Is this possible

[sweetsuite]

Greetings knowledgeable forum:

My company is building vacation condo suites and due to the current climate we have scaled back our in room entertainment and it occurred to me that 4 Booms could do a lot of what we had planned to do with multiple complete hifi systems.

The suites all have 2 BR, 2 BA and a large living, kitchen dining area. They all have wired networking in every room with a wireless router for each suite. The guests will bring their own PCs so we would just be using Internet radio, not local mp3s.

I was thinking that we could put a Boom in each bedroom, and 1 at each end of the large public area. The guests come from all over the world so I was thinking that they could enjoy music from their home countries via Internet radio.

So, the question is: Is it possible for the Booms in the bedrooms to play separate stations and the Booms in the main room to be set to always synchronized to play the same station? That way the main area could be filled with music and guests in their rooms could pick what they want.

Thanks for the advice.

[ccrome2]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 10:39 AM, sweetsuite <
sweetsuite.3gb0sn1222364424 (AT) no-...limdevices.com> wrote:

> So, the question is: Is it possible for the Booms in the bedrooms to
>
play separate stations and the Booms in the main room to be set to
> always synchronized to play the same station? That way the main area
> could be filled with music and guests in their rooms could pick what
> they want.


Sounds like a great application to me! IMO much better than multiple hifi
systems. (I'm a little biased though)

Of course, you can synchronize whichever booms you want.

In addition, there is a 'New Streaming' software release coming soon that
will significantly improve the synchronization performance and
make synchronizing much more seamless.

Is new streaming a 7.2.1 or 7.3 feature?

-Caleb



>
> Thanks for the advice.
>
>
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> sweetsuite
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[SuperQ]

Yes, that sounds like a great use of the boom.

There are a couple of things you will want to know tho.

You will need a good internet connection to connect a large number of devices to SqueezeNetwork. Each one will consume bandwidth, even when synced over SqueezeNetwork.

There is no real security between Booms on one SqueezeCenter or SqueezeNetwork account. Any player can "see" others for sync. If you want a Boom for each private suite, I suggest you use a separate SqueezeNetwork account for each.

You may want to setup a SqueezeCenter server so you can transcode things from the BBC using the AlienBBC plugin. This also enables a number of other services from other EU countries as well.

I don't know if anyone has written any security plugins for SqueezeCenter, but it seems like one of those things that would be a good addon.

[sweetsuite]

Wow. Thanks for the quick replies.

We won't be running any servers so I was planning to use the squeezenetwork as the server for the radios. Is it safe to assume that we will be able synch radio in multiple rooms with squeezenetwork?

Are you saying that when the radios are all playing the same station they still use a full stream each?

We were hoping that by permanently synching the radios on the main room we would be able to limit bandwidth usage.

Thanks again in advance for your help.

[andyg]

On Sep 25, 2008, at 2:55 PM, sweetsuite wrote:

>
> Wow. Thanks for the quick replies.
>
> We won't be running any servers so I was planning to use the
> squeezenetwork as the server for the radios. Is it safe to assume
> that
> we will be able synch radio in multiple rooms with squeezenetwork?
>
> Are you saying that when the radios are all playing the same station
> they still use a full stream each?
>
> We were hoping that by permanently synching the radios on the main
> room we would be able to limit bandwidth usage.
>
> Thanks again in advance for your help.

Syncing radio while on SN isn't really possible, the streams will
likely be out of sync. Syncing non-radio content such as Pandora,
Rhapsody, etc. will work fine.

[JJZolx]

Sounds like the Boom would be ideal for your application. Plan on at least $50-100k in software development costs, though. I don't think you'd want to do it with the stock server and the way things work now.

[Nonreality]

Sounds like the Boom would be ideal for your application. Plan on at least $50-100k in software development costs, though. I don't think you'd want to do it with the stock server and the way things work now.

Wouldn't they just be relying on the squeezenetwork and not a local server? I don't see that much expense at all.

[sweetsuite]

I got a number of messages saying this would work great. Then a seemingly official Squeezebox employee said Internet radio can't be synched at all unless we run a server. (which seems like a crazy thing to need for a clock radio). Now someone tells me I need $50-100K to make 2 radios play the same station.

These are condo suites with maids and a concierge but minimal outsourced IT support.

I'm wondering if there is an inside joke here.

Could someone please clarify the reality here?

[Secret Squirrel]

I'm just a forum lurker here, but what I understand from the conversation so far is that two Slim employees have answered saying the it's a good idea. However, one (Andy) mentions that the player would not necessarily be in sync if playing Internet radio, but work sync well on some on-line services.

If I were you, I would try contacting the sales arm of SMS, Slim Devices, directly and work with them.

I think you have a great idea and their help may make it easier.

HTH,

SS

[bizdevguy]

I'd be interested in exploring the solution in more detail. There may be other considerations in your situation that we need to review. Feel free to contact me privately. I handle business development for Squeezebox products and there are a number of people thinking about the same thing.

My view is the requirement for sync'ing in the main living area is a small problem. If the space is so large that you might need 2 booms, then a better solution might be to use built in speakers in the ceiling and stream from a Squeezebox classic. With the Boom and Classic, the user has the same text display on the device and you use IR remote controls (much cheaper to replace when lost, stolen or broken).

given the relatively small size of your operation, running your own servers seems a bit of overkill. You can also remove items from the main menu so people aren't confused or tempted to use music services or other features of the product that you wouldn't be able to easily support.

Not sure what custom software you'd need to get it to work. You might want to reskin the UI but then you'd need Squeezecenter running somewhere in the building. Workable but possibly unnecessarily complicated.