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5.1 Sound Card Delivers 3 Streams of iTunes
An anonymous reader writes "How do you distribute simultaneous streams of DRM-protected iTunes from a single computer to multiple rooms of the house? Autonomic Controls demonstrated a unique solution at the recent Electronic House Expo (EHX). The company's Media Control Server EX software turns a PC with a 5.1 sound card into a three-zone music distribution server. (Add a second card for six outputs). At EHX, the solution was demonstrated with a multiroom audio system from NuVo, whose keypads could be used to browse and select songs, playlists, genres, artists, etc. The Autonomic software merges WMA and iTunes files into a single library for easy access." I have mixed feelings about this: on one hand, this is a really clever idea and a cool hack. On the other hand, the fact that DRM makes something like this necessary is truly infuriating.
I enjoy the heck out of my Squeezebox Duet. A two-room system would be about $550, which is about half the Sonos price, so I guess it would be 2X a reasonable price for you. But it's still great.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
It's all about combining your various music file collections into one virtual collection. This device is cool because it can merge all your disparate collections into one big playlist, regardless of format (and regardless of whether some of the content is DRM'd).
BTW, it is *not* helpful to keep blaming DRM for everything and anything. It only dilutes the argument against DRM when your claims are false, giving ammunition to its defenders.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.