Ultimate multi room audio / video!

[pjsmith]

Hi,

I've been on the home automation trail for some time now. The 1 thing I have not organised yet is multi room audio / video, but I'm now at that stage and have to make a descision. The best thing I've found (in my budget) is the Squeezebox. It simply looks great. I want somthing that does much more though.

What I will have is a 8" touch screen tft in each room hooked to a PC board. This will run software that will do all the squeezebox can for audio, but for video too. Surf the web, watch a move, view the CCTV etc. It doesn't seem that hard to me, but I've not found anyone else that has done this yet.

If anyone has any bookmarks or has done somthing similar, could they let me know? I'd love to get some more ideas, find out what worked etc. I've not seem any commercial product that can do this all from one screen either.

Mini ITX board with Hi-Def video etc, and 8" TFT touch screen are very reasonable now. I reckon I can put each together for a reasonable sum.

Thanks.

[TimH]

Here's a couple to look at:

Main Lobby (a paid-for product):
http://www.cinemaronline.com/mainlobby.html

and Xlobby (free):
http://www.xlobby.com

Both would seem to do what you want and both appear to be good products with enthusiastic users/supporters.

HTH,

Tim.

[pjsmith]

Thanks. Xlobby looks great. Can't belive I'd not found that before.

[toscal]

Another idea you may want to look at is the Pinnacle Showcenter. http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...Center+200.htm
You can run more than one Showcenter from the same server I think its upto 6. So you could just have the LCD screens and a showcenter connected to them. This would give you Video, MP3 music, Shoutcast Radio (via the internet) and photo albums. Oh don't run it via the wireles link though, video playback can be a bit choppy. Your better off sticking to the ethernet cable connection. There is also a couple of homebrew hacks running under Linux. The one that seems to be very active is www.swisscenter.co.uk

Also you might want to look at something called twonky vision www.twonkyvision.com
Update 11/02/07
Just found this which looks interesting www.videolan.org
Good luck and let us know how you get on.