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Undecided, Russound MCA-C5 help....

post #1 of 6
1/18/13 at 10:28pm
Thread Starter 
Hey guys,
I'm currently looking to upgrade my CA66 possibly to an MCA-C5 system. I have 11 zones so will need two units linked together. Alternatively, thinking of going the Control4 route. I have a few questions that should help me decide:

1. When using the Russound App, do you get album cover art for your ITunes albums?
2. Can you link an MCA-C5 with an MCA-C3?
3. The CA66 must remain in standby mode to power up the system from a zone. Is this the case with the MCA systems?
4. What type of metadata do you get at the keypads when streaming via AirPlay? What about from attached drives?

Thanks for your help on this....any and all information is appreciated!
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post #2 of 6
3/13/13 at 10:11am
Hey, I know this thread is a bit older at this point, but I just stumbled on to it and wanted to answer your questions.

See below!

1. When using the Russound App, do you get album cover art for your ITunes albums?

Yes, assuming you are using a DMS-3.1 and some sort of DLNA application on the Mac or PC where the iTunes library is stored.

2. Can you link an MCA-C5 with an MCA-C3?

No.

3. The CA66 must remain in standby mode to power up the system from a zone. Is this the case with the MCA systems?

Yes, that remains the same. The MCA-C3 has a low power mode that consumes less than 1w while on standby, which may address your concern.

4. What type of metadata do you get at the keypads when streaming via AirPlay? What about from attached drives?

Attached drives you get full meta data. Today, with AirPlay you do not. However, the next update of the firmware for the DMS will enable this feature.

Hope that helps,

Steve
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post #3 of 6
3/13/13 at 11:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve LeBlanc View Post

4. What type of metadata do you get at the keypads when streaming via AirPlay? What about from attached drives?

Attached drives you get full meta data. Today, with AirPlay you do not. However, the next update of the firmware for the DMS will enable this feature.

Steve, that's very cool! From a practical standpoint, will this work for popular apps like Pandora? I don't know what, if anything, an iOS app has to do to enable metadata availability via AirPlay...
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post #4 of 6
3/14/13 at 11:43am
That's correct. Any audio application should just work. I don't know a ton about the application development part of the equation, but from what I have seen, if it populates the lock screen with meta data it should send it via AirPlay. Pandora and Spotify specifically have been tested.
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post #5 of 6
3/14/13 at 3:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve LeBlanc View Post

Yes, assuming you are using a DMS-3.1 and some sort of DLNA application on the Mac or PC where the iTunes library is stored.

Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by DMS-3.1 and what a DLNA application on a Mac would be? Does iTunes count?

Thanks!
Scott
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post #6 of 6
3/15/13 at 11:33am
iTunes is a content management program, it does not handle DLNA (DLNA is a standard for shipping content around your home network). There are several inexpensive programs that can do this on a Mac. The two we have seen the best luck with are Jamcast and Twonky.

Best regards,

Steve
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