offset is acceptable.

Cidero is nice, but only works for two clients at a time.

For now I had to install a seperate computer as a internet radio station. Each client has to log in sperately. It is really a pain with this extra computer.

Could you please give us a way to use nowplaying again.


Thank you very much

Sjoske
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Re:

Post by Sjoske » Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:33 pm

twonky-christian wrote:it is a common upnp av problem - which can not be solved with this protocol. UPnP AV renderers "may" event their current playing position - with about an accuracy of a second. This is not enough for synch playback.
So uPnP is not future proof... what's next? I.e. what (future?) standard will support it? I'll be the first to try...
I already tried hard, with Cidero and its proxy, to get synched music in the same room. But with a Philips MX6000i and an SMC EZ-Stream I never got it to work... not even out-of-sync.

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