Ian and I just had a great call with Gabe Frost and Stan Pannington about Play To and all it entails. Thanks to Gabe and Stan for their help and information, you’ll be able to hear the interview in a forthcoming episode of The Media Canter Show.
I want to thank everyone that had some questions and give you Gabe’s answers. I’m going to do this in a couple of parts so that the post doesn’t take days to read, today lets look at multiple devices and sync, tomorrow, Play To and Media Centers.
Q: Will the streaming be to multiple computers, extenders, and devices?
A: Yes with a caveat: A user can open as many concurrent Play To sessions as they like. For example, a user can select music and play it to speakers in their bedroom, select pictures and play them to a digital picture frame in their kitchen, and select videos and play them to the family room HDTV. The speakers, picture frame, and family room HDTV must be (or have an adapter attached that is) network attached and implements the DLNA Digital Media Renderer (DMR) role.
[Si: what I think is really cool here is that if your media is on a different machine the load side steps the machine that you’re Play To’ing from, streaming the media direct from that device. It’s the devices that do the work.]
Q: Will the streaming to the multiple devices all be in sync without lag in each room?
A: In most cases no. The DLNA standard does not specify how to achieve synchronized playback; however, device manufacturers may support synchronized audio by whatever proprietary means they choose. A great example of this is Sonos products today. A user may choose which rooms to sync via the Sonos controller, and then use Windows 7 Play To for sending a playlist. The audio will be synchronized as the user expected. Because the method by which devices are synchronized is proprietary, we don’t expect different manufacturers to interoperate for synchronized playback unless they use the same underlying middleware implementation. A number of manufacturers already support, or are actively working on support for synchronized audio in new products.
Each manufacturer has the option of providing software on Windows that provides the user with the ability to specify which of their devices should be synchronized, as well as per-room controls (such as volume and mute). All of this would have to be exposed somewhere other than the Play To controller, which is not extensible in Windows 7. Great new device experiences are enabled in Windows 7, such as the Devices and Printers folder and Device Stage, and we are looking forward to seeing how manufacturers take advantage of those platforms to provide a great synchronized audio setup and control experience. We would expect the Play To controller, in such a scenario, to provide global playback controls for the synchronized devices.
Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me 
So if I’m reading that right, Windows 7 can’t sync everything however someone could come up with a controller which could?
You got it! All anyone would have to do is implement a DLNA stack….so it would be quite easy for someone to develop a DLNA compliant universal remote to control not only your Media Center, but every other DLNA device in your home. TVs, Photo frames, Speakers, Media Centers…
I think its a missed opportunity, to quote ‘A number of manufacturers already support, or are actively working on support for synchronized audio in new products.’ Great, that means that if we want synchronised audio from devices around the home then we’ll need to upgrade rather thanhave MS build this feature into Windows 7. In the end it may have been more economical to go down the Sonos route after all.. Disappointed really.
I actually see it differently, I think MSFT have created an opportunity here. They’ve delivered the building blocks for creating a very extensible whole house audio system. I’m sure a vendors going to step in here and create an interesting device or application to do the sync and that vendor will be focused solely on achieving that purpose.
It’s also the most open media step I’ve ever seen, you can use use a d-link picture frame, a Sonos, a Roku and PS3 all in the same setup
I think with the architecture built into Windows 7 this could open up a route for someone like Harmony to sell a remote that would not only work with everything (IE: Universal remote) but also have a function to control DLNA devices in the home by selecting which ones you want to send content to.
I can’t wait to talk to them. Hopefully it won’t be too long for my DLNA interview.
To me it seems that Play to is an example of MS not going all the way, it is a good feature but it could have been a giant killer built into every windows 7 pc rather than a glorified remote control for other rooms! If I was in those rooms with the devices above then I could select it there wtithout the need to go elswhere or pick up a noebook to control it via Play to.
One thing I have missed here is can you select a play list or album and play 2 multiple DLNA devices . OK they would not be syncronised but that may not be an issue. They key is not to have to play to 3 times the same pley list rather play to select A , B and c then hit play. Can anyone enlighten my on this.
@Mark, you select the device from the Play To menu
so to play to 3 devices, you would right click on the album and select Play To devA, then right click again Play To devB and so on
I searched for DLNA synchronized playback and found this:
http://www.avegasystems.com/products/playback.htm
“Avega’s networked playback software is the only solution to bring true multi-room and multi-channel functionality into the UPnP/DLNA framework. The software is UPnP/DLNA compliant and can render content from any UPnP/DLNA server, with playback being controlled by any UPnP/DLNA control point. The standard UPnP/DLNA functionality is augmented with synchronization and device management technology to achieve multi-room and multi-channel capabilities while retaining the full interoperability benefits of UPnP/DLNA. “
Good tip on Avega, I’ve dropped them a line.
Looking through their stuff, it reads like they did a lot of work on the Cisco / Linksys whole house stuff at CES. I’d like to review that bit of kit!
I’m still a little confused about where exactly the data gets played from. Here’s the scenario in question: I have a windows 7 netbook that has wireless access to a song that is physically stored on my media center pc which is connected to my stereo system. So, when I launch that song on my netbook and “Play-to” the media center pc, will that mp3 file first be streamed to the netbook and then streamed back to the media center for playing; or will it me smart and recognize that the mp3 is physically on the destination play-to device and therefore merely play the song directly from the media center pc?
The content will be played from the media center, to the media center without ever going to the netbook, it’s simply a remote control in that scenario.
that’s great. thanks.