5.1 Sound Card Delivers 3 Streams of iTunes

An anonymous reader writes "How do you distribute simultaneous streams of DRM-protected iTunes from a single computer to multiple rooms of the house? Autonomic Controls demonstrated a unique solution at the recent Electronic House Expo (EHX). The company's Media Control Server EX software turns a PC with a 5.1 sound card into a three-zone music distribution server. (Add a second card for six outputs). At EHX, the solution was demonstrated with a multiroom audio system from NuVo, whose keypads could be used to browse and select songs, playlists, genres, artists, etc. The Autonomic software merges WMA and iTunes files into a single library for easy access." I have mixed feelings about this: on one hand, this is a really clever idea and a cool hack. On the other hand, the fact that DRM makes something like this necessary is truly infuriating.

Time is on our side... yes it is.

[imstanny (722685)]

I have mixed feelings about this: on one hand, this is a really clever idea and a cool hack. On the other hand, the fact that DRM makes something like this necessary is truly infuriating.

DRM has never been a road block to innovation. At worst, it is a nuisance that will eventually be bypassed.

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[glavenoid (636808)]

In this case, I think DRM is moot, since most (?) soundcards allow one to read directly from their buffer (like connecting line out to line in, only through software), thus bypassing the DRM entirely. Vista is probably different since they changed the sound driver to protect DRM streams "to the speakers", but like you mention it'll eventually be bypassed.

For those who want to try something similar (no DRM), you can easily use audacity to load multiple MP3's, FLAC, OGG or whatever and set each to play on a

Re:Time is on our side... yes it is.

[lisaparratt (752068)]

But I want to listen to psytrance, not acid house! :(

Re:Time is on our side... yes it is.

[mollymoo (202721)]

You can buy a decent used piano, or a nice guitar, for the price of all that stuff. Want music? Go play some.

I tried that, but once I managed to get the piano set up I had difficulty working out which pedals did what and I couldn't see through the windscreen very well. Frankly, I thought it was a little dangerous. Now I only drive while playing the oboe.

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[ozmanjusri (601766)]

Which airline do you work for?

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[TheLostSamurai (1051736)]

You can buy a decent used piano, or a nice guitar, for the price of all that stuff. Want music? Go play some.

I tried that once but the guitar I bought was all messed up. It had all these strings where the buttons were supposed to be.

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[MadnessASAP (1052274)]

Right because everyone who buys music on iTunes is a retard right? According to Wikipedia iTunes has sold over 4 billion songs and out now the 2nd largest music provider. (Walmart was first) Now I couldn't find the # of individual users but I think you've just called quite a few people idiots. My guess would be they just don't care, they have an iPod and they have iTunes and everything just fucking works they don't care about backing up or fair use they just want to buy some music and put it on their iPo

Simple

[jpmorgan (517966)]

Whatever happened to the right tool for the right job? Screw iTunes and buy DRM-free music from Amazon.

Re:Simple

[by Anonymous Coward]

Or buy DRM-free music from ITMS.

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[Phroggy (441)]

Although they still charge $0.30 per track to upgrade existing DRM-encumbered tracks to non-DRM tracks, they no longer charge a higher price to buy non-DRM (iTunes Plus) tracks.

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[Rogue Pat (749565)]

Except if you are not in US, then you are screwed. Apple doesn't even "offer" ability to buy non-DRM, so they are out.

Incorrect. Itunes Plus (which has a higher bitrate and drops DRM) is available outside the US as well. Currently only for EMI artist (iirc). These "plus" tracks have the same price as other tracks.

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[mollymoo (202721)]

iTunes DRM doesn't stop you playing your music on multiple devices. With DRM-ed iTunes tracks the devices would have to be computers or iPods; with DRM-free music (which plenty of people, including iTunes, sell) they'd have to be computers or any old MP3 player. You could burn a CD using either and use the CD player you already have. Not that I like DRM, I don't, but in this example iTunes reasonably permissive DRM doesn't present a very big hurdle.

Re:Simple

[mcpkaaos (449561)]

iTunes DRM doesn't stop you playing your music on multiple devices.

iTunes DRM stops your from playing your music on more than five computers. Once you hit that limit, you better hope you have access to the other machines to de-authorize them, otherwise you are stuck with resetting your auth completely (which you can only do once per year, if I remember correctly). This has bitten me more than once.

You could burn a CD using either and use the CD player you already have.

I don't want to burn a CD every time I buy something from iTunes just so I can listen to it on the way to work. It's annoying, cumbersome, and incredibly wasteful. Besides, if I'm going to burn music to a CD, I'm going to burn the MP3 and fit 10x the music on there (there are plenty of modern CD players that can handle this).

iTunes reasonably permissive DRM doesn't present a very big hurdle

I suffered iTunes for quite a while, hoping to figure out an easy way to deal with their DRM (like monitoring the directory I download the songs to and have QTFU automatically strip the DRM for me in a script). It worked, but it was a pain in the ass to manage and really didn't scale all that well with a huge library. Then I thought, "Why the hell am I jumping through all these hoops just so I can listen to music that I already paid for?"

I am with the parent poster. Screw iTunes.

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[stewbacca (1033764)]

Once you hit that limit, you better hope you have access to the other machines to de-authorize them, otherwise you are stuck with resetting your auth completely (which you can only do once per year, if I remember correctly). This has bitten me more than once.

You have to be kidding or exaggerating. Since the first iPod and iTunes v.1.0, I've owned seven iPod devices and six computers with iTunes installed and have never come close to needing to reset my authorizations completely. Five computers and an unlimited number of iPods is MORE than plenty for the overwhelming majority of users out there. Resetting an account one time a year is also very reasonable, in case of that rare time I go through FIVE computers in one year and forget to deauthorize them.

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[mcpkaaos (449561)]

You have to be kidding or exaggerating.

No, and no. Your use case is not my use case.

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[mcpkaaos (449561)]

I never said anything about an iPod. I was talking about the restrictions imposed by the DRM-laden m4p format.

Next time you indirectly troll me, try to understand my point before sticking your foot in your mouth. Or better yet, keep it to yourself unless you have something remotely interesting to contribute.

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[Kalriath (849904)]

Crap dammit. I meant CD-RW.

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[jellomizer (103300)]

Well iTunes also has non-DRM Music too. But the issue is what happends when you are stuck with DRM. Amazon doesn't have all the titles that iTunes has. And buying a CD and ripping it is expensive compared to a $0.99 download. And sometimes people want to stay in bounds of the system, Except for Screwing the Man, Just leave the Man alone and he wont get after you.

DRM is not Evil, it is an Overreaction by the media companies. They have rights to protect their works from copyrite violation. But DRM is a Overre

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[op12 (830015)]

Amazon doesn't have all the titles that iTunes has.

That's unlikely, they have way more titles [usatoday.com]:

Apple now has 2 million songs from EMI and independent labels available without DRM, out of its 6 million-song catalog. Amazon offers 4.5 million DRM-free songs.

Tech just isn't here yet...

[FredFredrickson (1177871)]

I'm still waiting for a good solution to provide audio throughout my house.

I've always loved the fact that through Yahoo Music (or Rhapsody) you can access any music you'd like via subscription. Greatest Party Toy ever!

I've purchased many toys to try to accomplish bringing this to my livingroom, and my results have been varied. I purchased the D-Link DSM320 Media Lounge. This wireless player hooked up to a UPNP server on my computer and played music (and video) in my livingroom, with TV-Remote browsing. The problem: It only integrated with my personal library. No full 2-million track searching. This of course was a problem, because at parties, I want people to take full advantage of the 2 million tracks available (and I don't want to add justin timberlake to my personal library, just because people at a party want to hear him).

I've tried a sansa connect (mp3 player). This was the best solution yet, although it was a small mp3 player, it connects via wireless network and allows the full catalog search. Yahoo Music has just announced they're closing and the Sansa Connect no longer will offer this functionality.

I've tried Napster's Media Center Plugin [fredrickville.com]- but it crashes regularly.

I know that Tivo now offers functionality with Rhapsody- but I don't have cable, and I don't want to pay Tivo's subscription (not to mention high price for hardware I won't use).

And of course there's Sonos- which has EXACTLY what I want, for about 4 times a reasonable price.

I've chronicaled my adventures for anybody looking to learn from my mistakes: Digital Wireless Audio Age [fredrickville.com] , and my review of the DSM-320 and 520 [fredrickville.com].

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[argent (18001)]

What's wrong with a low end mini-itx box with passive cooling?

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[FredFredrickson (1177871)]

Well the other half of the battle is getting something that looks good on a TV screen. Media Center would be perfect -but I've already tried this. It will only stream my current library- not integrate with the subscription services. And even then- it's clunky for providing sound to multiple rooms

Re:Tech just isn't here yet...

[shark72 (702619)]

I enjoy the heck out of my Squeezebox Duet [slimdevices.com]. A two-room system would be about $550, which is about half the Sonos price, so I guess it would be 2X a reasonable price for you. But it's still great.

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[FredFredrickson (1177871)]

Holy cow! This is new and exciting! Thanks for the recommendation I'm going to check it out. By any chance do you know if it integrates with Rhapsody's catalog (different than just your library, the ability to search for new music..) ??

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[earnest murderer (888716)]

What's wrong with a Airport Express? A hundred bucks per output. And a $25 more for a copy of Airfoil to patch your subscription service into that.

I've been doing it for 4 years now (give or take) and love it. Had it come out a year earlier I could have saved a lot of dough on a high end CD player.

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[russellh (547685)]

I have music throughout my house. . Lots of ceiling speakers indoors, and six outdoor speakers as well. Two amps - one run via iPod, one connected to a computer. It's wired up the good old fashioned analog way. But I suppose you mean and with the ability for any room to have its own different audio. That is still very expensive. And the fact is, I think it is absurd because it just cannot be cost justified versus a bunch of second-hand iPods each sync'd to a common computer. Ok, maybe you have a terabyte of

Alsa

[AceJohnny (253840)]

If I recall some old experimentations, this is quite feasible technically with my good old SBLive and ALSA [alsa-project.org], by breaking out the outputs as different sound cards in your .asoundrc. Anybody got details?

And yes, I realize having something "techically feasible" is completely different from "work like a charm with the click of a button" :)

Rear 5.1 outputs

[dj245 (732906)]

The sound chips for those rear 5.1 outputs are often lower quality than the front on many 5.1 sound cards. Something to think about.

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[Locutus (9039)]

and to top if off, the recordings are already degraded by compression. Then again, how many are really going to hear the difference when the speakers are recessed into the ceiling and cabling is probably not of very good quality, nor installation, either.

It is a cool idea to split the 6 tracks and 6 outputs from a 5:1 system into 3 stereo streams. A palm hitting the forehead kind of moment for sure.

LoB

Duh!

[sm62704 (957197)]

How do you distribute simultaneous streams of DRM-protected iTunes from a single computer to multiple rooms of the house?

Easy, download the MP3s from Kazaa or rip them from CD. The hard question is, why in Turing's name would anybody download something with DRM? That's just insane!

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[geekoid (135745)]

Or download it from iTunes and rip to CD.
The question is, are you willing to pay for it? In most cases, I will.

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[Z34107 (925136)]

Generally, I:

1. Buy a track from ITMS or other DRM-crippled store. (Meh, I'm lazy.)
2. Pirate the same track from a torrent site. I want a better-quality, unencumbered recording.

I argue that they have my $.99, so I should get to listen to what I paid for. Better than just skipping to #2, I think, though it's a legal gray area.

I am supprised.

[jellomizer (103300)]

Form DRM Music no one has ever hacked a sound card Bypassing the Digial to Audio Conversion and redirect the Uncompressed Digital Signal to a storage medium.

I thought fairplay allowed you to register up to 5

[plasmacutter (901737)]

As much as I hate DRM, it's presence in this case does not "necessitate" this application in any way.

Fairplay [wikipedia.org] allows up to 5 computers to share the same account key. As for larger households, well you asked for headaches anyway if you as parents have more than 4 kids who are the age most really get into music. I doubt you'll even notice one more.

So it's not about DRM created necessity, it's about enabling an alternative to duplicating a library up to 5 times and paying for up to 5 times the storage and 5 times the power to keep that storage active. I personally am happy this choice is open to consumers.

This has nothing to do with DRM ...

[LaughingCoder (914424)]

It's all about combining your various music file collections into one virtual collection. This device is cool because it can merge all your disparate collections into one big playlist, regardless of format (and regardless of whether some of the content is DRM'd).

BTW, it is *not* helpful to keep blaming DRM for everything and anything. It only dilutes the argument against DRM when your claims are false, giving ammunition to its defenders.

Just like Data!

[Anonymous Monkey (795756)]

Now I can be just like Lieutenant Commander Data and listen to six different classical compositions at once loud enough to rattle a star ships windows! Now I just need to make a pun about rattling a star ships windows while running Linux.

do I just not understand something here?

[smenor (905244)]

On the other hand, the fact that DRM makes something like this necessary is truly infuriating

I was under the impression that iTunes allowed music sharing to other Macs and PCs with iTunes. Shouldn't you just be able to use that? and, if so, is the DRM really hurting that much?

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[lancejjj (924211)]

I was under the impression that iTunes allowed music sharing to other Macs and PCs with iTunes. Shouldn't you just be able to use that?

Yeah, but then you wouldn't need a rack-mount server or a whole-house audio distribution system. And that ruins a lot of the fun.

Plus, if you wanted 20 digital streams running independently in your home, well, iTunes can't do that unless you have iPods as well - as iTunes is restricted to only 5 authorized computers at a time.

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[smenor (905244)]

iTunes is restricted to only 5 authorized computers at a time

I don't think even that restriction holds for streaming shared music.

O'Rly ?

[The_Angry_Canadian (1156097)]

Add a second card for six outputs

No wai !

Add a third card for nine outputs
Add a fourth card for twelve outputs !

... Add a beowulf cluster of cards and it'll summon Nathalie Portman to dance for you !

Doesn't everyone have a whole-house audio system?

[lancejjj (924211)]

How do you distribute simultaneous streams of DRM-protected iTunes from a single computer to multiple rooms of the house?

Would I really want three streams of centrally controlled audio from MY single 1U rack mount server with a single sound card coupled with a whole-house audio distribution system?

Installing the analog wiring in all my rooms would cost me thousands of dollars. This seems like a very expensive solution to a problem that doesn't impact most people. It might make sense if you run a museum or something, with independent audio pumped into each room - but that's it. And it seems quite fragile to run - too many parts.

Single Sound Card Multizone?

[Zackbass (457384)]

I'm quite sure it isn't a novel idea but I haven't seen much info about it on the internets. A few of my friends and I got together last year to set up a similar system where we live. We use a plain old Soundblaster Live! Value card hooked up to four different zones (bathrooms). It's connected through a network drive to our music server and has a simple web interface to control the music in each zone. The web interface just controls four different instances of mplayer with the appropriate flags for rerouting the audio to the single channels. I'm sure the sound quality isn't great, but it's perfect if you like to air guitar with Dragonforce in the shower.

We'll probably write up a guide on how to do it if we ever get slightly less lazy. It's really simple if you don't get hung up by Linux's sound support. But yeah, lazy.

DRM doesn't make it necessary

[mmkkbb (816035)]

On the other hand, the fact that DRM makes something like this necessary is truly infuriating.

It's convenient because you can buy one computer and one sound card and have music in three rooms, instead of buying multiple computers or really expensive Sonos appliances.

Jack Restasking in Intel HD Audio!

[juventasone (517959)]

I'm amazed no one has mentioned this, but when Intel defined the HD Audio specification in 2004 (used in most new computers sold today) it included an ability called Jack Retasking. This allows any jack to function as anything, including a second or third stereo output, or even additional microphones. The problem is hardware manufacturers still don't implement the entire specification, even though the specification is part of Vista's new audio architecture called UAA (also to be included in XP SP3).

IMHO, fully implementing HD Audio would be the greatest audio enhancement for multimedia and home theater PCs since their conception.

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[Entropius (188861)]

And, if you want your music to be audible to everyone in the room, you can plug your iPod into some speakers. Like, any speakers.

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[Cutie Pi (588366)]

Um, yeah. I guess since iPods came out that no one wants to listen to music on speakers anymore, or listen to the same stuff as other poeple any more. Speakers are obsolete! Of course it's kind of a pain, when my husband and I want turn on some dinner music, that we each need separate iPods. We really don't might eating with headphones on and having a hard time hearing each other. And I'm sure that headphones providing bass that I can feel are right around the corner.

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[keytoe (91531)]

Stop violating other people's rights and this won't be a problem.

My fancy new 42" 1080p television has an optical digitial out that will ONLY play downsampled 2 channel audio out of it because 'I might be a pirate'. Who's rights did I violate for that to happen again?

I've been trying to get a multi-computer shared library (all ripped from the CDs I store in the attic) like this working for about 10 years now, and even still nothing works right. Who's rights did I violate to cause every software develope

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[DaveV1.0 (203135)]

Stop bitching about it and put the blame where it belongs, on the people violating the rights of the copyright holders. (see, the word "right" is built into the name")

Everyone bitches about DRM and how much they hate it and how it violates their rights when most of those same people are violating the legally granted rights of the copyright holders. I am so fucking tired of hearing it.

Pay close attention people:
YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO INDISCRIMINATELY MAKE AND DISTRIBUTE COPIES. THAT RIGHT IS RESERVED, BY

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[Fulcrum of Evil (560260)]

So, if the copyright holders undermine the 'limited' part of that, what's wrong with violating the 'exclusive' part?

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[berashith (222128)]

i think the .1 part is the subwoofer, but that is not required to only have the low tones. You can send a full spectrum through that line.