Re: Direction, tips, advice on building a multi zone sound server (multi zone DLNA renderer) based on rygel ?

[Steve <linuxguy123 gmail com>]

On 03/21/2013 06:42 PM, Andrej Falout wrote:
> I've been working on a multizone/multichannel server for a while now...
>
> Basic audio functionality goes something like this:
>
> 1) On boot, I enumerate all local audio devices, and depending on user 
> configuration create "players" for them, one player for device 
> (multichannel) or one player per stereo pair/jack (multizone - 
> analogue and HDMI, but not SPDIF which remains stereo PCM). Same 
> happens when an pluggable device (USB, FireWire) is 
> connected/disconnected (via UDEV call)
>
> 2) At the same time, local network sinks are created for AirPlay 
> (ShairPort), DLNA (Rygel) and BlueTooth A2DP (Pulse) - for each local 
> audio device/jack enumerated in step 1) They are advertised with name 
> of the server plus name of the device/jack and as such appear in 
> renderer/sink/destination of appropriate applications/devices 
> (iTunes,DLNA control points, Bluetooth devices that can stream to 
> other A2DP devices)
>
> 3) Every 5 minutes I run a scan for new/removed network audio devices 
> (RAOP/AirPlay, BlueTooth A2DP, DLNA) and create/remove players for 
> them. Logitech Squeezebox and Sonos devices are supported too.
>
> An "player" constitutes of an MPD instance and corresponding 
> squeezempd instance, registered with local or remote Logitech Media 
> Server - that provides full player control, including serving as an 
> interface for many available remote controller options (iPhone, 
> Android, hardware remotes from Logitech and Philips...)
>
> Above is an subset of the full functionality which include DLNA 
> server, DAAP (iTunes) server, video player/PVR/live TV (XBMC) 
> including TV tuner client/server (MythTV) BitTorrent client 
> (Transmission) etc etc, all tied up together under singe (and quite 
> primitive but working) web interface.
This sounds great.   Would you be willing to share your code ? Would you 
like to turn it into an open source project ?

> The easiest way to achieve what you describe that I know of, would be 
> to use SBS (LMS) that has built-in UPnP support to the extent that it 
> works as UPnP-AV server and exposes each of it's players as UPnP 
> renderers that are controlled from any UPnP/DLNA CP. Simply create one 
> squeezempd/MPD instance for each of your sound cards and that should 
> do what you had described.

OK.

> However, given the limitations of DLNA streaming architecture 
> (Gappless playback, limited formats support in standard, limited 
> choice of control points, control point must remain running to play 
> next track/playlist, general stability issues depending on particular 
> implementation/product) you may want to consider if you really want to 
> make DLNA a backbone for such setup.
Please explain this further.


> Also, with 8 zones, you might find it more practical to reverse the 
> streaming direction, and to have the 8 sinks (destinations) in the 
> destination (room) and not on the server itself, and simply stream to 
> them from the server.
I'm implementing a whole house audio system.   All the zones are wired 
to a central location and connected to large multi zone amplifiers, 
presently 2 x 6 stereo zones each.    The only way to implement a local 
sink in each room would be to unwire  the centralized wiring coming from 
each room and have a single channel "sound server" and amplifier in each 
room.  This would necessitate tearing into drywall and then putting a 
server and amplifier in each room.

> This is what I do, having two Apple Airports Express sinks, two DLNA 
> sinks (Onkyo receivers) and a kitchen SqueezeBox "radio", Bluetooht 
> headphones, plus one Intel Atom based box that runs only players 
> serving as host to a audiophile USB DAC, and as output for an outdoor 
> amp/speakers - all connected to a box that runs full set of servers, 
> stores my music collection, acts as 2 channel TV tuner server/pvr etc etc
Interesting.    When you say "connected", I assume you mean network 
connected.

I'll be implementing a couple stand alone servers as well for zones that 
are not wired to the central amplifier.

Which Atom are you using ?

I am thinking of getting a few Onkyo TX 515s as well.  How do you like 
yours ?
> Note that in above description the DLNA "stream-to" functionality 
> based on Rygel is still not working for me - it works with some DLNA 
> devices/applications, but not mine unfortunately (Onkyo, Samsung) but 
> hopefully with help of kind people on this list we might get this 
> working too :-)
Which Onkyo are you using ?  What error message are you getting ? Can 
you stream to it from other devices ?  Is this a rygel issue or a Onkyo 
issue ?