Airport Express as Audio Zone?

[Tred]

So I've been thinking...
You can get an old wireless g airport express with a USB port and audio output. (Also it has 100 mbps ethernet so you could do that as well) for $40 on ebay
So if we buy say 8 of them thats $320 (the price of 1 Squeezebox)
Then we buy 8 cheap 100 watt car amplifiers on ebay for $80 each on ebay. ($640)
Then you plug each of them into a pair of speakers in each room and boom whole house audio!

There is already a linux project to stream live audio to Airport express. (http://nanocrew.net/software/justeport/)

It would only be a matter of getting linuxmce to recognize them as media directors.

[buckle]

You could add a USB soundcard for much less than $40.  Add squeezeslave...http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Squeezeslave_on_the_core and then you're done.  From what I've heard, they will be synchronized, also.

Not saying that you couldn't make the Airport Express work if you want, this is just what I would do.  I have seen USB audio adapters that work with linux for as low as $3.

[tschak909]

Go for it.

Study the code for:

* Xine Player/Plugin
* Slim Server Streamer
* Slim Server PlugIn

as reference. These are in our SVN. Then take the appropriate utilities and wrap them in DCE devices, just like what is happening with the above mentioned bits of code.

The system is designed to be extended in this way.

-Thom