Line-In from one soundcard->output of several others

[Marbles_00]

I've been poundering this for a while, but not sure if it would work...or even how to do it.

I have a decent radio tuner that I'd like to connect to my music server and distribute radio if chosen to any given zone (different outputs of different soundcards). I could control the tuner via a USB-UIRT if required.

What I'm wondering is the following:
1) If it is possible to have an input (line level in my case) into a soundcard get routed to eventual outputs of other soundcards using winamp or foobar.

2) If the above is possible, what plugins/setup are required in the software?

Would this be a reason to use virtual audio cables? I've never used them so please excuse my lack of knowledge towards them.

Yes I've considered a TV turner/FM card, but figured that using the tuner would give me a reason to keep it, and then if I wanted, I could also get AM (Yeah )

Thanks in advance.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

I am doing something like this now... im using physical digital cable to pass audio between cards (i dont really have other use for digital ports so theyre available to this, with my cards that doesnt work automaticly but i have to run custom filtergraph on background, also theres some delay inherent from process) but i suppose with VAC u can do it more cleanly plus route everything trough winamp, ill buy that soft when i have time to experiment with it more.

[Marbles_00]

For what it's worth, I remember now that rhinoman was doing something along the lines of what I wanted to do...sure enough he posted this using a shoutcast server.

It works a charm. Now it gives me a reason to go and purchase a couple of USB-UIRT's...one to learn and control the AM/FM tuner (have to add all that to Zoneskin2), and the other to setup for the eventual HTPC (wife is slowly realizing what I want to accomplish and she is starting to cave...playing the old classic's Sonic the Hedgehog and Donkey Kong Country on the big screen sure helped ).

[rbziggy]

I've been poundering this for a while, but not sure if it would work...or even how to do it.

I have a decent radio tuner that I'd like to connect to my music server and distribute radio if chosen to any given zone (different outputs of different soundcards). I could control the tuner via a USB-UIRT if required.

What I'm wondering is the following:
1) If it is possible to have an input (line level in my case) into a soundcard get routed to eventual outputs of other soundcards using winamp or foobar.

2) If the above is possible, what plugins/setup are required in the software?

Would this be a reason to use virtual audio cables? I've never used them so please excuse my lack of knowledge towards them.

Yes I've considered a TV turner/FM card, but figured that using the tuner would give me a reason to keep it, and then if I wanted, I could also get AM (Yeah )

Thanks in advance.

Yes, I do exactly this using the Line in on a soundblaster card using winamp. You will need a Line In plugin in Winamp (these may be installed as standard now but I originally got one from the Winamp site).

To play the line input you will (in xLobby) need to use the 'playfile' event with a parameter like:
line://title=BBC Radio 4,hideformat

Will work with multiple soundcard zones (for me I use the KX driver to give 6 stereo cards on two physical soundblasters).

(The line plugin will probably take the title & hideformat params - the title allows the title to be shown in the 'display' in xL so it ties up nicely.)

The title can be set via a variable instead of hardcoded. I use this with a database of preset stations to:
- display the radio stations on XL screen for selection
- use a usbuirt to send IR commands to the tuner to switch stations
- change the title with a variable so the right 'nowplaying' displays on the xL screens.

Getting the radio input working with winamp was straightforward - making it look good in xL a bit harder!

[Marbles_00]

Thanks for the tips.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to set presets using the USB-UIRT. I've got a Yamaha TX-480 and the remotes I've seen from Yamaha seem to only flip through 5 "pages" of presets and then scan from one preset to the next. I just can't select any specific preset at random...that kinda sucks...unless someone has a Yamaha with a better defined remote that they wouldn't mind sharing their IR codes?

[sharp_1]

...unless someone has a Yamaha with a better defined remote that they wouldn't mind sharing their IR codes?

Try this and see what happens. It's from my Yamaha HTR-5790...see IR sharing thread Search/Share an IR Database

Code: Select all

 <ircommand>
  <name>FM 1</name>
  <format>uirt-raw</format>
  <repeat>1</repeat>
  <irid></irid>
  <ircode>F40R030B815580B41616164216161642164216421642161616421616164216161616161616161642164216161642161616161642164216421616164216161642164216161616161616|075B81555616</ircode>
 </ircommand>
 

Hope this helps!!!

[Marbles_00]

Thanks sharp,

I won't be able to give you an answer as I just ordered a USB-UIRT, so it may take a while.

Thanks also for the link. Should give me some reading while I wait for the UIRT to arrive.

*EDIT*
Actually sharp, your code may just be what I'm looking for. Just want to verify though. How many preset buttons does your receiver have? Is it indeed 8? So I take it that FM1 through FM8 will select one of the preset buttons? FM Next and FM Prev will flip through the different memory "pages".

On my tuner these pages are A/B/C/D/E and each page has 8 preset settings for a total of 40 stored presets. The only buttons on my remote that has any control of the tuner is one button that sequentially selects the "page" then a button to either flip to the next preset or previous preset. I figure from this, there will only be a total of three codes from my remote.

Just want to understand the differences.

Thanks again.


*EDIT yet again*
Actually looking over the manual for your receiver...it doesn't have any individual preset buttons. From a quick read through...it would appear to be not much different from how my tuner operates. Though I don't have your receiver so please correct me if I am wrong.

[Marbles_00]

Grrr....

I'm trying out Jasper's plugin for Winamp Line-in. I've followed the document to a tea, but when I press play, I get the following error:

Code: Select all

Line-In plugin produced the following error:
Unspecified error
Error number: 1
while opening the device

Anyone every seen this type of error? If so, how did you guys get around it? I've seen this posted on the Winamp forums, but no one seems to be resolving it and so far all the posts I've seen just end. I thought it may be a hardware problem, yet I've tried it on two different computers with two different types of soundcards, and get the same error. I guess it still could be hardware, but I'm just wondering if there is an additonal step that I don't know about. Rbziggy, judging by your post, you seem to be running the same plug-in, how did you do it?

[sharp_1]

Actually looking over the manual for your receiver...it doesn't have any individual preset buttons. From a quick read through...it would appear to be not much different from how my tuner operates. Though I don't have your receiver so please correct me if I am wrong.

OK, I just went down to the HT room and checked. My presets for presets 1 - 8, prev and next are correct discrete IR codes for the yamaha1 manufacture settings. I didn't load the code for the b/c/d/e pages because I don't really use it. Let me know if you need it after you try the code out to see if it works? (of course after you get your usb-uirt)

[Marbles_00]

Okay, I think I figured this out. All this time I've been setting it all up and pushing play in the Shoutcast Winamp. That's when the error occured. I just discovered that you don't even have to push play...damn...the guys over at nullsoft are going to have a field day with this one.

[rbziggy]

Yes it is Jaspar's plugin I'm using - just checked its V1.80 if it helps.

I take it its working ok now?

[Marbles_00]

Yeah for the most part. The one thing I noticed on my test computer, when in xlobby and listening to the radio via shoutcast broadcast, and I start moving the mouse around in xlobby, my CPU cycles peak out at 100% cousing the music to click, pause (as the buffer fills) and change speeds. Not sure why, maybe I have to adjust the buffer size? Hopefully this won't be noticable on the music server once I migrate it over to it.

[scalt]

I know I'm jumping in this thread a bit late, but seeing how you might be having some resource issues, I would recommend trying Virtual Audio Cables, more specifically the Audio Repeater included in the package.

It's a standalone application (does not require the use of Virtual Audio Cables per say) that allows you route one input to one output. You can even set different parameters such as the number of buffers and their size.

I'm actually finalizing my multi-zone setup with this as we speak. Originaly, the Audio Repeater does not support a command line interface, but the author was kind enough to add this functionality for me.

I now have events that can dynamically (with the help of XScript) link an input (line in or mic in your case...VAC in mine) to a specific output of a sound card (ie Zone 1, Zone 2, etc.)

It's a very clean solution and it has less overhead then using instances of winamp and a shoutcast server. On top of that, it's possible to sync up the zones by playing with the buffers.

Hopefully this helps and don't hesitate if you have questions

**EDIT**
One instance (you can have multiple running) takes only 4,500KB of RAM...much less then WinAmp + Shoutcast server if i'm not mistaken

[lpg]

Virtual Audio Cables

I am looking to solve another problem that I am wondering if this software can solve. I have a lynx 2B card that I am using to drive my amps through Balanced XLR's. It works greate for all of my 5.1 material running on the PC.

My goal is to hook up an xbox and TIVO and paly them through the LYNX twoB. I have another card with SPDIF in and was wondering if there was a way to decode the stream and map it to the Lynx cards outputs?

Any ideas would be great.

Thanks Larry

[Marbles_00]

Scalt,

Thanks for the info on the Virtual Audio Cables. This may be a future endevour for myself.

Sharp,

I got the UIRT, but the tuner doesn't recognize your codes. I notice the message heading has different information when comparing it to code that does work. I have code for a TX-492 which I'm going to have to try when I get a chance, so I haven't given up on this yet...only put it on the back burner because...

My BIG problem now is that the tuner is connected up to the music server. I have everything setup for running via shoutcast. The individual zones can connect to the server (can see down in the bottom of the server window that multiple connections are made). The Shoutcast winamp is playing from the line-in input (can tell by the players visual) and the DSP is connected to the server and broadcasting, but the levels in the DSP don't indicate that it is connected to the Shoutcast winamp. So I don't have any radio coming out of the zones.

I've tried different soundcard inputs, but it seems the shoutcast winamp is not connecting to the DSP.

Outside of using shoutcast, I can hear music out of the line inputs.

Once I get this working, I'm pretty much good to go on this detail.