Multizone Sync issues

by **edwinbonneau** on Sat Feb 26, 2005 9:51 pm

Ok i have gotten the multizone function to work relatively well, however after ive synced up the playlist 2 or so tracks later one of the zones will stick for a while and start the song way after the first zone....Whats going on. I have two seperate sound cards and winamp 5 (classic), all music on local disk. I cant figure it out.

by **edwinbonneau** on Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:36 pm

New info....the zone that is playing out of sync sometimes displays "opening %filename%" and it hangs for a while...sometimes indefinatly.

by **edwinbonneau** on Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:35 am

i am ready to pull my hair out. i cant get it to sync up. sometimes it does it for a song or two but its totally sparadic! Ive tried different length buffers to no avail :cry:

If anyone knows anything let me know. if you know that it must be a combination of errors on my part...let me know so that i know its not single issue.

by **BaddaBing** on Mon Feb 28, 2005 5:23 am

Based on the posts I've read it appears that people have had success synchronizing audio zones with WinAmp by creating a dummy zone1 - apparently zone1 tends to fall out of synch under WinAmp but zones2 and higher appear to work. So by creating a dummy Zone1 and assigning the actual output to zones 2 and higher people have gotten WinAmp to stay in synch. Have you tried this approach?

by **rhinoman** on Mon Feb 28, 2005 8:35 pm

I found that sync works a little better with foobar than winamp but also that you need a reasonable processor to make it happen. With my 8 zones a 2.4 celeron with a gig of ram wouldn't sync at all, a 2.8 prescott does.

It doesn't currently seem to be as "perfectly" in sync as it used to be with earlier versions, its close but it depends how much the rooms overlap.

by **edwinbonneau** on Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:27 pm

I will try out the dummy zone. Do i need to add the zone into xlobby? How do i disable the output also so that it will not play on any of my speakers. Of course none of these questions apply if you dont have to add to xlobby. oh and im running a amd 3200 with 512mb of ram i should be fine. especially since im running only two zones. thanks for the help

by **rhinoman** on Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:35 pm

You do need to add it to xlobby and it needs to be the first zone added.

How do i disable the output also so that it will not play on any of my speakers.

Ideally point the output for winamp at an unused soundcard with no speakers attached.

by **edwinbonneau** on Tue Mar 01, 2005 10:43 pm

i created the dummy zone but it didnt help. i can sync up straming radio just fine but i cant sync up a playlist with any kind of consistency. Sometimes the zone just sputters music.

by **rhinoman** on Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:30 pm

I'd give foobar a try.

by **edwinbonneau** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:51 am

i played with foobar for a while but couldnt get it configured. Ill try again. thanks for the help

by **edwinbonneau** on Sat Mar 05, 2005 11:41 pm

People have multizone synced up right? after a few songs my synced zone (not main playlisted zone) freezes for 10 seconds then starts playing. If i then click anywhere in the progress bar the audio is perfectly synced. foobar i cant get to work and does it support streaming radio, i need that. rhinoman do you have multizone synced up?

by **rhinoman** on Sat Mar 05, 2005 11:54 pm

For foobar setup see http://www.xlobby.com/Documentation/Foobar2000

I beleive it does support streaming radio, mine point at a local shoutcast server which is fed from a regular radio deck. I chose this solution because its very unlikly you will get streaming radio to run in sync because of bandwidth issues.

I find sync play to be much better under foobar, its not perfect but works ok in patches, if it loses sync normally starting a new track cures it. I've also found that sync works best when the music is selected from the first soundcard device as opposed to a "later" zone. Strating from a later zone it seems a bit hit and miss.

I dont use sync play very often, just party's and the last time was new year, theres been a couple of updates since then but I've no idea if they've improved matters or made them worse.

by **edwinbonneau** on Sun Mar 06, 2005 2:54 am

Actually i have had great success with streaming radio. It syncs up perfectly almost everytime. Once it i in sync it stays there. I will try the bit about startng the sync on the first zone... sounds different than what i have already tried. thanks