Hardware needed for Multi input/Multi zone whole house audio

[chefg1124]

Hi.  I am new here and new to linuxmce.  I am in the process of building htpc and I have been reading a lot about this software and it seems to be able to do so much.  I have been scouring the web in search for a definitive answer for whole house audio.  i recently dormer-ed my house and wired it up for whole house.  i was planning on getting a system like nuvo or russound and building a media server.  i think building an htpc with linuxmce would be more functionality and cheaper.

my house is wired up with 5 zones.  each zone has a cat5 and speaker wire home run to where the htpc will be along with my other audio devices.  i plan to use an ir blaster to control the external devices through the htpc using my phone as an orbiter.  little by little i plan to purchase in wall programmable keypads that are PoE capable and use these as orbiters in each room. 

I want to be sure I can accomplish this before I purchase the parts and actually build the system.  i need some way of distributing 5 audio streams simultaneously to an external amp that will send to each room.  can i stream mp3, radio, Sirius and a cd all playing on separate devices into the htpc and route them to their desired zone?

I am not a computer programmer but am very knowledgeable in computers, networking and home audio.  i also pick up on things pretty quick so if someone can point me in the right direction I am sure I can figure the rest out.  I just need a staring point. 

i have read some people using 7.1 surround sound cards, installing 2 of them and splitting the outputs into zones.  i have also seen the delta sound cards that have multi inputs and outputs but i dont know the logistics or if this is the way i need to go.  i also plan to add ip cameras, and lighting control but i think i have all that figured out. 

Any Help is Greatly Apreciated

Thanks
Michael

[Marie.O]

Welcome.

The original plan with LinuxMCE is that you have a central node 0 where you have all your stuff, and transfer audio and video around the house, but to have audio and video sources in the area where you want it, only connected via network cabling. That has the advantage that you only need to wire CAT cable. However, few installs have been made (especially from Dianemo afaik) that do utilize LinuxMCE for a central distribution point. For audio, they do use USB sound cards to drive multiple audio zones. Search for squeezeslave in the forum and wiki.

[chefg1124]

awesome!  thank you.  I am on the hunt now.

[tkmedia]

Here is a similar discussion
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php/topic,11962.msg84004.html#msg84004
Tim