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Hi,
I’m trying to work out how to have my Roku M1000 and iTunes in sync with each other – i.e. if I play a tune on my iTunes database (upstairs) i’d like it to somehow play through my Soundbridge (downstairs). I suppose im asking for an AirPort type feature. Looking at the Firefly interface I couldn’t see an obvious way to do it. I have a PC running XP SP2 if that helps.
If this is something that’s not currently possible, could I request this feature as a ‘would like to have’ for the next Beta release. Not that I know a great deal about programming, but I would imagine it’s not impossible to have a ‘lock stream’ type of option that would force each connecting device to play from the same stream?!
I hope my request makes sense!
Thanks
Andy [First Post!]
@AndyPyne wrote:
Looking at the Firefly interface I couldn’t see an obvious way to do it. I have a PC running XP SP2 if that helps.
That’s correct. Currently there is not a way to do something like that.
If this is something that’s not currently possible, could I request this feature as a ‘would like to have’ for the next Beta release. Not that I know a great deal about programming, but I would imagine it’s not impossible to have a ‘lock stream’ type of option that would force each connecting device to play from the same stream?!
The idea of synchronizing audio to multiple soundbridges is something that has been kicked around some, and that’s probably possible, but not as much with iTunes, since it would require changes on the client side.
The only real way I know to do something like that is airport express/airtunes, or something like Rogue Amoeba’s Nicecast.
If you nicecasted your iTunes, you could connect to it as a streaming radio station from the soundbridge.
— Ron
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the update. Funnily enough – I came accross Nicecast earlier and have spent several hours today looking for a WinXP equivalent. So far I’ve not seen anything that’s comparable. If there’s a decent Windows way to do it, that would be great.
Thanks again 😀
Andy
One problem I see with the idea of using the “radio streaming” approach. Remember that the roku’s use a buffer so they are effectively playing the audio just after it was actually on the network. To me this would mean that unless you started both Roku’s simultaneously they will not be playing the exact sounds at the same time and, if you can hear both at the same time you are going to get a few second echo affect that will drive you crazy.
@anthony-td wrote:
One problem I see with the idea of using the “radio streaming” approach. Remember that the roku’s use a buffer so they are effectively playing the audio just after it was actually on the network. To me this would mean that unless you started both Roku’s simultaneously they will not be playing the exact sounds at the same time and, if you can hear both at the same time you are going to get a few second echo affect that will drive you crazy.
Yup, and even then, latency and stuff will cause problems on wired versus wireless, etc. It’s a non-trivial problem, and would require the clients communicating with each other to establish a shared clock or something. That’s why it would take code on the soundbridge as well as on the server.
Definitely non-trivial.
Hi Guys,
I understand, and agree with, what you’re saying, BUT there is another use for having a sync’ed audio stream between an iTunes database and Soundbridge; which is to use iTunes as a Remote Control.
I have a laptop and a PDA and although the Roku Remote Control is ok, it’s obviously not as versatile as being able to search my iTunes database and pick something on the fly. I have just under 30’000 tracks. With iTunes I can navigate to any one of them within a few seconds and a few key presses. With the Roku Remote Control, it does take conisderably longer.
Thanks again for your help guys
Hi All (esp. Ron),
I’ve found a kind-of solution to my problem. Although not too relevant to firefly, I thought i’d share it with you all. First, i’ll re-clarify what I ultimately wanted to achieve; Using iTunes as a Remote Control for my Roku M1000 Soundbridge:
After a LOT of trial and error of various products I finally found NCH Swiftsound’s ‘BroadWave’ product (http://www.nch.com.au/streaming/index.html).
Basically, it creates an M3U playlist from any audio output on the PC. One such output is ‘Stereo Mix’ which is effectively what you hear through your {computer} speakers.
So my setup now is as follows:
Firefly (of course) on PC upstairs.
Laptop downstairs (or anywhere) running iTunes and Broadwave.
Roku with Internet Station pointing to the IP:Port of BroadWave on my laptop (http://192.168.0.6:85/broadwave.m3u)My Music resides upstairs on my computer with Firefly ‘excellently’ serving my music collection.
My Laptop has iTunes installed and through it is connected to the Firefly Server.
As I play a song in iTunes, BroadWave outputs that to an M3U playlist as listed above.
My Roku picks up this stream and effectively therefore plays the output of my Laptop’s iTunes.
It’s not a perfect solution for many reasons, some of which have been listed above. First of all there is latency. When I play a song in iTunes, the song reaches 3 seconds of play-time before it plays on the Roku. This isn’t an issue for me as my laptop is muted anyway so I don’t hear a horrible ghosting of mis-timed sounds.
Secondly, by using BroadWave, not only am I adding another level of audio conversion, but my bitrate is reduced to a maximum of 256k. Ok, so for me, that’s not a great issue as most of my stuff is at 192k, but the fact is, sound fidelity is being lost.
However, all in all, it’s a solution of sorts. I can use the Roku to talk directly to Firefly and browse my playlist through the Roku remote control and display when I want the maximum audio fidelity. AND I can now also use iTunes as a remote which is a much easier way to find a song out of 30’000 especially when you’re drunk with a load of mates and you can only remember a small part of the song name etc. ;o)
I hope that helps someone else.
I think Firefly is great at the moment and am happily using it, but if there was a way to browse and play tunes through a web gui on the Roku or via Firefly direclty, that would be even better ;o))Great product though, great forum, and great people. Thanks to all who responded to, and/or have read, my posts.
Andy
@AndyPyne wrote:
if there was a way to browse and play tunes through a web gui on the Roku or via Firefly direclty, that would be even better ;o))
Yeah, there are a lot of us that want something like that (me included), so keep watching. We move in fits and starts but we get there eventually. 🙂
@AndyPyne wrote:
I’ve found a kind-of solution to my problem. Although not too relevant to firefly, I thought i’d share it with you all. First, i’ll re-clarify what I ultimately wanted to achieve; Using iTunes as a Remote Control for my Roku M1000 Soundbridge:
Hi Andy…sounds pretty cool, but seems like alot of trouble (with downsides that you mentioned in your post) if all you want is to remote control your Soundbridge from a PC or PDA.
Here’s a couple of links you might want to check out:
http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8163
and the “Control Applications” section of this page:
http://www.rokulabs.com/community/sbthirdparty/index.php
Assuming you’re not really trying to synch playback with iTunes, I think there are several apps that will let you control Soundbridge playback from a PC or PDA with a library browser-like interface.
Cheers
Thanks jtbse,
I appreciate your advice and assistance.
I’ve used some of these apps before (but certainly not all of them), so I’ll have another look shortly.
Having said that, I’ve been using my botched-together solution for a few days now and quite like it! Give it a go yourself – and see what you’re missing 😉All you need is a computer running Firefly, a (Windows) computer running BroadWave and iTunes. I realy like the iTunes interface – and more importantly, so does she-who-must-be-obeyed 😉 so i’m most likely to stick with it for now until a better way of using iTunes to stream to the Roku comes along (of course, still using Firefly as the media server!).
Thanks again,
Andy
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