feature request - sync/simulcast

[speechles 1929]

Often, I find myself watching something on the roku and invariably find myself having to move about the house. So I first, manually sync the exact same show on my android tablet, mainly for the video and carry that around. The home theater the roku is connected to can be heard all over the house. There is remote-control which allows the tablet to act as a control point for another client. Is there a way to somehow "sync" a stream from say a client, specially the roku, and simulcast/sync it to stream at the exact same point onto the android client. For simplicity sakes, let's assume I am using the internal player which would support this behavior rather than an external player with its own control points. Is this possible at all or am I stuck always manually syncing them? This behavior is one I would most like to have of any atm.

 

Note: If this involves pausing the stream on the roku until the android tablet can sync up and then unpause both at the same time and begin playing this is acceptable.

Edited March 6, 2014 by speechles

[Redshirt 1487]

This seems like it would actually be really complex. All the clients would need to develop a mechanism to sync playback, dealing with the latency of network communication. I'm going to have to say no unless there's a lot more demand for this.

[jamvids 37]

Hi, I would love multicast availability for audio, so I can cast music around to one or a selection or all clients on my network, and sonos isn't an option as I love my current hardware. Video would be nice in the long run but not essential for me but audio multicasting a must for parties and general milling about purposes. MB3 is getting there and that option would put it on the road to perfection (in my eyes). 

 

P.S. I am quite new to these forums, I would like to get involved in putting ideas forward and contributing to bug fixes but am never sure if I am in the right place. 

 

I love MB3 and think the Video,TV, and movie handling is superb, but my imagination goes nuts with the music side of things and i think it could go so much further. Also I prefer the theatre, android and mainly the web interface. I would love to never use windows software ever again (MBC). Theatre is a good start and I am looking forward to music support, Android is a good start and is possibly the biggest challenge there is (and IOS) and I would love to join discussions on where this could possibly go and how it could operate. MB3 is a large part of my life as I have always dreamed of the "everything in one place" system and I have spent hours collecting and building my personal collection paying extreme attention to metadata, and just want to see it work to perfection and I will support wherever I can.

[ebr 14959]

Yes would be very cool - I'm just not sure if it is possible to do reliably.  With multiple types of devices getting things to play perfectly in sync may be next to impossible and you would end up with an "echo" effect as you heard the different streams from different rooms.

 

I think I recall that Sonos has a patent on their technology that keeps music perfectly in sync between players and I recall when they first came out (I was an early adopter and love my Sonos system) that they said this was no small task - even with them having homogeneous hardware and software that they control.

 

Still, if you don't have dreams... 

 

(also, there are no less than three feature requests for this in the FR forum already)

[mini__me 23]

Kind of related, I'm not coder but I was going to have a peek into how hard it would be to write an MB3 server plugin to control my Logitech Squeeze server.

 

I know it wouldn't strictly be what you are after, however I have loads of squeeze boxes all over the place and having control of them through the MB3 interface would be pretty sweet, it would be a pseudo playto in my head maybe replacing the current music library with one pulled from the Squeeze Server.

 

There is also the possibility of a client plugin for playback on the MB3 device, though that would be much harder I think than a simple control interface

 

I know it's a rival, but something along the lines of this.

Edited April 9, 2014 by mini__me

[jamvids 37]

I was looking at Chromecast, it is early days for that yet but that could be easily adapted as just an audio dongle, and that may start coming as standard on new speakers etc. If they are trying to take on airplay it will happen, at the moment I use bluetooth in the kitchen and car, and I can sync 2 rooms with a cheap little logic3 radio device I picked up at maplin but it only works short distance, and have a pc on both of my TV/Cinema setups, there will be a solution, I will just have to be patient.

[Bobba86 31]

I love the idea of the same Video's being played throughout the house in sync.. amazing.

I do something similar with music already using iTunes > AirPlay > ShairPort > USB FM Transmitter.. this effectively allows me to listen to music in-sync on any radio within range.. and the range surprisingly is very good.

 

Anyway I see the Video-Muticasting being done in a very similar way. MediaBrowser clients should be able to see a Video being played like a TV Broadcast... Programs such as VLC offer a Streaming option. Option to stream to UDP or HTTP, and the MB clients just hook into this stream.

I have never tried this but in Theory this should work... I imagine that a on MediaBrowser you would have to specify the Video Broadcaster as not all devices are going to be powerful enough for this.

[jamvids 37]

I was looking at something like this for audio

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wireless-Audio-Adapter-Music-Transmitter-Receiver-Hi-Fi-For-Phone-iPad-/200952877313?pt=UK_Computing_USB_Bluetooth_Adapters_Dongles&hash=item2ec9b99101

 

and buying multiple receivers. I have an I logic one at the moment I got from maplin but it struggles with low end sound and struggles to go through a fairly thin wall. Does anyone have any experience with these or the AV equivalent?