On Sat, 2005-01-01 at 21:51 -0500, Steve Vanechanos wrote:
> I want the Linux box to be able to connect multiple audio sources - I
> included a cable box and directv receiver as audio sources because they
> have some desirable music channels - to multiple rooms / zones. So
> someone in my study can source select my CD player, while someone in my
> yard can
> select on music channel on the cable box, while someone else in my
> kitchen can select a music channel from the XM radio receiver.
Yeah, it's doable.
A while ago, a couple guys that i know, and myself, wanted to start a
company to compete with Crestron and the like. ;-) It's technically
feasible, but the project got abandoned for other reasons.
Anyway, yeah:
1. You need a soundcard with lots of inputs/outputs. Probably something
like M-Audio Delta 1010 (LT or plain) if you want analog (there are also
digital cards supported by Linux, check the ALSA project):
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010LT-main.html
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010-main.html
Then you gotta control that card, which is essentially a sound router:
tell it which input goes to which output, etc. The Deltas have a control
GUI utility, maybe you can use it from the CLI, maybe not. But i'm sure
there's a way to accomplish full CLI control.
Maybe you have to use JACK, maybe not, it depends. <shrug>
2. To control other gear, there are two ways:
2.1. High-end gear typically has RS232 connectors over which you can
send commands. You need a RS232 muxer that works on Linux. Back from my
ISP days, i remember Cyclades had several products like that (PCI cards
with lots of serial ports on them, up to 64 IIRC).
But there are many products like that which are supported on Linux, just
find an ISP/networking Linux guy and do some brainpicking... um, i mean,
buy him a couple beers.
2.2. Almost everything else has infrared. You can install lircd on your
"command center" and control it via a remote. But then you can send IR
commands from lircd. So you need to attach an IR receiver to receive the
commands, plus one or more IR transmitters to relay commands to various
devices. This way, when you press The Big Green Button on your remote,
lircd fires up mpg123, but at the same time sends a PowerUP command to
your amplifier, a Channel Change to your tuner, a Flush command to your
toilet... um, maybe not the last one.
lircd can be trained to learn all kinds of remotes, etc. It might be a
bit of mess until you configure it, but then it should be rock solid.
There are IR receivers/transmitters that can be connected to serial or
parallel ports (so you can use the serial muxer), you can even build
them yourself if you're not afraid of the soldering iron, see the LIRC
website.
3. Since the command center is a PC, you can do networking, Shoutcast,
mount shares on local computers, whatever.
It's the user interface that might be a pain (or not), the underlying
technology is straightforward.
-- Florin Andrei http://florin.myip.org/Received on Thu Jan 6 00:15:12 2005
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