My XBMC Multi Room audio challenge.
Recently I have successfully migrated away from SKY HD and from Freeview+ to an entirely XBMC based solution. Most importantly this solution currently has a very high WAF . My setup is built using XBMC live in an overly powerful PC in a rather nice silverstone media center case.
My current problem is now I have relegated all of my media to the lounge, using the ipod dock in the kitchen with a meagre 16GB Ipod seems positively lacking when, your media centre is connected directly to a 5Tb NAS. What happens now is you play music in the lounge and turn it way up to a probably neighbour unsuitable level to be to properly enjoy it in the kitchen. This is why I crave multi room audio, I wrote a while back why I think XBMC is a far better and cheaper solution than the Sonos solution, though Sonos still do have the killer feature present and correct.
So I’m am challenged with building my own solution some how. My requirement is fairly straight forward:
- The ability to have the audio playing from the media centre play to another source at the same time.
I have no need for visuals or UI to be present in the other rooms as I can control the xbmc source with the XBMC iphone remote app, and possibly that Archos 7 tablet when its released 
.
Typically it appears the requirement is a very easy thing to say out loud, and yet another thing entirely to actually achieve. The challenge as I currently understand it, is keeping the music streams to each room in sync.
My current stab in the dark is use a motorola DC800 bluetooth stereo adaptor, and use A2DP to stream the music to the second amp. This when the adaptor arrives, I can see is going to present a couple of challenges.
- Is it even possible to send audio out via the Line / SPdif out at the same time as A2DP ?
- if it is, will the audio be in sync?
Answers on a post card, if I get it to work i’ll post the solution (assuming it doesn’t involve purchase of a sonos solution )
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