20 replies to this topic

[day1118]

I am trying to create an app, or find another solution that will allow me to play music from my laptop and have the music outputted through speakers connected to another amp. Does it make sense? Anyone have any suggestions?

Any advice/help much appreciated!
Anthony

[Frank Skilton]

Why not just route the audio from the laptop via the sound card to the second computer/amp? I.e. get yourself some cables! What do you need a software application for?

[day1118]

I want keep my laptop wireless so i can move it around the house, so need to be able to stream the music through a wireless router.

[Reedbeta]

You could try looking for software used by Internet radio stations and things like that. Here's one I found: http://www.shoutcast.com/ the server is available for free download, and seems to hook into WinAmp.

[day1118]

Thanks, I tried this with an Icecast server, but there was a 10 sec delay. I thought that if i was able to code it myself, or find another option, it would be able to remove the delay, or possibly delay the laptop to make up for it.

The way I thought it might work is rather than buffer it as a stream like from on the internet, it would just play what arrived, as it arrived!

Thanks again, any more suggestions?
Anthony

[day1118]

I am starting to think that the best way to do this may be to create an app that requests the current song(location on the hd) and pos from WMP (nb. Im using v11) and send it to the server comp(with the speakers) and have it also open wmp, and point it in the direction of the song (which will be on the laptop, so windows can take care of the streaming) and then just have to make sure it stays in time (or within a few seconds)

can anyone tell me how i can request the current song and position from WMP11? Do I need to us API? Does anyone have examples? (I have found some, but only for WMP9/10 which don't work with WMP11!

Thanks again
Anthony

[Reedbeta]

If your computers are on a home network, could you perhaps just remote-desktop into the speaker-computer and open WMP there and play the songs by connecting to the laptop via Windows file sharing? Or even have all the songs on the server and just control it via remote desktop. Not a really 'elegant' solution, but it would work pretty well over a home network.

[day1118]

This sounds that it could work. I want to try to not have to do anything on the server once it is set up. I think using the remote desktop may be the best so that I can play music that my be on a mem key, and not have to copy it across to the server.

How would I go about this? where would I start?

(One comp is XP, one is Vista)

Thanks
Anthony

[day1118]

I have tried your suggestion of trying to use a remote desktop, but when I play the music, it is played through my laptop speakers, not the servers!

Any suggestions of what I could do?/ Am doing wrong?

Anthony

[dave_]

Try changing the settings...

[day1118]

what settings would are there to change that may affect which speakers music is played out of?

Thanks

[geon]

Reedbeta said:

Or even have all the songs on the server and just control it via remote desktop.

That's exactly what I'm doing. Works fine with VNC. The lame thing about it is that winamp is no longer a native application on the laptop, so I have to switch desktop to control it.

If anyone know a way to make winamp act as a proxy for another instance on a server, I'd be happy...

So far I've only seen the opposite; solutions for playing sound on the laptop.

[day1118]

Thanks, I will have a look at the program

geon said:

The lame thing about it is that winamp is no longer a native application on the laptop, so I have to switch desktop to control it.

What did you mean by this?

geon said:

So far I've only seen the opposite; solutions for playing sound on the laptop.

Why would a server/second computer be needed if the sound is to be run and played on the laptop?

Thanks for your help
Anthony

[day1118]

I have got VNC to work, but i doesn't support sound!

Are there any other programs that do support audio as well?

I am assuming you have set the server on the comp with the speakers, so is there any way to prevent needing to change desktop, using WMP, wimamp, or another program? (or even have a program set up to make API calls when needed)

Thanks for your help
Anthony

[geon]

day1118 said:

I have got VNC to work, but i doesn't support sound!

If you set up VNC to control your server, you don't need any sound in your laptop, right? The sound should be working fine on the server, just like it is when you sit in front of it.

day1118 said:

I am assuming you have set the server on the comp with the speakers, so is there any way to prevent needing to change desktop, using WMP, wimamp, or another program?

"Correct", and "no". That's the bad part about this solution. You need to switch the desktop (starting the VNC client) to control the music player on the server.

There are some solutions that might work better for you, like a music server with playlists and voting and stuff over HTTP. (Supposedly useful in an office, where you play music on a central computer.)

Check sourceforge for that.

[geon]

day1118 said:

What did you mean by this?

With the VNC solution, the music player interface is on another computer. I like to have the winamp player in a corner of the screen so I can quickly change songs or check what artist is currently playing. That's a bit annoying to do through VNC.

day1118 said:

Why would a server/second computer be needed if the sound is to be run and played on the laptop?

It would be something like a fileserver, but with playlists.

[Reedbeta]

day1118 said:

what settings would are there to change that may affect which speakers music is played out of?

Thanks

The remote desktop client has a setting someplace to determine whether to bring sound from the remote to the local computer. If you turn it off sound will be played out of the remote computer's speakers.

[day1118]

Thanks, does anyone know where this setting is? Are you talking about for VNC or windows remote desktop or another application?

Thanks
Anthony

[day1118]

I found the setting in Windows Remote Desktop, but when I log in using remote desktop, from the server to the laptop, it logs the laptop out! I want to use remote desktop just to view what is happening on the laptop, not actually control it (like VNC does).

I had a look in VNC but couldn't find where I could change this setting!

Can I do want I want through either of this programs, or does anyone know of any other programs that can do what I want?

Thanks
Anthony

[Reedbeta]

What, why are you logging in from the server to the laptop? I thought you wanted to do it the other way around?

With Windows XP, if you log into another computer with remote desktop, it will put up the welcome screen. It does not actually log you out though (programs will keep running.) If you enable fast user switching (in the control panel, under User Accounts) you can even have multiple user accounts logged in simultaneously. I'm not sure if you can be remoted in with one user account while someone uses the computer with another user account though.