Multi-Zone Audio Problems

by **stevenhanna6** on Wed May 05, 2004 3:07 am

did you then actually play music through each zone to make sure it was coming out of the different soundcards?

I dont have multi output sound card/multiple cards, I go by what others have confirmed for me...and that is when winamp is configured like the way we are doing it, it outputs to the selected device.

winamp IS still configured correctly for each soundcard, yet they are all still playing out of one. Bizarre!!!

very weird.

I then have to delete the playlist, to get the different winamp zones to play out of their selected soundcards again.

ok so with xlobby lminimized and the 3 winamps loaded, if you clear the playlist manually through winamp everything plays properly through the right device? if so does clearing the playlist for each zone through xlobby also get winamp to default back to the proper device or does it have to be manually cleared through winamp for the proper output to be somehow reselected?

by **hjackson** on Wed May 05, 2004 3:59 am

Steven, clearing the playlist will allow that particular winamp zone to play out of the correct card ONLY IF YOU LOAD A SONG THROUGH WINAMP DIRECTLY. If you clear the playlist then try to reload a song through Xlobby, it goes back to the system's default audio device. Xlobby is bypassing Winamp's configured audio device and using the default soundcard for the OS. Who are the people that are telling you multizone is working? Perhaps they can give us a hand here.
Also, are the zone selection buttons working for you? Mine aren't. Only the zone selection arrows are working for me.

hjackson

by **stevenhanna6** on Wed May 05, 2004 5:39 am

Who are the people that are telling you multizone is working? Perhaps they can give us a hand here.

Not only are they telling me, but I have seen it working in real life at sdumas's place...so it can work under the right circumtances. He was running multple sound cards in one machine though....not the usb stuff you have. Not sure much help they could be, I told them how to set it up...thats probably why no one is commenting because I know more about it and the setup is not the same.

You said earlier you were running XP Media Center...this is one system I can probably say for sure no one is testing multizone on. And its on my list of possible causes for this bug for now. Any way you could test your setup out on just plain old XP?

If you clear the playlist then try to reload a song through Xlobby, it goes back to the system's default audio device. Xlobby is bypassing Winamp's configured audio device and using the default soundcard for the OS.

xlobby cant bypass winamps configuration...all I do is send it what song to play. Something is going on for sure but I'm not willing to say its xlobby's fault just yet.

ONLY IF YOU LOAD A SONG THROUGH WINAMP DIRECTLY

how are you doing this? drag and drop? right click winamp play->file?pressing the "L" key?

Only the zone selection arrows are working for me.

same here, it has nothing to do with winamp not selecting the proper device though.

Can you post a screenshot or send me one of your winamp like the one below. I want to see your device list. mailto:steve@xlobby.com

by **hjackson** on Wed May 05, 2004 6:07 am

Here are my winamp configs. I'll post all three starting with zone 1.

zone 1
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?s=&attachmentid=22343

zone 2
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?s=&attachmentid=22344

zone 3
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?s=&attachmentid=22345

As you might see, I followed your advice about renaming the audio dll's (to hedge my bet!) Thanks for the help!

hjackson

by **hjackson** on Wed May 05, 2004 6:14 am

"ONLY IF YOU LOAD A SONG THROUGH WINAMP DIRECTLY

how are you doing this? drag and drop? right click winamp play->file?pressing the "L" key? "

Yes, you are correct on the 3rd assumption. I am doing this by right click winamp play -> file.

hjackson

by **stevenhanna6** on Wed May 05, 2004 6:14 am

What if you try just having one usb soundcard hooked up?

Have you tried the "directsound output" plugin instead of waveout?

by **stevenhanna6** on Wed May 05, 2004 6:35 am

I got a couple more things for you to try, after letting xlobby load...play a file in each zone...minimize it to see the winamps. Now all the winamps will be playing to one device for some reason. If you double click the currently playing file in the playlist does that cause a device reset like opening a new file?

If you add a file to the playlist instead of opening one then playing it..does it cause a reset?

If neither of those caused winamp to correct itself.....load a file manually like you did before to get winamp to correct itself...then go back into xlobby to change the song while the song is playing....does xlobby cause winamp to switch devices????

by **rhinoman** on Wed May 05, 2004 6:52 am

If you try it with just one of the usb devices, does it work with the other 2?

I found when I added my second delta 410 I had to use direct sound for the first and waveout for the second otherwise it defaulted back to the first card.

by **rhinoman** on Wed May 05, 2004 11:08 am

I'm sure I posted to this thread earlier

EDIT: now its there with some other posts above.

With my delta 410's, I can only use direct sound on the first card, if you try to use direct sound on the second it just takes the first cards settings but they also appear as the same in the dropdown list, in waveout they appear as 410 and 410(2) so I just use waveout for the second card.

I did have trouble with one pair of outputs not remebering a setting but after a few attempts it now seems to be ok.

If you just use 1 usb card and try just 2 zones, does that work ok?

by **hjackson** on Wed May 05, 2004 5:08 pm

Thanks for the good suggestions guys. I will try them out when I get home after my diner meeting tonight!

hjackson

by **hjackson** on Thu May 06, 2004 3:21 am

OK this is weird!! I tried Steve's suggestion of opening up a new file manually in Winamp after selecting it first in Xlobby. If I tried selecting a new song from that same folder, it would continue to come out of the default soundcard. HOWEVER, if I select a song from another folder, it works! As a matter of fact, if I select songs/albums, from outside of my the main folder I have been testing Xlobby on, THE WHOLE MULTIZONE FEATURE WORKS!??? It just won't work with my test folder of albums!? Has that whole particular folder, somehow, been linked to the OS's default audio device?

hjackson

by **samgreco** on Thu May 06, 2004 4:09 am

Has that whole particular folder, somehow, been linked to the OS's default audio device?

I can't think of a single reason that would happen. Man I wish I had more time to test. Very strange.

by **stevenhanna6** on Thu May 06, 2004 9:01 pm

very weird, can you post what folder you had xlobby in.

So if I get this right....if you have your mp3 collection in a different location everything works fine? what was the "bad" mp3 folder location?

by **hjackson** on Fri May 07, 2004 7:05 am

Xlobby is at "C:\Program Files\Xlobby"
My music folder is at "K:\Music"
The "problem" folder is "K:\Music\ALBUMS"
It appears that indeed, all other folders in "K:\Music" work properly.
After a bit more testing I have found that I DON'T need to delete the playlist to properly reset the soundcard zones. So if I play a track from the ALBUMS folder, it will only play out of the OS default audio device, but (without deleting the playlist) if I play a track from my other 30+ folders, the zone feature works as intended. ?

hjackson

by **hjackson** on Fri May 07, 2004 7:55 am

OK, I found another folder that doesn't play right. After closer inspection it would seem that the problem is that all the music that "I" ripped from CD to windows media format (wma) are only playing out of the default audio device. All the other 12000+ tracks are ripped as mp3 and seem to play out of the correct soundcard. I will have to test this by converting my wma files to mp3. Ofcourse, I don't know how to do this yet...

hjackson