roaming with ppc

[jf1]

I posted this in the support forum, and Naylia suggested I post it here. So here it goes:

I was wondering how to roam with a PPC, and select movies to be played on whatever "server" you are closest to?

For instance, if I'm in the theater room, I would like to select a DVD and have that DVD played on the theater room computer.

If in the family room, I'd like to select a DVD and have that DVD play on the family room computer.

It would be nice to be able to just click a button for the zone you want the movie to play in (i.e., Theater, Family, Master).

[hjackson]

I am not a programmer but I can tell that you are asking for a lot here, but if you are willing to drop the cash anything is possible. Here is the only way I can see this done.
For this to work, the PPC would have to be able to detect its proximity to each zone. For that to happen, each server PC (zone PC) would have to have its own wifi network. Your PDA would then need to have a wifi finder (preferably a PDA software based wifi finder) that is sensitive enough to distinguish between hotzones that are within 10 to 20 ft of each other. It would then have to be able to send info back to the main Xlobby server the PDA client is running on. Steven would then have to be able to get access to the wifi finder's output. A trigger would then need to be made to switch the Xnet server address to the wifi zone with the strongest signal. Right now Xnet only handles audio, not video.

hjackson

[jf1]

I am not a programmer but I can tell that you are asking for a lot here, but if you are willing to drop the cash anything is possible. Here is the only way I can see this done.
For this to work, the PPC would have to be able to detect its proximity to each zone. For that to happen, each server PC (zone PC) would have to have its own wifi network. Your PDA would then need to have a wifi finder (preferably a PDA software based wifi finder) that is sensitive enough to distinguish between hotzones that are within 10 to 20 ft of each other. It would then have to be able to send info back to the main Xlobby server the PDA client is running on. Steven would then have to be able to get access to the wifi finder's output. A trigger would then need to be made to switch the Xnet server address to the wifi zone with the strongest signal. Right now Xnet only handles audio, not video.

hjackson

Thanks for the response.

I wasn't necessarily thinking in such grand terms. I was at least hoping for the ability to select the "zone" I was in, then select a movie, and have that movie played on that zone.

There could be a master server (the media server for instance) that would take the commands of zone+movietitle, and relay it to the appropriate computer serving that zone (the theater computer, and it would know that because of the zone I selected and sent to the server). This would simply use peer level IP protocol stuff over the existing ethernet (10base and 802.11).

[hjackson]

Yes that would be a whole lot easier... especially because you can do that now with audio zones. Steven would have to open up that feature with video zones.

hjackson