[waynehead99]

All,
If this has been posted please let me know as I am having issues finding it. I have a Darhma live setup and would like to setup multi zone on it if this is possible for two reasons. First to be able to stream music from it lets say, well its doing video, or stream 2 videos at the same time to two different locations. Now that HDMI over IP Ethernet is starting to get a little mainstream, i would like to utilize it. I know i can use multiple xbmc's to do the same thing, but trying to keep the overhead low on the amount of machines i need to maintain in my house and if I can run everything out of one box, that would be great. I would suspect at the very least for hardware, multiple video cards would be needed that support audio of HDMI and think i could use the onboard audio card to stream music to second zone.

Is this a pipe dream, or can it be done? Or is there something easier out there i could do with the same results.

Edit: It looks as though this is my first post as well. I have been a member for years and you all have been so good at giving out info that I have never needed to post i guess . Thanks in advance for the help on this as well as keeping me from having to ask questions prior to this.

[moviemorris]

sound great

maybe 1-2 video cards with a HDMI switcher to switch the zones

[waynehead99]

Never thought of that. That may work.

More curious if the XBMC interface can do something like this.

[dizzyikea]

Sounds interesting but maybe just making things difficult for yourself. You can buy an ATV2 for the price of the extra components needed (if its possible which i don't know) and just use the pc for storage, or maybe in the near future a rasberry PI.

[jhsrennie]

You can't run multiple instances of XBMC on the same PC without considerable hackery, and a single instance of XBMC can't play two different video at the same time. I would follow dizzyikea's suggestion and simply buy a handful of ATV2s.

The Raspberry Pi will completely change the rules when it comes along, but it may well be a few months before you can lay your hands on one. I suspect there is a huge pent up demand when they finally start shipping.

JR

[Dobyken]

You can't run multiple instances of XBMC on the same PC without considerable hackery, and a single instance of XBMC can't play two different video at the same time. I would follow dizzyikea's suggestion and simply buy a handful of ATV2s.

The Raspberry Pi will completely change the rules when it comes along, but it may well be a few months before you can lay your hands on one. I suspect there is a huge pent up demand when they finally start shipping.

JR

What a spoil sport...he wants to impress his friends with his technical acuity. When are we going to get XBMC imbedded in a TV? Where's the XBMC box like Boxee...we could call it the XBox! I had a system like the OP suggested with a component matrix switch and IR distribution but it turned into a nightmare to control.

[jhsrennie]

There's some debate about whether a Raspberry Pi could be powered from a USB socket. Most modern PCs have a USB socket, that no-one uses, so you could power the RPi from the USB and Blutak it to the back of the TV.

JR

[Dobyken]

There's some debate about whether a Raspberry Pi could be powered from a USB socket. Most modern PCs have a USB socket, that no-one uses, so you could power the RPi from the USB and Blutak it to the back of the TV.

JR

It looks like it can play HD video pretty good..I saw a bit rate over 20Mb for a bit. There doesn't appear to be any lag navigating the XBMC menus. At a third of the ATV2 cost it looks appealing. I'm wondering if we have to go to Radio Shack for a little plastic case or it's included. Too bad my computer that bit the dust was hooked up to a TV that only has component. Maybe it's time to replace my 12 year old rear projection CRT TV with one of those new fangled flat screens.