#arpnetworks 2015-04-17,Fri

m0unds

oh, nice

brycec

woot slae

m0unds

i used to have an onkyo receiver

brycec

Oh snap, latest firmware added Spotify Connect

[18:58]

m0unds

the one i have now is a denon, and it's alright but not great. i'd like to replace it w/something a little more powerful for home theater stuff
awesome
it's nice controlling the stuff from your phone or tablet or laptop or whatever
and just letting the thing play

[18:58]

brycec

My lady loves being able to play her Spotify while she's in the kitchen

[18:58]

m0unds

it's nice not having to use a wimpy little bluetooth speaker or whatever too

[18:59]

mercutio

is there some kind of wifi streaming protocol that works properly (not like dlna with a media library)
but like where server dictates what each client plays.
are the onkyo receivers good for general 2.1 sound quality?
i naerly got one before because they were really cheap

[19:00]

brycec

Onkyo is regarded pretty well
*is/are

[19:01]

mercutio

btu i've had so many problems with receivers that humm etc.
like you have to press mute or the speakers make noise when no sound coming out
my cuurrent system is doing that, but it seems to be quite common..

[19:01]

brycec

(Sounds like your input levels are too low forcing you to turn the volume up way too high. Or you have issues external to the receiver)
(but probably not the latter if muting resolves it)

[19:02]

mercutio

my input level did drop a bit.
i should change back to my other dac.

[19:03]

brycec

My inputs are all line/digital

[19:03]

mercutio

it's worse on the other system.
i'm using external dac.
hmm
i've been uusing external dac's forever
it's not as bad on my cheap topping amp
but i'm still not sure how much load i can put through it

[19:03]

brycec

As for some magical wifi protocol to control slaves... You're bordering on home automation territory. SONOS might do that

[19:04]

mercutio

i used to use esd years ago
and the synchronisation was terrible
but it was lower overhead for mp3s than decoding locally

[19:04]

brycec

Yeah, audio sync is going to be a problem with Pulseaudio, RTP streams, esd, etc

mercutio

yeah i was wondering if something could use a microphone or such

brycec

I know that Sonos can keep speakers in sync though.

mercutio

to improve sync
when it's nearby
if it's distant sync is less of an issue :)
what i really want to be able to do is have the same music in kitchen as other rooms
but not have skype etc

brycec

(again, that's what Sonos and other home automation stuff are intended to do)

[19:06]

mercutio

and i have an extra soundcard if that makes it easier.
ahh
i wonder if i should juust use different speakers for music/phone calls
hangon i want skype in the kitchen :)

[19:07]

brycec

Google "whole home audio"

[19:07]

mercutio

atm whenever i boil the jug when i'm on a skype call i can't continuue conversation
it completely drowns out :)
erk it needs wine?

[19:08]

brycec

What needs wine?

mercutio

yeah this looks propietary
sonos

brycec

It's definitely proprietary :p

mercutio

yeah when i said standard
i meant like open standard
at least as open as dlna :/

brycec

The "open standard" is to hardwire everything together :p

[19:10]

mercutio

yeh there's an issue there
something adhoc is fine :/
buut something closed off isn't

[19:10]

brycec

So I gather. (This is just based on the few years I've done consulting for home automation... And the people who could afford that stuff could afford to Do It Right(tm))
(And the people who couldn't afford to do it, the cheaper way was still to run cables :p)
Oh come to think of it... I think Airplay can do it.

[19:11]

BryceBot

That's what she said!!

[19:13]

brycec

it's sorta-open

[19:13]

mercutio

ok what if i had wifi client for audio on both systems
so they get the same latency
oh but the isseu is being out of sync
and using lcock would fix that
i can run ethernet some of the time.
if just to get clock synced better
i just can't close the door..

[19:14]

brycec

I wonder if https://www.thisisbeep.com/ ever came to fruition

[19:16]

mercutio

oh that looks good

brycec

Yep looks like Airplay is the broken-open protocol you're seeking.

mercutio

does wifi support multicast?

brycec

Yes
(But that doesn't sync on its own)

mercutio

it would give some level of a starting point though?

brycec

As much as esd does

mercutio

because wifi receive delay on different systems should be reasonably constant shouldn't it?
esd is terrible

brycec

Pulseaudio has builtin multicast support.

mercutio

oh god i hope it's not that bad :)

brycec

No it wouldn't be constant nor consistent.
Literally there's a checkbox in paprefs

mercutio

brycec

"Enable Multicast/RTP receiver"
(and sender)

mercutio

i still need to get it from windows because i'm using foobar2000

brycec

Cheap tiny computer line in/out? eg RPI

[19:22]

mercutio

i'm going to putu a whole computer in kitchen
with hard-drives
it gets the noise away and may heat it a little for winter :)
hmm google shows lots of people wanting to do multiroom audio
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=134943
this looks easiest so far

[19:22]

brycec

Ooh I remember the Logitech Squeezebox

Yeah this is exactly what you were looking for :p http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SlimProto_TCP_protocol and [broken-]open too

[19:33]

mercutio

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_upnp
i wonder how bad dlna is

[19:42]

RandalSchwartz

DLNA seems to work for me.

[19:53]

mercutio

for some reason audio stopped working at all in linux :/
it's new in linux 4 anyway
so it may be buggy
radeon only just added support for audio over displayport.

[19:54]

brycec

w00t So the Spotify update for my receiver turns it into a full-fledged Spotify Connect device, including the ability to connect to it when it's in standby and start playing music immediately. This is even easier than using the PS4 for Spotify from the kitchen :D

[19:56]

m0unds

awesome

[19:59]

RandalSchwartz

Of all the people we interview on FLOSS Weekly, the only ones I dread are those who insist on using Linux. :)
Audio for those shows is almost always a pain.

[20:00]

brycec

heh, I bet

[20:01]

RandalSchwartz

invariably, they fail to select the headset mic, or believe that their laptop mic "works ok" because they have done numerous google hangouts with it.
All I can do is start talking about "inverse square law". :)

[20:02]

brycec

I have !BSD/*nix machines around just for that purpose. Well not *just* but it's one reason I still use my MacbookPro

[20:02]

RandalSchwartz

but even for people wearing headsets, we have them tap their headset mic, only to inform them that they have selected some *other* mic instead.
it's very clear to me when they're not using a mic that is 2-3 inches from their mouth

[20:03]

brycec

heh I did that on a phone call once, had the wrong mic selected

[20:03]

RandalSchwartz

the room noise is very clear.
well - the room noise makes them very unclear :)

[20:03]

brycec

heh

[20:04]

RandalSchwartz

my instructions insist on broadband, and a mic no further from their mouth than 2-3 inche
I don't know why people ignore that.
"can't we just do this over the phone?"... NOOO
"can't I just use my laptop mic or webcam mic?" ... NOOO

[20:04]

mercutio

i was quite impressed by my microphone.
it seems to work surprisingly well even if you don't position it well
and i'm normally furhter than 2 or 3 inches from it

[20:08]

brycec

(Oh geez... I can control the living room receiver from my office, and that includes turning the volume up loud enough for me to clearly listen to music in here. I'm afraid to hear how loud it is in the living room.)

[20:09]

mercutio

i got pissed off at trying to buy cheap "good enough" microphones
and just got one rated highly on special
oh yeah headset is always going to be better for room noise
i think i'm going to have to reboot to fix audio :(

[20:09]

m0unds

brycec: just leave some earplugs in the living room, lol

[20:14]

brycec

And to hell with the neibours next door and downstairs, right m0unds ?

m0unds

they're just unlucky having to live below and next door

brycec

brycec is going with "it's 8pm Friday night, stfu" if anyone asks

mercutio

curiously my tablet has a better microphone than my phone

m0unds

hahahah
SORRY I COULDN'T HEAR YOU POUNDING ON THE WALLS, MY MUSIC WAS TOO LOUD

mercutio

pretty nifty being able to control the other volume

[20:16]

brycec

lol m0unds

[20:16]

m0unds

could always just get a bowl and put a bunch of those jobsite earplugs in it and put it outside your door

[20:16]

brycec

lol

[20:17]

...... (idle for 25mn)

Downstairs neighbour just complained

[20:42]

***

dj_goku_ has quit IRC (Remote host closed the connection)

[20:43]

mercutio

haha
were tehy nice about it?

[20:49]

..... (idle for 20mn)

brycec

Yeah
I've interacted with him before. He's a reasonably cool guy. Asked me to turn down the bass.
And I'm currently fighting with my steamos machine so it's silent anyways :p

[21:09]

........... (idle for 54mn)

mercutio

you have a steamos box?
what's it like?
is it official or unofficial?

brycec

"steambox" would be official

mercutio

ahh

brycec

"steamos box" is a box I installed steamos upon

mercutio

do you like it?

brycec

*shrug*
I barely, if ever use it
Mostly as an XBMC machine

mercutio

kodi :/
xbmc seems pretty cool
and xbmc is a nicer name

[22:05]

brycec

It's been so long since I touched it, it's still running XBMC :P

[22:05]

mercutio

ahh
i have kodi 14.2
i have no idea what's current
but that seems a high version number than i remembver

[22:05]

brycec

well, I mean, if it were running... Currently dealing with *something* that just won't start and stay running and causes X to enter a reboot loop.

[22:06]

mercutio

it still looks like the old xbox used to look :/

[22:06]

brycec

*restart loop

[22:06]

mercutio

damn[22:07] <brycec> (And before this, it was Valve forcing Nvidia 343 which removed support for the ION gfx chipset. Thank goodness it's just a Debian machine underneath)
ion gfx is pretty old now isn't it

[22:07]

brycec

Oh and thank you http://www.stephensonsrocket.horse/
mercutio: yes.
(relatively)
I don't fault NVidia for removing support from their latest driver package.

[22:08]

mercutio

yeah open source maintains support for longer with things generally

[22:09]

brycec

But it did prove inconvenient, particularly because SteamOS' auto-update just blindly installed 343. Suddenly the machine doesn't work with no indication why.

[22:09]

mercutio

i had similar issues with windows 10 and amd support :/
except i don't have an old video card, the amd driver just stopped working properly.
windows is including proper video card drivers these days it seems
windows is finally catching up to linux with driver support out of the box

[22:10]

........ (idle for 36mn)

m0unds

i don't think i've had to install a driver since win7
maybe vista, depending on the hw
i'd say that linux might have more support out of the box, but it also had a reputation for having shitty, broken drivers or incomplete drivers for lots of hardware

[22:47]

brycec

Depends who you talk to really.
I've got X working. And I had XBMC working... then I upgraded to Kodi and Kodi crashes somewhere in libudev. Ugh.

[22:51]

mercutio

my ethernet isn't supported in windows 7 on this motherboard

[22:52]

brycec

Oh and it was Steam itself that seems to get itself into a crash loop.

[22:52]

mercutio

and the base amd video drivers in old windows don't support 3d or high resolution iirc
actuually i think i'm stuck with 256 colour or something by defauult :/

[22:52]

brycec

woot! Kodi runs now
Apparently I'm so accustomed to bt/wifi/rf remotes that I forget I have to point the IR remote at the receiver.

[22:56]

mercutio

rf is normal now days isn't it?

brycec

Couldn't tell you

mercutio

actually maybe ir is

brycec

But I'm usually using a Wiimote or my phone as a remote
fg

mercutio

my tablet can act as an ir remote