Bifurcating a stream to multiple MDs and VLC (Video LAN)....

[colinjones]

I have been playing around trying to direct media (a video file) to play on 2 MDs (the hybrid and an MD) at the same time. However, when I select the media to play then go to the floor plan, select the 2 MDs I want it to play on then the media stream, it is clearly trying to do it but on one MD (the original one the media was playing on I think) it works perfectly, on the second MD the screen just goes black.

The one with the black screen seems to be trying to play the media but no video or sound. If I do it the other way around, the other MD exhibits the exact same behaviour. I know that split streams like this used to be implemented using VLC, so I tried adding that software module to both MDs, but the device never comes up. Other posts suggest that VLC is no longer used so presumably that software has been omitted. I have now removed them again and reloaded. But the problem still exists....

Any thoughts on what is wrong here??

[daballiemo]

I do not have the answer to your question, but tried to simulate the behaviour you see on my system. I end up having 2 md's playing the same content but out of sync....

[totallymaxed]

I do not have the answer to your question, but tried to simulate the behaviour you see on my system. I end up having 2 md's playing the same content but out of sync....

Yes that is what you should get currently. Its a current limitation of 'multi-room' playback.

Andrew

[tschak909]

This is a known limitation, and one that can't be solved easily. It's not really a problem of our architecture, it's a problem of the nature of best effort networks, combined with a lack of a finely quantized timing source.

-Thom

[seth]

 
Here is something interesting. Last weekend was my daughter's 3rd birthday party. She is a big Ariel (Little Mermaid cartoon) fan. I had a playlist of Little Mermaid, and Little Mermaid 2 playing on all 4 of the active MD's in my house. That way no matter what room the party moved to, Little Mermaid was playing. During the first movie, they were slightly out of sync. But when the 2nd movie started, they appeared to be almost at a match. And stayed that way all throughout the day. Quite Odd.

Fortunately the audio was really low at each location (did this with the media map, very cool, click all MD's, then use the Volume Controls in the lower left hand side of the media map) so I could control the sound at each location simultaneously. That got a  lot of "Oh's and Ah's.

But back on topic, the 2nd movie seemed to be in better sync, than the first in the playlist.

Regards,

Seth

[tschak909]

That would make sense... There is some overhead in creating the playlist for the media handlers during the first pass..... The trick is going to be finding a stable time source, and synchronizing stream packets to it.

-Thom

[Enigmus]

Perhaps is you got yourself one of those 2 minute THX intros or something and put it at the top of the play list to give it time to setup the rest.

[tschak909]

oh dear god, house wide blaring of the doppler THX sound. Babies would cry, dogs would howl, cats would shit themselves running in circles behind the couch, a black hole would open, swallowing the hou---

-Thom

[colinjones]

But back on topic, the 2nd movie seemed to be in better sync, than the first in the playlist.

Sorry guys, this isn't the topic at all! Please go get your own thread if you want to talk about sync issues. My thread was about getting the stream to play on 2+ MDs in the first place. Sync is the least of my issues at the moment.

[krys]

Colin,
Have you tried with just an audio file?

[colinjones]

hmmm. strange. Audio seems fine... just video behaves like this...

[bulek]

I have been playing around trying to direct media (a video file) to play on 2 MDs (the hybrid and an MD) at the same time. However, when I select the media to play then go to the floor plan, select the 2 MDs I want it to play on then the media stream, it is clearly trying to do it but on one MD (the original one the media was playing on I think) it works perfectly, on the second MD the screen just goes black.

The one with the black screen seems to be trying to play the media but no video or sound. If I do it the other way around, the other MD exhibits the exact same behaviour. I know that split streams like this used to be implemented using VLC, so I tried adding that software module to both MDs, but the device never comes up. Other posts suggest that VLC is no longer used so presumably that software has been omitted. I have now removed them again and reloaded. But the problem still exists....

Any thoughts on what is wrong here??

I'm spotting exactly the same on my system....

Regards,

Bulek.

[colinjones]

Only video, not effecting audio?

[seth]

 
I just tested Audio. It starts a bit out of sync, then sync's up almost right away.

Just my experience.

Regards,

Seth