newbie... multizone question... sorry.

[blackmobile]

God I hate to do this but searching through the forum hasn't yielded any results and now I'm just getting frustrated, so please forgive me if this is completely obvious. My question lies with the multizone setup. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how it works, so let me explain what I have first and then what I *think* should happen.

I have six rooms (4 bedrooms, patio, garage) that each have a set of speakers in the ceiling or wall. All of the speaker wires homerun to my media closet. In this closet, I have a server which houses all of my movies, music, tv shows, everything. On this computer I have installed XLobby. In my rack, I have a 3 channel amp that I will be using for now until I can source another 3 channel amp for the other 3 zones. So, the computer has a Soundblaster Live card with KX drivers which will handle 3 of our zones for now. Basically, the Soundblaster card has three cables running into the three channels of the amp which then go out to the speakers in these three rooms. That make sense? Pretty normal setup I'd say.

My problem lies with the software end. I have added three zones using three seperate Winamp installations and configured each to use it's own output on the audio card. WHere I get in trouble is when I go into XLobby. I can hit play on a song and it comes out of the one zone fine. However, what if I want it to use two other zones, like the garage and patio? Surely I don't have to have a computer or instance running for each zone right? If not, how do I accomplish this? I'm currently running the Colby skin and it has a slick looking Zones button, but I'm unable to select the zones or anything. Is there a configuraiton I'm missing somewhere? HELP!!!

[blackmobile]

How rude of me...

HELLO! XLobby looks like it's exactly what I'm looking for and I hope I'll be around to bug everyone for some time.

Nice to meet everyone.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Your setup is just fine, u dont need computer for each zone. Im not familiar with bluezskin though, but ull need to add paths to all three player instances into audioplayer list in setup... after that xlobby should be capable controlling each one (one at the time)... u need button or category to change zone (atleast dragon and vintage skin come equibbed with this kind of zone management)...

for local controlling of other zones mayby portable computer like PPC or tablet could be useful over WiFi or just RF remote.

And welcome!

[blackmobile]

Excellent P3rv3rt B3ar! I just downloaded the Dragon skin and it appears to be working fine. The only issue I have with either of those skins is that they appear to be incomplete. Is there a finished, non-work-in-progress skin that accomplishes all of this or do I need to skin it myself?

[Marbles_00]

Once you setup 6 instances of winamp (one for each zone), then define these instances in Setup/General, defined under "Foobar/Winamp Zones, then this is good for any skin and it should not change depending on the skin used. NOW, the skin may only support an "X" amount of zones (typically 4) and you will then have to add in the additional zones. What I mean by "support" is that you will be able to display information and coverart for 4 zones. If you want to add more zone display, you have to add it. You should be able to, though, select the zone and control the zone from any skin, ONCE it is defined in the Setup/General window. If you are only looking at zoning, goto my "www" link, there you can download an early version of my "Zoneskin". It is setup to display information for 5 zones currently. I'm going to redo it for more zone information (6 or more zones), and just better graphics/layout.

I also don't think that Colby's skin is complete when it comes to it's zoning. If I recall, it was a work in progress, though he would be able to let you know for sure.

Hope this was helpfu.