ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
I start with my setup, but it would be interesting to read how other multiroom setups with Beolabs look like to be inspirited (as long as B&O is not offering a state of the art multiroom solution, besides analog masterlink). Server / Storage / Back-End I use a Synology DS713+ NAS to store all my video and audio files. Additional the NAS is used for DVBLink as TV-Server, Squeezebox Server as Music-Server and MySQL Server. · DVBLink streams live TV from my HDHOMERUN digital cable TV tuner (HDHR3-4DC providing 4 tuners) to all my TVs and iPads as well as manages all TV recordings directly to my NAS (as online video recorder). · Squeezebox Server an open source multiroom audio streaming software (similar to e.g. Sonos). Many different plugins are available on the market. One plugin I use is SmartMix (similar to MOTS) using your own music collection and even subscribed online music services like Deezer or Spotify. Another plugin I use is TrackStat, which shows listening statistics in different ways, for me another way to select music I like to play. Another plugin example is Song Info that shows the lyrics from musixmatch.com of the currently playing song. · MySQL Server to share the Kodi (former XBMC) library between different Kodi installations. One big advantage of it is, that that you can stop a movie or TV show on one device and continue watching it on another one. Client / Front-End As clients I use six Raspberry PIs. Two PIs setup as Video-Raspberry and four setup as Music-Raspberry. · The two Video-Raspberry PI 2 use XBian as media center software, based on Kodi (former XBMC). The DVBLink PVR Addon within Kodi gives access to live TV, manage and view recordings. Additional I use Airplay to stream directly from my iPhone / iPad to the TV via Kodi. On the hardware side I added an infrared remote receiver (using the raspberry PI GPIO interface) to control Kodi with a Beolink4. One Raspberry PI 2 uses a TSOP7000 (455kHz) for direct Beolink 4 control (connected to a Beovision 8) the second uses a TSOP4838 (38 kHz) for PUC control (I use Apple remote simulation - connected to a Beovision 9). Picture and sound is connected via HDMI to the TVs. For more details see http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/6406/60018.aspx#60018, in the meanwhile I changed to Raspberry PI 2 and to XBian, because raspbmc does not run on Raspberry PI 2 and OSMC is not stable. · The four Music-Raspberry PI use Squeezeplug (squeezelite) as Squeezebox-Client and ShairPort as AirPlay client. On the hardware side I added a Hifiberry DAC (192kHz/24bit Burr-Brown DAC) soundcard, a TSOP7000 for direct Beolink 4 control, and a small shell script which uses one PIN of the GPIO interface (3V) to turn on / off the connected Beolabs (via Power Link cable pin 4 = yellow = loudspeaker on) while the soundcard is in use (I use Beolab 4000, Beolab 6000, Beolab 3, Beolab 4). Control / Steering · Several Beolink4s for basic control of my equipment Beovision, Video- and Audio-Raspberry PIs. · Different iPad / iPhone apps like iPeng 8 (a really great app to control my multiroom squeezebox setup and accessing my music library and Deezer. Offering features like easy synchronization of all squeezebox clients, or Quick Switch for changing rooms (squeezebox clients) without stopping the song); DVBlink (to access the EPG, to setup recording schedules, to access live and recorded TV streaming on my iPads); Official XBMC Remote (to control Kodi for more complex tasks) · (Still under development) I will add a small PiTFT 2.8" Capacitive Touchscreen to my Music-Raspberry PIs using Jivelite for Squeezebox steering. Currently all Raspberries are hidden away. But especially the steering of the Music-Raspberry PIs via Beolink4 is not always easy without “feedback” display, when no iPad is available. Jivelite is running, steering via Beolink 4 or direct via touch screen is working. Displaying the album cover and the song name on the small display is very cute. But I am still searching for an adequate Raspberry PI case … perhaps a reason to go back to B&O? …
I start with my setup, but it would be interesting to read how other multiroom setups with Beolabs look like to be inspirited (as long as B&O is not offering a state of the art multiroom solution, besides analog masterlink).
Server / Storage / Back-End
I use a Synology DS713+ NAS to store all my video and audio files. Additional the NAS is used for DVBLink as TV-Server, Squeezebox Server as Music-Server and MySQL Server.
· DVBLink streams live TV from my HDHOMERUN digital cable TV tuner (HDHR3-4DC providing 4 tuners) to all my TVs and iPads as well as manages all TV recordings directly to my NAS (as online video recorder).
· Squeezebox Server an open source multiroom audio streaming software (similar to e.g. Sonos). Many different plugins are available on the market. One plugin I use is SmartMix (similar to MOTS) using your own music collection and even subscribed online music services like Deezer or Spotify. Another plugin I use is TrackStat, which shows listening statistics in different ways, for me another way to select music I like to play. Another plugin example is Song Info that shows the lyrics from musixmatch.com of the currently playing song.
· MySQL Server to share the Kodi (former XBMC) library between different Kodi installations. One big advantage of it is, that that you can stop a movie or TV show on one device and continue watching it on another one.
Client / Front-End
As clients I use six Raspberry PIs. Two PIs setup as Video-Raspberry and four setup as Music-Raspberry.
· The two Video-Raspberry PI 2 use XBian as media center software, based on Kodi (former XBMC). The DVBLink PVR Addon within Kodi gives access to live TV, manage and view recordings. Additional I use Airplay to stream directly from my iPhone / iPad to the TV via Kodi. On the hardware side I added an infrared remote receiver (using the raspberry PI GPIO interface) to control Kodi with a Beolink4. One Raspberry PI 2 uses a TSOP7000 (455kHz) for direct Beolink 4 control (connected to a Beovision 8) the second uses a TSOP4838 (38 kHz) for PUC control (I use Apple remote simulation - connected to a Beovision 9). Picture and sound is connected via HDMI to the TVs. For more details see http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/6406/60018.aspx#60018, in the meanwhile I changed to Raspberry PI 2 and to XBian, because raspbmc does not run on Raspberry PI 2 and OSMC is not stable.
· The four Music-Raspberry PI use Squeezeplug (squeezelite) as Squeezebox-Client and ShairPort as AirPlay client. On the hardware side I added a Hifiberry DAC (192kHz/24bit Burr-Brown DAC) soundcard, a TSOP7000 for direct Beolink 4 control, and a small shell script which uses one PIN of the GPIO interface (3V) to turn on / off the connected Beolabs (via Power Link cable pin 4 = yellow = loudspeaker on) while the soundcard is in use (I use Beolab 4000, Beolab 6000, Beolab 3, Beolab 4).
Control / Steering
· Several Beolink4s for basic control of my equipment Beovision, Video- and Audio-Raspberry PIs.
· Different iPad / iPhone apps like iPeng 8 (a really great app to control my multiroom squeezebox setup and accessing my music library and Deezer. Offering features like easy synchronization of all squeezebox clients, or Quick Switch for changing rooms (squeezebox clients) without stopping the song); DVBlink (to access the EPG, to setup recording schedules, to access live and recorded TV streaming on my iPads); Official XBMC Remote (to control Kodi for more complex tasks)
· (Still under development) I will add a small PiTFT 2.8" Capacitive Touchscreen to my Music-Raspberry PIs using Jivelite for Squeezebox steering. Currently all Raspberries are hidden away. But especially the steering of the Music-Raspberry PIs via Beolink4 is not always easy without “feedback” display, when no iPad is available. Jivelite is running, steering via Beolink 4 or direct via touch screen is working. Displaying the album cover and the song name on the small display is very cute. But I am still searching for an adequate Raspberry PI case … perhaps a reason to go back to B&O? …
Hello Alsfeld,thanks for your input and your very interesting posting! I'm highly interested in Beo 4 control of a raspberry / other devices. Would you mind sharing your knowledge - maybe in another thread - as I guess that there are more people interested in this! :-)
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing. No multi-room setup here to share unfortunately.
In order to steer a Raspberry Pi with a remote control you “just” need a miniature infrared receiver and LIRC http://www.lirc.org/. For the Beolink 4 you need an infrared receiver handling 455kHz like TSOP7000. See my posts at http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/7239/64655.aspx.
Software
It certainly depends on the software you would like to control. To control Kodi (former XBIAN) all available distributions (like XBian, RaspBMC, OpenELEC, OSMC) have already LIRC integrated and you “only” need to change the file lircd.conf to match the signals of your remote (e.g. Beolink 4). In this file the keys (e.g. KEY_DOWN) are mapped to the remote signals.
When you like to control Squeezelite (client), it is getting a bit more complicated, because LIRC has to be installed and the LIRC commands have to be forward to the Squeeze-Server (in my case on my NAS) via telnet (perhaps there is an easier solution).
So it highly depends on your software, if and how it will work with LIRC.
Hardware
The infrared receiver (e.g. TSOP7000) has to be connected to the Raspberrry PI GPIO interface (see e.g. http://forum.osmc.tv/showthread.php?tid=5549). I connected the TSOP4838 (for 38 kHz) direct to the GPIO Interface (as described in the above link) and it works perfectly via PUC. BUT I had some problems with the TSOP7000 (for 455kHz) until I added a capacitor C1 - 4.7µF, a diode D1 - 1N4148 and a resistor R1 - 4k7 like this:
+-----------------------+ 3 | /| 3 | + +----------+-------------------+-----|< |-o VS | | | + | | \| | ______________ | ----- | D1(1N4148) | / | ----- | | | ( | | | | | \______________ - +----------+-------o GND | | | | 2 C1(4.7µF) 2 | | | | | data -> +------------------------------+----------o OUT +-----------------------+ 1 R1(4k7) 1 Now it works smooth and reliable (see http://www.lirc.org/receivers.html, too).
+-----------------------+ 3 | /| 3
| + +----------+-------------------+-----|< |-o VS
| | | + | | \|
| ______________ | ----- | D1(1N4148)
| / | ----- | |
| ( | | | |
| \______________ - +----------+-------o GND | |
| | 2 C1(4.7µF) 2 |
| | |
| data -> +------------------------------+----------o OUT
+-----------------------+ 1 R1(4k7) 1
One pictures of my Music-Raspberry PI running Squeezeplug (for hide away purpose) with Powerlink Connector for my Beolabs and infrared receiver for Beolink 4.
Two pictures of my Music-Raspberry PI with touch TFT Display 2,8'' running Squeezeplug and Jivelite with Powerlink Connector for my Beolabs and infrared receiver for Beolink 4.
Case is built from wood and a metal aluminum surface.
Next step is, to get my masterlink loudspeakers (Beolab 3500 and Beolab 2000) working with a Raspberry PI (see my questions at http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/13999/132815.aspx#132815).
I can't compete with the sophistication of what you are doing but my setup probably is crazy enough. I have an Avant, Pentas as fronst, 4000s as rears, DVD 2 via Scart and Beosystem 7000 with Beogram 4000 via Masterlink. In the same room, I use the LCS 7000 in Option 4, the MCL2AV to connect two Beolab 5000s to the Beosystem 7000 via MCL. I and others in the B&O world were sceptical at first but Stefan from the forum here came up with the idea. And it works pretty well. I can easily witch speakers depending on my sitting position, but have only one complete surround setup of course. Only the Beosystem 3 could give even more flexibility. But with this solution, everything is two-way compatible, which is neat considering that I also have 4 LC2s in the same room that I can program in linkmode. Only thing that I'm not entirely happy with is that you need to go to standby before switching speakers and when in linkmode you need to be careful that link is active on the remote before typing commands since otherwise you end up having more speakers active than you would have liked to. But other than that, it really works fantastic and I can also send the TV sound to whatever speakers I'd like. All that fully integrated with more than 20 year-old gear. Pretty unbelievable and very well-thought from B&O to make setups like that possible.
Ok, it's not really multi-room but at least exploiting the multi-room functionality.
Kai
@ Alsfeld: WOW!!!!!