Best Multizonal Skin?

by **mwigtkm** on Sat Sep 16, 2006 2:03 am

So I am in the process of building an Xlobby setup that is going to need 9 zones (some of you have seen some of my previous posts in the support forums). Because I am planning on doing 9 zones, I need a skin that can show 9 zones (the basic skin only shows 4 zones even though setup shows 9). Are there any like this? Anyone have a music only skin? Sorry for posting this way, I know I could just load up all the skins available here but that seems like a lot of time when just asking gets me my answer in minutes (yes i am that lazy sorry!).

by **WannaTheater** on Sat Sep 16, 2006 2:17 am

Can't help you on a skin, but wondering what type of hardware (specifically soundcard/s) you are using to drive 9 zones?

by **lpg** on Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:03 pm

I have reviewed most of the skins and you are right that out of the box they are set up for 4 zones. I have the same issue of needing more than 4 zones. I would recommend selecting the skin that best suits you for other purposes and modifing it. Colby has written an excellent guide on skinning. It did not take me too long to understand how to modify the screens.

Larry

by **mwigtkm** on Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:21 am

I am actually using the onboard sound and two creative cards. I have figured out a way to use one winamp instance to actually drive multiple outputs. I will actually only have 5 sets of speakers, but here is what I have figured out (using the kx drivers):

Soundblaster Live #1:
Living Room (4/5)
Rec Room (6/7)
Both #1 (0/1)

Soundblaster Live #2:
Garage (4/5)
Deck (6/7)
Both (0/1)

Master Bedroom (onboard sound)

Both #1 and Master
Both #1 and Both #2
All

So I guess that is 10 instances of Winamp and not 9. What I figured out is that you can run multiple instances of DirectSound by copying the Out_ds.dll file and renaming it like out_ds2.dll. Then after you have setup as many of those files you need, there is a plugin at winamp.com that will let you use multiple output dlls. It works great. I am actually able to play all 5 sets of speakers out of one winamp instance all with perfect sync even though it is actually using 3 different sound cards! So what I am doing is having as many winamp instances as I need to cover just about any combination of outputs I can imagine. I can control the different zones by hitting F2 and selecting which winamp instance I want to use, but it isn't as nice as just being able to select directly from the nice gui that winamp allows.

by **WannaTheater** on Sun Sep 17, 2006 11:51 am

Thanks for the explanation. I currently have a multi-output guitar recording device in one of my PCI slots which I use (I can drive 3 zones-3 instances of winamp); the problem is that the drivers for this hardware are very buggy, and often hang up (requiring reboot).... and the company is out of business now. And I only have 1 PCI slot in my PC.

This will help me figure out an alternate solution!

Also, what are you using to drive the speakers? Individual external amps?

by **mwigtkm** on Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:00 am

A couple of sets of speakers are via my two home theater setups/receivers and the other three are via 2 channel amps that I have sitting in my basement. I haven't finished wiring it all up the way I want it, but I am getting there.

by **Marbles_00** on Mon Sep 18, 2006 4:20 pm

Check out my web link, I've done a music only skin that you can download and try. Only additional stuff is weather and intheater info. It is primarily for 5 zones. It also includes ppc screens.

I'm currently redoing the graphics and changing it around (hopefully making it better). I've completed the main screens for the most part, now I'm starting to work on ppc graphics. It will also include a floorplan map (of my house unfortunately for others), that will give you zone information in anyroom, and by clicking on any room that is setup as a zone, will "set zone" to that room, automatically setting that zone to control. It has been setup for 10 zones and the graphics could very easily be adapted for any floorplan. Screen shots of this skin are to come soon.

If you want to add more zones to any existing skin only showing 4 zones, just copy and paste the zone status command and image command and replace with whatever the number of the zone. The commands are:

zone>#>image - (without strings before or after) where the '#' is the number of the zone, will give you the album cover images for each zone.

%zone>#>status% - where '#' is the number of the zone, will give you all the album information within the zone. This includes album, artist, title, genre, year (I think), time elapsed/ total time.

Hope this was helpful.

by **Marbles_00** on Tue Sep 19, 2006 5:54 am

Up coming ZoneSkin2, that will replace my current ZoneSkin. Though I never did announce and release my first ZoneSkin, I may do so here if there seems to be a demand. Let me know what you think. Remember, it is a stripped down Xlobby for one function (mainly)...Zoning Music.

Still to come, PPC images, and a few other screen shots.

See preview images here:
http://mayhem.prod.googlepages.com/zoneskin2

by **lpg** on Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:51 pm

This look great. I am looking to put touchscreens in each of my rooms and this skin would be perfect. What type of computer screens are you working with?

by **Marbles_00** on Tue Sep 19, 2006 3:33 pm

I take it your talking about resolutions? It is 800x600, mainly because I'm doing this on an older system and I don't want to push the monitor to 1024x768 in fear of blowing it up. Do I see a need now to experiment with themes? :wink:

Touchscreen...hmmm...don't have one to test on, but it may work nicely with one of those. I have to throw it on the actual music server for a full test, and if that works out, maybe I'll let people play with it, especially with you touchscreen users who can give me some feedback for future updates.

by **mwigtkm** on Tue Sep 19, 2006 3:49 pm

Marbles, that is exactly what I was looking for! Boy if you could get your zoneskin2 up and running I would be ever so greatful! It would be great to have a zone map (I think my zones are pretty discriptive, but it would be nice to see them on a map). Let me know when you have it available for download.

Also, thanks for the tip on adding more zones to any skin. I will have to give that a try this weekend!

by **Marbles_00** on Thu Sep 21, 2006 4:37 pm

Here's a link to a small avi that shows some of the Zoneskin abilities. As stated, disregard some of the incompletness of databases and the sort.

http://mayhem.prod.googlepages.com/zoneskinexample

Enjoy and give feedback.

by **Marbles_00** on Fri Sep 22, 2006 4:43 pm

I added a new feature last night to the "Party" button. It can now toggle between Party On and Party Off, and some of the resulting effects.

To view, just go to the link above and click on the Partytoggle.avi.

Have fun, and let me know what you think.

by **Naylia** on Fri Sep 22, 2006 8:31 pm

I'm still trying to comprehend that you're using XLobby to run a Bang & Olufsen setup...

You should email steven and get setup so you can host the skin here and start a thread for it so it shows up in the Skins page.

by **mwigtkm** on Sat Sep 23, 2006 12:34 am

Pure sweetness! Sign me up!!