Question : Problem: Sound card with multiple stereo outputs

Hi Folks,
 
I'm after advice on purchasing a sound card with multiple (minimum of 2, up to 4) stereo outputs.  I'm not that familiar with sample rates, signal-to-noise ratios, etc .. If you're answer includes that, then great - but please give me the translation at the same time :-)
 
Here's the deal .. I'm planning on building up a media PC to run Win XP MCE.  It'll be used initially as a big MP3 device, directing music to one (or both) of two rooms.  At a later stage I'll ramp it up for TV viewing and recording, and stick a webcam on it later for video and voice chats.  It won't be used for home theatre stuff at any stage.
 
I will also be running some of my own software on it which may at times require audio output - so I'll need to be able to selectively turn outputs on/off in my code.
 
I don't intend to have seperate power to the speakers, so the card would preferably have enough power output to service these on its own.
 
Output from the card should be via a simple RCA socket or something similar.
 
Any ideas / advice appreciated!

Answer : Problem: Sound card with multiple stereo outputs

You may just want to consider using a Sonos set up - http://www.sonos.com/.  You can play different songs simultaneously with this system and it is expandable  or  you could also run more than one sound card (but I do not know if you could run 2 different songs simultaneously) and since you are building the system you might just want to consider external cards for improved fidelity. You can probably google or use Wiki to get information on signal to noise ratios and any other questions you have regarding specifications. Also MediaMonkey has a pretty good explanation about digital media -http://www.mediamonkey.com/mp3-ogg-wma-audio-faq.htm