I would like to know if any one knows how to control the Rio Receiver's output from the computer. Specifically I would like to select the music and playing order from Music Match in real time. I don't want to have to create a play list, then download it to the receiver and play it from the receiver.

You can't control the Receiver from the computer.

Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

Didn't Frank figure out how to get Displayserver running on the Receiver? Wouldn't that allow remote control of it?

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Tony Fabris

Probably, yes. However, the stock player doesn't allow for remote control from the PC.


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

OK, here's my Rube Goldberg suggestion for controlling the Rio Receiver via PC: Obtain a PC to IR sending device; learn the Rio remote control codes; write a program that compiles the music database from the music server using the known protocol; have said program "push" the remote control search keys (in Rio documentation) to type out the user's requested album/song/etc based on the text info from the database. I am certain that this can be done for anyone putting in the effort.

Yeah, but if you can get Displayserver working (or something like it), that's much cleaner and easier.

In reply to:

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Yeah, but if you can get Displayserver working (or something like it), that's much cleaner and easier.

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I'd call it slightly cleaner and easier. You've still got to push out the codes one-by-one, and with no very good feedback (unless you work some kind of OCR reader into the client-side so it can watch what goes happens on the display).

What'd be MUCH better would be some way to have a client on the Rio itself that responds to commands, with good feedback, even if it's just "PLAY 3a95" or something. I don't suppose anyone's found any hooks in the player executable that'll let you shove a command at it? especially hooks with feedback?

What'd be MUCH better would be some way to have a client on the Rio itself that responds to commands, with good feedback, even if it's just "PLAY 3a95" or something. I don't suppose anyone's found any hooks in the player executable that'll let you shove a command at it? especially hooks with feedback?

Um, you just described Displayserver.

Of course, Displayserver was much nicer than that. It gave an actual live screen shot of the player display, and let you remotely control its user interface, from a web browser. (Note: Description is the Empeg Car version of the product, I do not know how far Frank got in the Receiver implementation of it.)

Okay, from our discussion in the other thread, I now see that you're talking about a way to specify a song directly to the receiver without messing with its user interface.

Well, now here's where I get confused. You're asking for this kind of support as well as the gentleman who started this thread, and I'm not sure why you would want this.

The Receiver is designed to let you play music in a room away from your computer. If you're in the same room as your computer, why don't you just have the computer play the music and leave the receiver out of it?

Why would you want to remotely make the music change at the other end of the house from the computer? Surely you would want to select the music from the room in which you were listening to the music.

It's this same reason why (despite my multiple mentions of it here) I never tried running Displayserver on the receiver. I never saw the need for remote controlling the player.

If I might chime in, there are good reasons to prefer a Rio over a computer with a soundcard. No doubt you have spoken of them here. Regarding alternative means of control, the reasons to have it are numerous:

- if the remote control isn't available there's no practical way to navigate over a large collection

- dial control and buttons as a means of navigation leave much to be desired. Even with the remote it's awkward.

- the Rio may be playing to speakers multiple rooms at once, including your computer room.

- not possible to use the Rio in novel ways, such as an alarm clock, or control via your TV screen.

and finally

- the display is awful.

Seeing the Rio as merely another component in one's stereo cabinet to be controlled in conventional ways is, IMHO, shortsighted. So much more is possible. I'd hope that Empeg sees this as well and adds some server-side control features in a future release of the firmware, should one be forthcoming.

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Reed Esau, Evergreen CO
http://jreceiver.sourceforge.net

I will concede that I prefer using my Empeg Car player to play music instead of using the computer to play music, even when I am sitting at the computer.

The only difference is that, because I'm sitting at the computer with the car player right here, I don't find the need to remote control the car player.

The Receiver is designed to let you play music in a room away from your computer. If you're in the same room as your computer, why don't you just have the computer play the music and leave the receiver out of it?

Why would you want to remotely make the music change at the other end of the house from the computer? Surely you would want to select the music from the room in which you were listening to the music.

My ulitmate plan Tony is to be able to control the receiver via a web interface on an iPAQ or perhaps a larger web pad style device (the web server will be on the same machine serving the Receiver). I want to do this partly because the Receiver screen is too small to use from more than 1-2 feet away and partly because it will let me do lots of other cool things.

One of the cool things is that I want scriptable remote control so that from the web interface I can queue up a list of albums to be played.

I think a combination of a few more kernel tweaks and my own server software will enable me to achieve this...

In reply to:

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...I now see that you're talking about a way to specify a song directly to the receiver without messing with its user interface. .... I'm not sure why you would want this.

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Well, in my new house (being built now), we've got in-ceiling speakers in a few rooms (living room, dining room, etc). My long-term plan is for those to be driven by an MP3 player in the basement server room, piped through a whole-house audio amplifier system. In order to play multiple different streams, I need multiple computers (or a single computer with many soundcards). I'm really not sure I can get a linux box to drive 4 or 5 different sound cards, each playing their own sound stream.

The Rio, however, makes perfect sense. Until I get a nice (and probably expensive) multi-source / multi-zone amplifier, I plan on putting a couple of my Rios in the basement, and would like to be able to control them from a web-like interface up in the kitchen (maybe on my iOpener). Basically, I'm planning on using it as a low-cost, remote music source.

There may well be an easy way to get 5 sound cards working in a box, I haven't tried -- but I suspect it might be cheaper to have 5 $100 Rios, instead. Now, in the long term, I might have to completely replace the player with my own app (like Jeff Mock's experimented with), but that's a last resort, 'cause I'd hate to lose (and hate even more to reprogram) local display information...

Wait, didn't I just get done having this conversation with the guy at the frat house?

You're over-complicating it by trying to make it a remotely-controlled system. The whole point of the receiver is so that you specifically do not have to do a remotely-controlled multi-room system.

Each room has its own receiver and it is controlled from that room. The speaker wires should go to a wall jack in that room, not to a central location. (This is how I have my receiver working, by the way, into some ceiling-mount speakers.) Since you're building it now, you could even put the network/phone jack next to the speaker jack.

The whole idea of the receiver is to have a small client in each room with only a network/phone jack to connect it. It's a completely new paradigm, and you're trying to apply an old-style system to it.

> The whole point of the receiver is so that you specifically
> do not have to do a remotely-controlled multi-room system.

Yes. But I don't want to have a receiver in my dining room (it looks nice, but not that nice...unless I could rip it apart and fit it inside the wall...hmmm....) Plus, in some cases (like, say, when I have dinner guests) I'd want the same music playing in the living room, dining room, and kitchen -- can't do that (or at least not well) except with a stronger amp, fed from the basement.

In the bedroom, or next to my computer, or in the exercise room, it's fine being there as a Rio, but in the "public" spaces, I don't want it there, both for visual reasons and so that I can feed multiple rooms at once.

If I could directly control a receiver in each room, and also control an output matrix ("send this song to these rooms," or, alternately, "play that room's music in here"), then I'd have something. As it is, I'm expecting to have a simple 4-way source / volume control in each room, and have four different Rios streaming different playlists (maybe two from MP3 and two from MP3-converted off-air FM, via yet another piece of hardware I don't yet have), and I can then listen to any number of these four sources in as many different rooms as I like, simultaneously and perfectly in synch ('cause they're all from the same analog output).

Does that make more sense? Or is there some other way to do it that I've missed?

Plus, in some cases (like, say, when I have dinner guests) I'd want the same music playing in the living room, dining room, and kitchen -- can't do that (or at least not well) except with a stronger amp, fed from the basement.

The idea of linking multiple receivers to play the same music has been discussed here on the BBS before. I don't know if they're planning on implementing that as a feature or not. I agree that it would be important for a nice dinner party, and would bring the whole thing together so that it would work better as a multi-room system.

Personally, I would like to be able to, from any given receiver's panel, be able to choose which receivers are "linked" together (by name). I could walk up to its panel and say "Link Dining room, Kitchen, and Hot tub". Then, after that, the dining room, kitchen, and hot tub would have identical controls and displays. The server software would need security to allow this to be enabled or disabled, so that the hotel in Ibiza doesn't have a problem with the guests.

But the lack of this feature wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me, I'd still do the install even if I couldn't link them. I don't actually need the same music in all rooms, even for a dinner party. And for rooms where I'd commonly listen to the same music, I'd just use one receiver hooked to multiple speakers.

(it looks nice, but not that nice...unless I could rip it apart and fit it inside the wall...hmmm....)

I have considered this. My example of the hot tub is a real one. I want a separate receiver to control from the hot tub. My only restriction is that I don't have a good place to put it so that the display is visible from the hot tub. The player is too deep for the kitchen windowsill. So instead, the receiver in the dining room is the same receiver that runs to the hot tub, and I use an IR repeater to change its volume and do prev/next track from the tub.

If I were building the house from scratch (like you), I would simply design every room to be music-friendly and have a proper attractively-designed shelf/sideboard/alcove for things like stereos, and there would be a proper weatherproof alcove out by the hot tub.

>The idea of linking multiple receivers to play the
> same music has been discussed here on the BBS before

I'm not holding my breath. Synchronizing MP3 players is darned near impossible, at least from what I've been able to determine. I suppose, if you get deep enough into the guts of the player, you might be able to do something, but all the plugins I've seen to add this to, say, Winamp, drift apart eventually and never get perfectly synchronized....

Synchronizing MP3 players is darned near impossible, at least from what I've been able to determine.

Ah, but when it's server-centralized and you control the hardware, it should be a snap.

Empeg guys, any more comments? The only one I could find for reference was rob saying, "synchronising multiple receivers to the same stream is something we'd like to try. It would be cool when moving around the house."

Well, if the receiver could handle Mp3 streams (hint, hint) you could have a Shoutcast server streaming to any/all players in the house. That way you could have "House" music, and if anyone else wanted to play something different, they could by selecting MP3s off the server via the local interface.

--Ben

This is exactly what I want to do. I have a Rio Receiver in my living room but it is impossible to read the display. I would like to be on my laptop or iPaq and be able to pull up the display and remote control the Rio so that I can actually see what I am selecting without having to be 4 feet from the display.

I think DisplayServer would work for something like this but I cannot get it to load once I add the .diff.arf file to receiver.arf.

John

Synchronizing MP3 players is darned near impossible, at least from what I've been able to determine. I suppose, if you get deep enough into the guts of the player, you might be able to do something, but all the plugins I've seen to add this to, say, Winamp, drift apart eventually and never get perfectly synchronized

A good point, and one we hadn't previously thought of. But presumably, for Receiver purposes, they needn't be that synchronised. We could sync them up at the end of every track; clock drift during one track is a probably-inaudible amount.

Peter

Having just received 4 Receivers, I was disappointed when I realized that I couldn't sync them. I am hoping that will come. I will be checking on JRec as well. It seems that it could grow into what I need.

I also would love to have the PCs on the network able to sync with the receivers.

And I agree that a little drift within a song is not a problem.

Thanks for a great forum.

For what it's worth, my argument in favour of remote control has to do with the placement of the unit relative to my computer and my stereo. It's all in the same room, to be sure, but my stereo and such are all behind me, which makes changing songs a pain.

Besides, ultimately, I'd like to customize how the system decides what songs to play (ie: move beyond individual song / artist / album / playlist selection and get into heuristics, ratings, etc.). Since a lot of that code is likely to evolve over time, I'd rather have it on my PC / laptop / server / whatever's feeding the Rio, so I can tweak it continuously and have it just tell the Rio what to do and when.

Basically, I'm using the Receiver as a glorified decompressor and DAC

Now, in some cases, I still -do- want to interact with the LCD, IR, and buttons. However, even then, I'm more likely to want to schlep that input back to my server for actual processing, than to handle it on the Receiver itself.

It will be nice when I can go to any receiver in the house and pick what's getting multicast to all the boxes in its group Of course, there's the sync / jitter issue as briefly discussed already...