[mythtv-users] New house - any advice?

Peter Bowyer peter at bowyer.org
Wed Jan 17 12:42:59 UTC 2007


On 17/01/07, Stroller <linux.luser at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
> On 17 Jan 2007, at 03:10, robin wrote:
>
> > Thanks for all the comments. You are all a great help!
> >
> > Is this possible: Have a frontend box with two or more sound cards,
> > with
> > each sound card hooked to a multi-source/multi-zone amp, so that
> > you could,
> > say, watch livetv using one audio channel and use mythmusic to play
> > a cd on
> > another audio channel sent to another room? This would require
> > multiple
> > instances of myth started on the box, each using a different sound
> > card.
> > ...
> > I want to reduce the number of frontends required but also be able
> > to feed
> > the audio out of mythmusic/mythfm around the house. This is the
> > only way I
> > could think of doing it.
> >
> > Maybe I'm overcomplicating things and should just install frontends
> > wherever
> > I have speakers installed, but I think a single multi-zone amp
> > would be
> > cheaper than installing a computer/monitor/amp in each room.
>
> For me it would be quite undesirable to have speakers in a different
> room from the FE - this would prevent one from changing radio
> stations or skipping a channel with the remote. However I can see
> that having a full FE computer & a TV or monitor in each room would
> also be undesirable.
>
> I'd look at devices like the Sqeezebox <http://www.slimdevices.com/
> pi_squeezebox.html> for music use; this looks quite expensive to me,
> but I see that older models can be picked up on eBay for (here in the
> UK, at least) about 1/3 the RRP of the current models. I'd also
> imagine that other brands offer similar solutions - it looks like
> Netgear's MP101 has a little support from the Linux community, for
> instance. The Squeezebox connects to a "Squeezeserver" which would
> run on your backend, but the manufacturers offer this for Linux and
> this would seem to me to be less hassle than setting up front-ends
> all over the place (I'm sorry, but there's no way on this planet you
> could convince me to cable speakers from one room to the other, when
> a lightweight FE could be used).

I have a Squeezebox sitting on top of my Myth FE (physically...). It
handles music playing (including live streams) soooo much better than
Myth (IMNSHO). The Myth BE and Slimserver run on one box, and can both
access the music repository as/when they need to.

Peter

-- 
Peter Bowyer
Email: peter at bowyer.org


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