Wireless/CDs/Line In/Syncing Questions

[archived]

Hi,

I looked into Pluto about half a year ago, and have now got round to actually doing something about it. A few questions:

1) Does Pluto support wireless connections between the core and MDs (as in does it enable WEP keys to be used etc)? I know it's not recommended but I can't really use a wired network.

2) If I were to play some music from a hybrid core to several MDs, would the audio from each one be in sync? All my MDs are gonna be quite close together - don't think my neighbours would appreciate hearing my music in 3 slightly different timings at once! I only ask because I know you use VLC, and my experiences with VLC are that it's not very good at syncing up the receivers (even with the -master-ip option).

3) Is it possible to play CDs from the core. I asked this a while back (http://plutohome.com/support/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=1586&highlight=#1586) and was told that the CD would have to be ripped first, but now I've found this page (http://plutohome.com/support/right.php?section=documents/documentDisplay&docID=238) in your help docs. Confused!

4) How easy would it be to be able to stream what enters the core sound card's line in socket to the MDs. I know it's possible in VLC, so I guess it's just a UI issue.

Thanks for any help!

Alt

[archived]

Hi Alt

Pluto does not provide any special support for wireless network, so you have to set it up manually. Network config is stored in mysql tables and upon every boot it is extracted and written in /etc/network/interfaces file, so you have to modify /usr/pluto/bin/Network_setup.sh in order to overwrite the freshly extracted config with one that suits your needs.

I initially tried this option as I also could not even think to break walls and make additional wiring to my apartment, but the result has been not exactly brilliant.
Probably this is also due to my wireless dongle drivers, that are still in development and that cause annoying connection drops, with subsequent MD and Orbiter failing to work.

Nevertheless it was an experience that was worth doing because this forced me to think to an alternative solution.

In the end the solution came out, and i'm quite happy with it. Basically the apartment where I live has tv cable reaching every room, so I simply used  those cable run to pass also some ethernet cable.

If you have similar situation, I would suggest you to drop your wireless design and go for a wired solution.

Otherwise be prepared to have kind of a frustrating overall performance.

HTH
Marco

[archived]

1. marcozan is right here, we don't have support for wireless between core and md's.
the problem is simple, a wireless connection is not even close to enough, you might want to rip a cd from md, and watch tv or stream any media in the same time.
2. vlc is used only when you need to play a cd from another room. vlc looks like a dead end and we might want to find another solution.
3. you can play audio cd's. if you want to play them later from hdd you might want to rip the cd. you should also play a cd from another room, but now vlc isn't working so you can't.
4. i never use this kind of setup. i'm not sure t will work.

[archived]

...

2. vlc is used only when you need to play a cd from another room. vlc looks like a dead end and we might want to find another solution.
...

I don't know if this one is any better - it seems like clean distributed architecture, but don't know much about it...

http://www.networkmultimedia.org/index.html

For Audio one-to-many synhronized solution softsqueeze (SW equivalent of HW SB) would be fine (I doubt that there is much need for 1-many for video - more frequently one needs audio only).

http://lalists.stanford.edu/lau/2005/10/0515.html

HTH,

regards,

Rob.