Looking for setup advice for better audio control

[dman000000]

I am at a crossroads with my setup and was hoping for some advice from the community on the best options.

My setup:

• OmniProII - UPB lighting, security, general home auto routines
  
• CAV6.6 - currently used just for multizone audio (no video); connected to CQC and OmniPro; UNO-S2 keypads in most zones
  
• Denon 2309 - primary zone (family room) AVR; handling DirecTV DVR, Wii, HTPC, audio/video to this zone
  
• iTunes - primary music repository. we have ipods and iphones - i am not going to maintain multiple repositories
  
• Zoomplayer - used occasionally on HTPC to watch downloaded/ ripped videos (mostly TV shows I miss for some reason - have not ripped many movies yet)
  
• CQC - have templates for weather, audio browsing/ control, video playback control, lighting, multizone audio (on/off/volume/source), family room AVR source switching; primary control is with an airpanel in the family room
  

My biggest need has always been around control - specifically of music. Right now I have an airpanel but I find the media browser in CQC to be slow, clunky and not designed around the way that I prefer to browse music. Maybe I am brainwashed by the ipod but I'd prefer a responsively scrolling hierarchical list of artists/albums/tracks over cover art browsing. It just takes too long and too many button pushes to find music and my wife doesn't know album covers or album names without seeing the artist. Plus the repository driver never seems to work with my version of iTunes and cover art goes missing. So I have moved to primarily using the Remote App on the iPhone to control music in the main listening area. I love the interface but it is less than ideal to have to switch between Apps (I also use H@me to control the OmniPro) and the airpanel to switch sources.

This current setup is manageable but has very low WAF and does not provide a big need in the house - browsing music from the UNOs. I can control playback and see music info through the RNET driver but there is no ability to browse and select music. It just feels like this should be possible yet it is not.

So my biggest issues are the following: 1. How do I get better music browsing/selection/control functionality with my iTunes music and 2. how do I get control of that through the UNO keypads. My options seem to be as follows:

• Forget about the UNOs and deal with having to use the iphone/itouch for selecting music or spend a ton putting CQC touchscreens in every room where I want control (still wouldn't address the issues I have with the media browser)
  
• Buy the Russound iBridge Dock kit and an extra ipod as a RNET source - I really have trouble with the idea of dropping $500 to get one source that needs to be separately synced and may not be universally controllable outside of the UNOs (would I be able to control music selection on the ibridge using CQC via RNET?) I have a computer dedicated to being a media server so would prefer to find a better use of that much cash.
  
• Casatunes seems to offer an interesting looking media product that would give me the RNET control and full syncing with iTunes but I would still be looking at a separate interface from the rest of the system. Also provides numerous sources from the But I heard responsiveness has been an issue - anyone have any familiarity?
  
• Squeezebox appears to have the iTunes/CQC syncing issue resolved based on what I've seen in this forum but does not address the control from other rooms.
  

I realize this is a long and somewhat ranting post but thought the context would be relevant for anyone that cared to read through the whole thing to give their thoughts. I just can't imagine I am the only one struggling with this issue. Thanks in advance for any input.

Derrick

[potts.mike]

I am not familiar with the UNO-S2 keypads but if your looking for a convenient way to control music with CQC then I highly recommend the driver for squeezecenter. There are software players that you can test with but I would highly recommend suggest moving to a squeezebox receiver if you want rock solid stability.

[jkish]

If you can live with an iPhone/iTouch as a remote solution, there is a very nice app called iPeng which has a very good interface into the SqueezeCenter server.

The control is two way with CQC so now playing info is reflected from iPeng to CQC and vice-versa.

[jkish]

If you haven't seen some of the control available via the SC driver, here are some links to posts that have sample template screen-shots:

http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/sho...tcount=533

http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/sho...tcount=414

[SamVimes2]

+1 for squeezecenter/squeezebox/CQC/ipeng

[standon]

+1 for squeezecenter/squeezebox/CQC/ipeng

I second this. Jkish has an awesome template to download, I use it with my Russound C Series. I have total control over audio in each room through touchscreens (each setup is pretty cheap, 100 for a touchscreen, about 200 or less for a itx system to run it off of and 90 for a pair of vga baluns). I keep meaning to download ipeng for my iphone, but I haven't found it necessary yet.