>>>An easy solution is to use Shoutcast from the creators of WinAmp. Run a
>>>Shoutcast server on the PC and a client in each place that you want to
>>>listen. I've used it to stream audio to multiple locations within my home
>>>and it kept the audio of all the clients in synch.
>>
>>One possible problem with that solution is that there are fairly large
>>buffers between you and the original sound source in shoutcast. So
>>basically, if you change the music playing on the shoutcast server,
>>it'll take a few seconds to hear the change. Could be very annoying.
>>
>>It's also why shoutcast simply can't be used as a cable replacement, for
>>say streaming live audio within a building. You'd be way out of synch,
>>by 10 seconds to as much as one minute in my experience,
>>intolerable in many situations.
>
>
> Which is why I discarded audio over Ethernet in the first place.  It just
> occurred to me that my little buffer box which converts the SPDIF to
> a more transmissible signal level could also have a multiplexer which
> would allow me to hook in a conventional audio signal from, say, a radio
> tuner.  Saves me the trouble of having a tuner in my PC and lets me
> distribute ANY audio signal I choose through my apartment.
>
> Plus, shoutcast might not (haven't looked too hard at it) allow me to
> remotely manage my playlist and request new songs, while my
> system would.
>
> Mike H.
>

> You might look into CobraNet - digital audio over ethernet.  Designed
> for professional multitrack recording.
>
> http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/pro/techs/T9.html
>
> I don't have any experience with it.
>
> Also you've probably seen this already, but if not:
> http://www.sonos.com/
> great stuff.  a friend of mine has his house set up with it.  fun fun.
> not so cheap though.
>
> Spdif @ 44.1Khz stereo is on the order of 2.8mbits/sec, I believe.
> (44.1Khz * 32bits/sample * 2tracks).  This could be sent via rs-485,
> over an unused pair in the ethernet cable.  How resilient the ethernet
> data is to this new signal down the cable, I couldn't say.
>
> Anyway, interesting little project.  do post more as things develop.
>
> J
>
>
>
> Mike Hord wrote:
>
> >>>An easy solution is to use Shoutcast from the creators of WinAmp. Run a
> >>>Shoutcast server on the PC and a client in each place that you want to
> >>>listen. I've used it to stream audio to multiple locations within my home
> >>>and it kept the audio of all the clients in synch.
> >>
> >>One possible problem with that solution is that there are fairly large
> >>buffers between you and the original sound source in shoutcast. So
> >>basically, if you change the music playing on the shoutcast server,
> >>it'll take a few seconds to hear the change. Could be very annoying.
> >>
> >>It's also why shoutcast simply can't be used as a cable replacement, for
> >>say streaming live audio within a building. You'd be way out of synch,
> >>by 10 seconds to as much as one minute in my experience,
> >>intolerable in many situations.
> >
> >
> > Which is why I discarded audio over Ethernet in the first place.  It just
> > occurred to me that my little buffer box which converts the SPDIF to
> > a more transmissible signal level could also have a multiplexer which
> > would allow me to hook in a conventional audio signal from, say, a radio
> > tuner.  Saves me the trouble of having a tuner in my PC and lets me
> > distribute ANY audio signal I choose through my apartment.
> >
> > Plus, shoutcast might not (haven't looked too hard at it) allow me to
> > remotely manage my playlist and request new songs, while my
> > system would.
> >
> > Mike H.
> >

> On 4/12/06, Paul Hutchinson <@spam@paullhutchinsonKILLspamyahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> An easy solution is to use Shoutcast from the creators of WinAmp.  
>> Run a
>> Shoutcast server on the PC and a client in each place that you  
>> want to
>> listen. I've used it to stream audio to multiple locations within  
>> my home
>> and it kept the audio of all the clients in synch.
>>
>> Paul
>
>
> Paul,
>
> do you know if the Shoutcast protocol is open and documented?

>
> On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 08:47:45AM +0200, YAP wrote:
> > On 4/12/06, Paul Hutchinson <spamBeGonepaullhutchinsonspamBeGoneyahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > An easy solution is to use Shoutcast from the creators of WinAmp. Run
> a
> > > Shoutcast server on the PC and a client in each place that you want to
> > > listen. I've used it to stream audio to multiple locations within my
> home
> > > and it kept the audio of all the clients in synch.
> > >
> > > Paul
> >
> >
> > Paul,
> >
> > do you know if the Shoutcast protocol is open and documented?
>
> It is. There is a open-source Shoutcast server called Icecast that I
> use. http://www.icecast.org or something. I'm running a stream right now with
> it at http://hd-mic.petertodd.ca Works very well and has been running
> for weeks with no problems.
>
> Not that this helps the original poster or anything. :)

> On Wed, 2006-04-12 at 22:30 -0400, Peter Todd wrote:
>> In response to both of you... It's from a small microphone hot-glued to
>> the top of the harddrive of the server that serves the
>> hd-mic.petertodd.ca website. The idea is that each time you visit the
>> website, your visit triggers a harddrive action via a php script, so
>> then you can hear that action happen on the actual hardware. Of course,
>> you also hear other users visiting the website as well. Or even someone
>> hitting the case of the server, or shouting at it.
>>
>> Just a quick little project to satisfy the requierments of one of my
>> classes really, but fun to do.
>
> Very interesting?
>
> Any tips for setting something like that up on a Linux box? I've
> searched but everything seems to be more complicated then it has to be.

>
>
>
> On Thu, 13 Apr 2006, Herbert Graf wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 2006-04-12 at 22:30 -0400, Peter Todd wrote:
> >> In response to both of you... It's from a small microphone hot-glued to
> >> the top of the harddrive of the server that serves the
> >> hd-mic.petertodd.ca website. The idea is that each time you visit the
> >> website, your visit triggers a harddrive action via a php script, so
> >> then you can hear that action happen on the actual hardware. Of course,
> >> you also hear other users visiting the website as well. Or even someone
> >> hitting the case of the server, or shouting at it.
> >>
> >> Just a quick little project to satisfy the requierments of one of my
> >> classes really, but fun to do.
> >
> > Very interesting?
> >
> > Any tips for setting something like that up on a Linux box? I've
> > searched but everything seems to be more complicated then it has to be.
>
> ? Just get shoutcast and follow the instructions. From example.lst from
> shoutcast/sc_trans_040:
>
> # this is a sample playlist file.
> #
> ...
> # the playlist contains one line per song file you wish to stream.  the
> # paths should be absolute.
> ...
> # on linux, you may specify a playlist item of DSP:/dev/soundcard, where
> # soundcard is the name of your audio device.  It's usually /dev/audio.
> # doing so will allow you to broadcast from a line input feed instead
> # of mp3s on disk.
>
> icecast is very similar.

>
> > I noticed that it is possible to send an arbitary stream in shoutcast or
> in
> > other words use your own codec and stream it out. Most streaming formats
> are
> > done to preserve as much quality they can while preserving bandwindth on
> the
> > Internet. This is why we have 22k streams and such with high compressed
> data
> > that is hard for a small micro to decode. I mean the algorithm decoding
> is
> > harder then to handle the datastream.
>
> Hmmm...I wonder if that "arbitrary scheme" could be SPDIF data, packaged
> up.  Maybe this is the needed shove into the world of the SX processors-
> one
> of them ought to have the speed to pull data off the Ethernet and dump it
> back
> out as raw SPDIF.  Then I just get a dedicated SPDIF chip to handle it.
>
> > My point really here is that on an internal Ethernet it would be
> acceptable
> > to have streams that have a much higher bandwidth than streams used on
> the
> > Internet without disturbing other traffic. Buffering and packet sizes
> ((8K
> > max for the ENC28J60 ) could be keept low to allow a low end device to
> > handle them.
>
> Probably, you're right.  And, if nothing else, I could set up an
> independent network
> for this type of thing by adding another NIC to my server PC.  That way I
> don't have to share network resources.  A 10 Mbit hub is a cheap
> item  these
> days.
>
> Plus, I can do this as multicast, can't I?  No need to double up
> data...Hmmm...
>
> Thanks!  Lots to think about.
>
> Mike H.

> On 4/12/06, Paul Hutchinson <RemoveMEpaullhutchinsonspam_OUTKILLspamyahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>>Paul,
>>>
>>>do you know if the Shoutcast protocol is open and documented?
>>
>>I think it is but I'm not sure, the answer should be at
>>http://www.shoutcast.com
>>
>>Paul
>
>
>
> Thanks
> /Ake
>
>
>
>
>>>Regards
>>>/Ake
>>

>
> Ever since I saw the mp3elf (which I posted to the list), I've been
> thinking about how to go about running audio between the rooms
> of my apartment.  The end goal is to have a console next to my
> bed and next to my chair in the living room, and a connection
> from those consoles back to my PC, which is playing the actual
> music.
>
> At first I thought about streaming files over ethernet and decoding
> locally.  The problem there is that network latency makes it
> unlikely that all three locations could ever be hearing exactly
> the same thing at once, and things'll get crackly and bogged
> down if I start surfing the web and using up bandwidth.  Maybe.
>
> So now, I'm thinking about implementing a small TCP/IP device
> which would be capable of fetching current/next/prev song info
> from the computer (there are Winamp plugins that allow this,
> easily), controlling Winamp (again, easy), and displaying that
> data locally on an LCD.  The problem of audio is still there,
> and in fact a little stickier now, because I'd hate to run TWO
> cables back to my PC.  So my thought is, why run two?  I
> can get more than enough speed for what I need out of two
> pairs of CAT-5e cable (right?), so what about using the other
> two pairs (or one of them, at least) to transmit SPDIF-ish
> audio from one room to the next?  I just have to make a
> special cable for it, no problem there: two pair into RJ-45,
> balance to RCA (or whatever; I'll have to make a buffer
> and amplifier to take the weak little SPDIF that wants 75
> ohm and turn it into a big, beefy signal that'll cross rooms.
> The connection to that buffer can be whatever I want on the
> output side), and RJ-45 at the other end with the port coming
> in routed as needed on the PCB.
>
> The question I DON'T have an answer for is, will it work?  Can
> the two signals coexist in the same cable?  I know SPDIF
> requires specific terminations, etc., but since I control the
> receiving end, all I have to do is ensure the integrity of the
> digital data at the other end.  It doesn't have to be SPDIF
> signal levels (hence the SPDIF-ish label).  If I'm using an
> OTS SPDIF decoder (as opposed to doing it in whatever
> processor I'm using), I can always drop the signal level back
> to where it wants to be locally.
>
> Am I crazy?  Opinions?
>
> Mike H.
>