Total Newbie here

[dapex]

Hi all, I hvae just heard about xlobby froma thread on avforums.com where people are discussing using xlobby as a multi room audio server.

Now I have an old PC that is sat doing nothing (only 800MHZ with 512meg ram) and I am thinking baout having a play but I dont really have any idea what can be done or how.

The one thing I would like to know firstly is if anyhting can be done as wirelessly as possible. i have a relaticly new house and dont really want to be running new cabling all over.

So then, can i use an old PC wiht several soundcards and then send the sound all over the house. I'm not after nighclub leverls sound and so would I need an amp for each zone or could I have sound card into powered PC speakers? If so, then what is the easiest way (and cheapest way) to control a zone from within it (ie PC will be in office, whats the easiest way to control the sound in the bedroom from the bedroom).


Now if I wanted, would it be possible to have a 14" touch screen in each room and then have that as a control panel to control the audio zone and to wactch a film on? So that say for example, Zone1 is playing an MP3, zone 2,3,4, are all playing a film (the same film) and zone 5 is playing a different MP3. if this is posisble could it all be done over a single cat5 to each room or would more be needed.

I could get cat5 to each room I think by using hubs, PC would probable be downstairs, I already have a cat5 from front room into dinning room, hub in dinning room to give me a spur into Kitchen and downstairs toilet and then I have 2 cat5 going upstairs where I would need another hub to allow me to get cbales into each bedroom and the bathrooms.

if I built a powerful pC would I be able to do all this and use it as a HCPC...



Hmm, then I hear about x10 and controling things....WOW..


Cheers in advance for any help you can offer.

Cheers

[rhinoman]

Now I have an old PC that is sat doing nothing (only 800MHZ with 512meg ram) and I am thinking baout having a play but I dont really have any idea what can be done or how.

I've had xloby running as a single zone on that kind of spec machine, it loads a little slow and imports the music slowly but is ok when its running. You might struggle with multiple zones though.

So then, can i use an old PC wiht several soundcards and then send the sound all over the house. I'm not after nighclub leverls sound and so would I need an amp for each zone or could I have sound card into powered PC speakers? If so, then what is the easiest way (and cheapest way) to control a zone from within it (ie PC will be in office, whats the easiest way to control the sound in the bedroom from the bedroom).

You can use multiple cheap soundcards or I card with multiple outputs. You can use local amps and long speaker runs, long interconnects to active speakers will work as well. You can even use multiple pc's and local speakers to the pc, you install xlobby to each machine and link using xnet.

Once you've done this control using a ppc over wifi.

Now if I wanted, would it be possible to have a 14" touch screen in each room and then have that as a control panel to control the audio zone and to wactch a film on? So that say for example, Zone1 is playing an MP3, zone 2,3,4, are all playing a film (the same film) and zone 5 is playing a different MP3. if this is posisble could it all be done over a single cat5 to each room or would more be needed.

I think you might be better with multiple machines linked via xnet for this senario, the music would be ok but the video would be diificult to acheive.

The spec of the machine you need will depend on the layout of your system related to the requirement/ease of installation in your house.

[dapex]

Cheers John,
I have never heard of xnet so i will look into this and see what can de done. I will have to sit and think about ways to get speaker runs into each room, i think will be the biggets problem of all to be honest...

Cheers