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I used to use itunes linked to my vaio media centre to play my music while showing visualistions to my loewe LCD big screen- It was really effective for parties. Now I have a far superior audio system in sonos and the gold standard performance and versatility has blown my friends away. However I would dearly love to use visualisations again. It would only require a software upgrade to the desk top controller to allow this and you would greatly increase the modality of sonos in a multi media sense- and make me happy- plus it should only cost cents in reality. Mull it over.
And if you could use the cover art as the basis for the visualisation then that would be really cool.



i.e. Start by showing the cover art for say 5 seconds and then have the cover art morph and dance like a normal visualisation.



Anyone else think this could work?
great thought. And all it needs is a software upgrade.Clearly it would be ideal if the zp had a video out but I am sure the "videos" multi room streamer in 2008!! will be the time we see this
Couldn't you write program to use the input from a PC microphone or something for this?



Or maybe a way to data out of the sonos software regarding file playing by zone..you might be able to hack something like that into one of the web controller programs people have made. Then you would be able to locate the cd art in the directory.



-The Captain
Does anyone from sonos have a view on this- it would be a great party feature while rem,aining true to sonos's audio roots
Would you be satisfied with visulizations on the hand held controller size screen?



There are various accessories on the market that will create visualizations from any music source. These could be connected to the Line-out or speaker out of the SONOS and connect to your TV, use common household lamps, or special laser based projection devices. These devices are simple enough to be DIY projects. (Glue a few small mirrors to a speaker cone and reflect colored light off the mirrors) DIY can be very cool if you are good at self promotion.



This approach would not require any action form SONOS and it is available now. Simple schemes would not, however, work with album art.
Hello all. New user here within last week. Units not set up yet (6 ZP's). Will report on install once I get around to setup later in the week. On the topic of visualization I would encourage you to look at this product as a possible "work around". I am not affiliated with the company, but I do note that others have used their NAS solutions with Sonos setup and have given generally good praise to the company.

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/product-detail.php?productid=96&categoryid=18



P.S. Not sure on the price/benefit ratio of this alternative. Also unsure about potential "wireless" conflict issues.
Anything from Sonos staff re the possibility of visualisations. |in the meantime any suggestions of third party kit would be appreciated
Anything from Sonos staff re the possibility of visualisations. |in the meantime any suggestions of third party kit would be appreciated



No plans for adding visualizations to Sonos currently... i'll let the forums provide some 3rd party ideas.



Best,

-graham
Hi all quiet out there. Anyone know of a piece of kit I could attach the sonos outs to which will give us co ordinated visualisations on screen for parties?
I don't have any specific products in mind, but stores that sell equipment to disk jockies would be a good place to start. Some "party" stores may have gagets of interest.



There are a few electronic build it yourself companies that have little gadgets that will flash lights in step with the music.



If you have access to a library, look up "color organ" in the late 1960's and early 1970's electronics magazines read by home brew types. (Radio Electronics, Popular Electronics, and Wireless World come to mind, but there are many others.)



A typical color organ split the audio band and controlled colored banks of lights with each band.



If you frequent garage or estate sales and have a sharp eye, you can probably find a discarded color organ left over from the "acid" days.
I imagine you could connect the line-out of a ZP to a computer's sound card and have visualizations generated from that (which you could even connect to a TV I'd imagine). Not sure what program you'd use - Winamp might do this, come to think of it.
It seems that the color organ is still alive and well.



Use your favorite search engine and look for "color organ".



I found new and old articles, DIY plans and kits.



There were a few software approaches.



One such approach is:

http://www.lathingstodo.com/colororgan.htm



however, if the program works as well as the website, I'd advise caution.
I imagine you could connect the line-out of a ZP to a computer's sound card and have visualizations generated from that (which you could even connect to a TV I'd imagine). Not sure what program you'd use - Winamp might do this, come to think of it.



I tested this out and it actually works pretty well. I used a 2xRCA -> 3.5mm cable to connect the Line-Out on a ZP to the Line-In on my computer, and I installed the latest Winamp version (Lite) with "Jaspers Line-In Plugin." Here's what I did software-wise:



In the Volume Control properties, Mute Line-In.



Click Options, Properties, select Recording, hit OK and then Select Line-In (not Microphone).



Open Winamp, CTRL+P for Preferences, and under Plugins > Input, and make sure the "Line-in Plugin v1.80" is there (if not, you'll need to re-install Jasper's plugin. Close out of the preferences window.



In Winamp still, press CTRL+L, and enter line:// as a URL. As long as you're playing music from Sonos, you should now hear audio from your PC speakers, and pressing CTRL+SHIFT+K should get you to the default visualisation. There's many more visualisation plugins out there, but I'll leave that up to you.



Hope that helps someone!
Brilliant- thats next weekends fun ask sorted

Thanks
Common Sonos - Get with it!
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