[byronl]

I'll put in another vote for audio sync, sonos and rhapsody do it so it's a natural extension of XBMC IMHO (and will save me a lot wiring :-).

I don't care about video sync though.

My thoughts are similar to rickatnight11, why not use NTP to timesync and have each xbox playback the same file (assuming file locking on the SMB share isn't a problem).

Though I'm not sure how this would work with the non-xbox versions of XBMC? You could make the feature contigent on music files being on a drive that is shared (mounted) in the same location on each XBMC.

Or the XBMC itself reshares the file to the other XBMCs. Either way is slightly ugly. Would be better if there was streaming service on a central server and each XBMC syncs to that. I suspect Rhapsody works in this way.

Byron

[rickatnight11]

At the least, each box could buffer a portion of the file for a few seconds and then play each segment, synching via NTP every so often, as a sort of streaming hybrid.

[tvont]

Hi,

I am also in need of a solution to stream from one XBMC (Server) to multiple (XBMC or VLC) clients

see:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=38334

maybe this all is the wrong approach - maybe the solution is to implement something like a "remote conrol for multiple XBMC's" - all sharing the same library via UPNP. I think, going this way, all of the problems (beeing out of sync etc.) would be gone: If you start playing back a music/video clip, all of the XBMC (clients) would just do the same, ie. while beeing in something like "remote mode"

Because I am not a programmer - even not a scripter - I ask here: is there anybody out which could do such an implementation to the current XBMC - maybe as plugin?

No matter if this is a script which just automatically starts vlc in the background everytime you play a movie in XBMC (as far as I know this is just an 'ELSE' command after executing the internal media player in XBMC)
And...its easy to tell vlc (through the vlcrc config file) to just stream the file via rtp without showing up on the local screen. As XBMC (on the client side) should have no problems to listen to rtp streams, this is, as I think, the easiest way to implement such a feature. Because I need this mainly for video streaming, beeing out of sync does not matter but is a feature: you always need some time to move around in your house to see the next screen and don't miss much of the movie because of the other clients beeing late a few seconds.

No matter if its a rtp/udp streaming solution or just my RC idea...anybody out there who can help?

Thanks,

TvonT

[opdenkamp]

I was also looking into this, as a replacement for an old VCR that is mixing my tvout into my home tv network at the moment. My current setup is fine for the old analog screens that I'm using now but I want to replace those with digital screens and thin clients in time. I'd also like to see the gui on those clients, not just the video (like the linuxmce system).

Since the devs aren't planning to integrate this kind of functionality into xbmc I think the easiest approach is to capture alsa sound and the rendered opengl screen and transcode that into something that can be streamed without using too much cpu power. I found a tool that can capture the audio and video, http://nullkey.ath.cx/projects/glc/ which could possible be adepted to stream to ffserver.

I'm fairly new to xbmc so I'm still looking around a bit for the best solution. Maybe it can be done a lot easier from within xbmc itself.

[topfs2]

Also if using XBMC for linux look into PulseAudio, we can stream to it (even to another computer) so if a PulseAudio Server can copy out a stream to multiple computers, then XBMC can sync and stream to multiple devices that have PulseAudio. Note I have not tested it but this is one of the features that PulseAudio claim to have over other soundservers.

EDIT: http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/FAQ#Howdo...thenetwork
http://xbmc.org/topfs2/2009/01/09/pulsea...for-linux/

Cheers,
Tobias

[opdenkamp]

something is broken when using pulse in ubuntu intrepid. streams aren't closed properly somehow. but that's just the audio part

[hoti0101]

Sorry if this has been asked before, searched to no avail. Is it possible to sync multiple frontends to play the same audio files? I currently have two frontends and a backend file server and I would like to have the same music playing throughout my house (i.e. audio controlled from one frontend but will play out of both).

Is there a feature I am not aware of that can support this? Is there a script that can do this? Will this make it into a future version?

If this isn't available, what are the current limitations preventing this? Thanks in advance for your help!

[topcatsss]

Is this thread still kinda active?

Am myselft looking to do the same thing

have the backend done, but as experienced streams get out of sync. am using vlc as the stream server so moving to a multicast rtp is not a issue.

However an xbmc (xbox) client is not yet arround (well i've not found 1)

Any ideas

[rudeboyx]

just stumbled accross this thread and think its a top idea. My friend uses a Sonos setup (www.sonos.com) which is awsome as he can control volume and music for each room including synced music in any selection of rooms, from anylocation in his house.

since i have speakers in all but one of my rooms and an xbox or pc for each set, it could be possible for me to achieve the same thing with xbmc. I throw alot of house partys and currently just have different tunes in different rooms. the ability to sync 2 or more of the rooms would be amazing.

I hope that someone gets this up and running

PS. A WebUI could be created so you could use any PC or mobile phone with wirless to control it all.

[cturnbull802]

i have been following this thread for a while. it will be awesome if it works. my situation included (2) xbmc xboxes (1)360 (3)pcs running win7 and xp, and id like to stream to all devices synchronized.

here is a video to make everyone drool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvqIYEFy21I

edit... how awesome would it be to have a web interface, and use your cellphone for a remote

[rickatnight11]

There already is a web interface, and there's a fantastic app for the iPhone/iPod Touch to do exactly that. Let's you use it like a remote, or just scroll through your media on the handheld and select what you want to play.

[kortina]

I agree that there already is a web interface, but it is not great for low resolution devices, there are a stack of others around.

What I really do like is the concept of the multi-room playback.

For Music, Video or both. VLC is a very comprehensive app and I think re-implementig and maintaining it would be difficult.

There are some common configurations that could probably have a solution found for.

EG:
Most home networks are only 1 subnet, without broadcasting issues.
Most home installs of XBMC have the SAME configuration for Music, videos and pics, this device is typically a NAS (SMB) share.
Most home networks would have access to a NTP (time) server.
Most home networks have good bandwidth. (entire music tracks can be cached)

Most homes would not need to have 100% accuracy for playback to be ideal.

It would be great to see an attempt at multiroom playback, I would be really happy with a basic implementation, the holy grail of multiroom playback seems very difficult.

Multiroom playback doesnt have to mean playing a stream, it could mean playing the same file at the same time.

[rickatnight11]

I agree that there already is a web interface, but it is not great for low resolution devices, there are a stack of others around.

I didn't mean that using the web interface on a low resolution device was feasible, but that there are apps that take advantage of that interface with stellar results. Check out that XBMC app, and you'll see what I mean. I use it all the time.

Multiroom playback doesnt have to mean playing a stream, it could mean playing the same file at the same time.

I absolutely agree. Streaming requires fairly stringent network and hardware requirements. If the file was local to all machines, and merely the timing was synchronized between the clients, it would be exactly what I need.

[topcatsss]

as far as i can tell we still have an issue here

yes VLC does have a web interface and yes it can sync itself

but VLC does not run on XBMC (well as far as i know).

So for either windows,linux,mac this is all fine I have xboxes in the house for end players (there are cheaper)

the problem still exists

[teshephe]

Not anymore!!!!

Checkout http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=78431