Audio control through HomeSeer - what are the options?

[DJF3]

Hi,

I'm desperately looking for a way to control my audio through HomeSeer Touch.

What should it do
* Showing covers, titles
* Controls to select/skip/play/pause/stop music + volume
* Ability to search music by genre/title/album name (optional)

How
There's a couple of options/issues:
* HS Plugin: iTunes $40 (requires iTunes on your HomeSeer server: not an option)
* HS Plugin: Windows Media Player $40 (requires WM 9 running on HomeSeer: maybe)
* Use IR Trans to control the audio system, volume, source, etc.

Challenge: With some solutions you need an audio link from HS to the actual speakers. HomeSeer is running in a VM far away from the speaker system.
Hope: There's a Mac Mini right next to the speaker system. It contains iTunes and my music library.

How could I integrate my music library (WM9 or iTunes (preference)) with my HS Touch system, without running WM/iTunes on the actual HS system? Budget of course is challenging.

[Esteban]

Not that many options that come to mind if no money can be spent (otherwise sonos and squeezebox). What you could do is: run a media player on your mac or pc next to the hifi set that has a web interface. Like winamp+some http server plugin or xmbc etc. and have that display in HStouch as a webpage. You could then make a skin that is 'finger friendly'.

[johnz]

What about the squeezebox plugin (version 2, beta) on your HS server and the (free) squeezebox server and squeezeplay on your Mac mini? Does exactly what you want.

John

[tricksel]

Why is installing iTunes no option, while Media Player is? Further, you note that iTunes integration has your preference... Don't get it.
When using the same folder on your server as on your media Mac Mini, you can easily use the data.
If you install Airfoil on the Mac Mini, you can send audio instantly, with no fuss from your server to that Mac mini as well.

[Jeroen Bartels]

My server is also away from my audio system. I use regular cat5 cable to transport the digital audio signal to the amplifier. If needed you could use the spare wires in your network cables.

[DJF3]

iTunes is not an option because it's su much heavier than WMP. HS is running in a Virtual machine.

Right now I'm thinking about running HS on a separate, small PC and then run WMP or iTunes on that PC.. Will post the solution when it' implemented.

Cheers!

[TANE]

Itunes is okay when running in Vmware.
HS Itunes was the problem in the past.
Current version of HS Itunes plugin is running fine.

WMP is a big challenge when your have big collection.
When running Itunes you will also have the nice option of the app remote on the Iphone.
With Itunes you can do easy and cheap way music distribution using TunesAir.

Other option is indeed squeezebox..i think you can run this from your NAS (I know the Qnap is still on your list)

[Dickr43]

Squeezebox server is running perfect on my QNAP. As said before, this and iPeng on the iPhone is a very nice setup....

[DJF3]

QNAP is off my list and in my house now

It looks like my choice will be: don't integrate music control with HST and use an iPod Touch to control iTunes on the Mac..

[Rene]

It should not be that hard to integrate the web based interface (touch or nokia770) of Squeezeboxplayer into HST.

[RdP]

I am also thinking about some options in this area, but I still have some open ends....

first and most important question is, which device is actually playing the music on your situation. I have a nice Home entertainment system, which is best qualified to play music but this system is not connected to the HS system. My music collection is on my (QNAP NAS) and the HS iTunes plug-in does not support remote iTunes libraries as far as I know. And if it did, I could only use the internal soundcard and connected speakers, which are in the hallway.

Do I need some sort of a all house speaker system ??

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Thanks,
Rien

[Dickr43]

Just buy a squeezebox and connect that to your home entertainment systemen. You can then either use the Squuezebox plug-in or an iPhone with the iPeng app to control your music. The QNAP (and some other NAS manufacturers as well) have an Squeezebox server on-board.

I am using the same setup (QNAP+Squuezebox+iPhone) and am quite happy with the way it works.

[Alexander]

Dick,

Quite? What are you not happy about?

[Dickr43]

Correction: I am very happy wit the way it works!

[Alexander]

thanks! Somebody with the same configuration (Squeezeboxen icw HomeSeer plugin) and not so happy?