Listen to Music While TV is On in Same Room?

[Dueport]

I thought I’d read somewhere that this is not possible: you can’t have music playing over ceiling speakers while also having the TV on watching a show.  Is that limitation correct? For some reason I can’t find the thread where I read that so now I’m second guessing myself.  

I’ve also read something about rooms being able to have two audio endpoints, I’m not sure if that’s related to this or something totally different.  

If this is not possible then, as I posted in the 3.2.4 thread, I think this new Multi-Display Manager might be able to solve the problem if you set it up with just one display in the room but then you could select various audio sources?

If anyone can confirm or correct any of this would be helpful - would love to solve this issue in our home.

[lippavisual]

It is possible but all depends on how things are setup.  If you have a separate audio and video matrix, then this is typically easy to accomplish.

[Dueport]

1 hour ago, lippavisual said:

It is possible but all depends on how things are setup.  If you have a separate audio and video matrix, then this is typically easy to accomplish.

Thank you for responding - that’s very encouraging to hear. We do have separate video matrix for all video sources to all displays, and separate audio matrixes for all the distributed ceiling audio. Video matrix fed by all the Rokus.  Audio matrix amps fed from the EA5. If it is possible to do this how should it be setup? Assume this has to do with connections in Composer Pro? 

[TFlury]

The second audio endpoint for rooms is normally used if you have distributed audio and video to a room but the room has say a local FireTV or Apple TV directly connected to the TV. Audio/Video Volume and Endpoints would be your audio matrix and or amp, the TV would be audio and volume endpoint 2. 

2 hours ago, lippavisual said:

It is possible but all depends on how things are setup.  If you have a separate audio and video matrix, then this is typically easy to accomplish.

As Lippavisual said it is possible and the easiest way is with have your audio and video matrixed independently. In most systems it is as easy as selecting your watch source first then select a listen source. The TV should stay on your selected watch source (but no control) the music will then play through the distributed audio to the room with full control of volume and selection. 

I have played with the multi display agent a bit, It is more built for bars and restaurants. C4 missed a large target group by making it only work on touch screens and tablets. A lot of our clients including my home have 2 TVs in a single room. Using a tablet for my living room is more annoying to me than just using separate rooms. It also only allows for 1 audio source for the multi display room. In my scenario it just wont work due to having 3 distributed audio zones in my living room (1 for each TV and a 3rd for general music)

[Dueport]

2 hours ago, TFlury said:

The second audio endpoint for rooms is normally used if you have distributed audio and video to a room but the room has say a local FireTV or Apple TV directly connected to the TV. Audio/Video Volume and Endpoints would be your audio matrix and or amp, the TV would be audio and volume endpoint 2. 

As Lippavisual said it is possible and the easiest way is with have your audio and video matrixed independently. In most systems it is as easy as selecting your watch source first then select a listen source. The TV should stay on your selected watch source (but no control) the music will then play through the distributed audio to the room with full control of volume and selection. 

I have played with the multi display agent a bit, It is more built for bars and restaurants. C4 missed a large target group by making it only work on touch screens and tablets. A lot of our clients including my home have 2 TVs in a single room. Using a tablet for my living room is more annoying to me than just using separate rooms. It also only allows for 1 audio source for the multi display room. In my scenario it just wont work due to having 3 distributed audio zones in my living room (1 for each TV and a 3rd for general music)

This is really helpful I appreciate it. So in our case the TV source isn’t local but distributed.  The Roku goes into the video matrix out to the tv. The distributed audio for the ceiling speakers comes from a matrix amp fed by the EA5. Right now when you say watch and select a Roku app all works well. But then when you select listen and say tidal the tv turns off and only gives you tidal on the ceiling speakers. So if we wanted to see and hear the tv and see and hear the ceiling speakers (ie workout video on tv and workout playlist on ceiling speakers) can we do that by having the tv as one audio video endpoint and the ceiling as a second audio endpoint? So you’d turn the tv on and then the ceiling speakers?

[LollerAgent]

2 hours ago, Dueport said:

This is really helpful I appreciate it. So in our case the TV source isn’t local but distributed.  The Roku goes into the video matrix out to the tv. The distributed audio for the ceiling speakers comes from a matrix amp fed by the EA5. Right now when you say watch and select a Roku app all works well. But then when you select listen and say tidal the tv turns off and only gives you tidal on the ceiling speakers. So if we wanted to see and hear the tv and see and hear the ceiling speakers (ie workout video on tv and workout playlist on ceiling speakers) can we do that by having the tv as one audio video endpoint and the ceiling as a second audio endpoint? So you’d turn the tv on and then the ceiling speakers?

Yeah - I wish this was easier.  I have a room with a TV and a local Roku.  I also have distributed audio in this room.  When I want to listen to music but keep the TV on, I typically start the audio in another room, and then join the room where I want to both watch TV and listen to music.  This works, but it's annoying to have to switch back to "Watch" to control the TV (which then turns the audio off).

[TFlury]

If the goal is to be able to hear and control the work out video while you also have a separate source playing through the speakers you may need to build them as two different rooms. If your not worried about the audio associated with the workout video, the watch then listen steps should work. I did just test it on os 3.2.4 in my office and it worked. Can you post or PM me screen shots of connections. Matrix Amp, video matrix, tv, and room level. I should be able to figure out why its turning off the TV.

[Dueport]

 

4 hours ago, TFlury said:

If the goal is to be able to hear and control the work out video while you also have a separate source playing through the speakers you may need to build them as two different rooms.

Would this still be the case if we started the music playing through ceiling speakers first and then started the workout video second?  In other words, she’d still hear her music through ceiling speakers, but then see and hear the workout video on the TV and be able to control the TV with the remote?  If not, would upgrading to 3.2.4 and building a 1 display Multi-Display Manager solve the problem of having to have 2 separate rooms?

4 hours ago, TFlury said:

Can you post or PM me screen shots of connections. Matrix Amp, video matrix, tv, and room level. I should be able to figure out why its turning off the TV.

Appreciate the offer.  Unfortunately, I don’t have access to Composer Pro, just Composer HE so can’t post connections. 

 

 

[TFlury]

I tested the 1 Display with powered audio using the Multi-Display manager. Sr260 remotes and app will let you control the music, you would need a tablet to control the video source. I think for what your looking for 2 rooms would be the easiest.

[Topfox]

1 hour ago, TFlury said:

I tested the 1 Display with powered audio using the Multi-Display manager. Sr260 remotes and app will let you control the music, you would need a tablet to control the video source. I think for what your looking for 2 rooms would be the easiest.

Did it let you control the audio of the video source?

[TFlury]

16 hours ago, Topfox said:

Did it let you control the audio of the video source?

Multi Display only properly works on a tablet or touch screen. You can activate it from a programmed event (keypad button) or through the watch interface on a tablet or touchscreen. Once it is active the phone app and SR260 had control of the audio selection. The touchscreen allows control of Audio and Video sources. 

[Topfox]

1 minute ago, TFlury said:

Multi Display only properly works on a tablet or touch screen. You can activate it from a programmed event (keypad button) or through the watch interface on a tablet or touchscreen. Once it is active the phone app and SR260 had control of the audio selection. The touchscreen allows control of Audio and Video sources. 

Ok. Yeah in my testing I could get it to control the room audio volume, but not the TV volume. Unless I selected the TV itself as the source for video. I posted a list of things I felt were off the other day, but got no responses from anyone. 

[Dueport]

On 12/6/2021 at 3:06 PM, TFlury said:

I tested the 1 Display with powered audio using the Multi-Display manager. Sr260 remotes and app will let you control the music, you would need a tablet to control the video source. I think for what your looking for 2 rooms would be the easiest.

Thank you for testing that - it sounds like you’re right for my situation 2 rooms may be most straightforward.

On 12/7/2021 at 9:12 AM, TFlury said:

Multi Display only properly works on a tablet or touch screen. You can activate it from a programmed event (keypad button) or through the watch interface on a tablet or touchscreen. Once it is active the phone app and SR260 had control of the audio selection. The touchscreen allows control of Audio and Video sources. 

It is a shame they weren’t able to work out a UI for the Neeo and iOS on MultiDisplay yet - it would be especially helpful in this use case.  The room has a Neeo, keypad, and TS but it is on wall so not convenient to access during workouts in the way the Neeo or iPhone/iPad would be.  The C4 training video indicated that their core focus on this release was most common situation of a sports bar, etc. and future versions may address more residential situations.  Hopefully future versions will be able to better address the home market by including some limited Neeo UI and situations like this (one display, playing workout music same time) - seems like a common home situation (workouts, home gyms, etc).  Another normal resi use case (in non pandemics) would be playing video on displays while having background music on during a party (sporting events, Oscars, etc).  Still, really glad to see the MDM here and appreciate all the work that went into it - just hope continued development allows expanded UI to address these sort of residential use cases in the future.