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Multiple, Simultaneous Streams

S

Steven

Well-known member
Hi,

I haven't been able to figure it out, but can two players be set up to play the same movie/show/concert at the same time? I have players in several rooms that are connected via Ethernet, but they are not part of a distributed system. I want to play the same thing in multiple rooms, without a second or whatever, of delay.

Thanks, Steven
 
Steven: You raise an interesting question. I am not sure how this can be done. The issue is how you can trigger each movie player to start the movie at precisely the same time. By using the web application, etc., I am sure that you can get the movie to start at each location at ALMOST the same time. But I do not know how you can get each player to start the movie at precisely the SAME time -- i.e., without any delay at any location.
 
Currently this can not be done in the manner you are asking.

I have been requesting this for the past 3 years and I look for it at every update but to no avail. It would be nice to select a movie or music and have the option to "Send" to specific players while retaining some sort of control at a central point for instance the "Main Touch panel".

This would be important if you want to skip to another chapter, skip to the next song in the play list, etc. All the players would have to take their cue from a central location in order to have the same thing playing on all players at the same time.
 
I don't understand the issue. I've done this several times. All you need to do is to cue up the start of the movie on each player, and then have someone in each place unpause the movie at the same time. Cell phones help. Am I missing something?
 
Rbienstock: What you are describing is not a truly simultaneous feed--although it is possible that the cueing of each player could be done so precisely that the streams are flowing with little perceptible delay. (But even a slight difference in the streams could be unwelcome if one were trying to fill the home, etc., with the sounds from a given movie, TV show, etc.) As James notes, to get a truly simultaneous feed, all players likely would need to take their cue from a centralized control mechanism--or something similar.
 
Filling a home with the sounds of movie won't work too well at high volumes. Sounds from other rooms will be time delayed to the point of being distracting - or at least it was in my parents house when I did that on radio stations and the bass from my system was delayed compared to the sounds off the system I was listening too a couple rooms away.

Still, it seems as though having one player run through a splitter would be the easiest way to accomplish this feat, especially since it would be a solution that could work for any and all sources, not just the Kaleidescape.
 
Mr.Poindexter said:
. . .it seems as though having one player run through a splitter would be the easiest way to accomplish this feat, especially since it would be a solution that could work for any and all sources, not just the Kaleidescape.
Click to expand...
Thats, SORT OF, what I am doing with Crestrons DM system. All my players are going into the DM 8x8 via HDMI. From there video is going to each room via the Fiber outs (4) on the DM 8x8 and the audio is being sent to a dedicated receiver for each room via the HDMI outs (4) on the 8x8.

With that setup I can select a source, I use the "Living Room Player" for whole house audio (music only). I have one button on all the TP's through out the house called, "Whole House Audio", that does the following.
1) Starts up all receivers and set's the volume level
2) Switches the DM 8x8's source to the "Living Room Player".
3) Switches the DM 8x8's destination to all 4 receivers
4) Brings up the Kaleidescape Music interface

From there I can select any album, play list, or song from Kaleidescape as usual. I can also control the volume of each room independently (which I prefer) or together as one (which my wife prefers).

Before I installed the Crestron DM 8x8 I did this with a A/V Matrix switch using the COAX Digital out which looked like the following.
1) Starts up all receivers and set's the volume level
2) Switches the A/V Matrix switch source to the "Living Room Player".
3) Switches the A/V Matrix switch destination to all 4 receivers
4) Brings up the Kaleidescape Music interface

Hope that helps.
 
when i worked there (5 years ago now) we looked at that and i recall that the issue was related to filling buffers and cuing and then getting the cue back that it indeed has started... one of those things that seems easy in the front, but has more issues than you realize.
 
While it would be something of a science project, it should be able to be done. Since each player can accept a TCP/IP command to start a movie, you could trigger the players to start by issuing the proper TCP/IP commands from any PC on your network with a terminal emulator. It would be essentially simultaneous.

If there were a worry about filling the buffers from different rooms which may have different network latency, you could probably minimize that effect (if it even exists) by having each player start and pause the movie/music, wait a few seconds, then issue the simultaneous "unpause" commands, which is probably a faster startup (less delay) than the simultaneous "play" commands.
 
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