Streaming MP3

December 10, 2004 2:07 PM

MP3 Filter: I've got a large MP3 collection at home that I would like to be able to access from my office. I'm too cheap for an IPod, and it's too big of a collection to be able to mirror on my office computer without taking up gigs of space. I've been looking for a program to stream my mp3's from my home computer to my office computer... [MI]
posted by SweetJesus to computers & internet (29 comments total)

Not exactly answering your question, but I recently picked up a LaCie 160GB External USB 2.0 for extra storage. I now keep all my music and other media there. I'm now able to take it with me when I want to hear tunes at the office. Might be worth it for you. Cheaper than the iPod, tons more storage.
posted by FlamingBore at 2:11 PM on December 10, 2004

Two things though...

1) I'd rather not have to run Apache or IIS on my Windows machine at home for security reasons. Ideally I'm looking for a program that would use SSH or something similar, not HTTP.

2) It'd be neat if it integrated with Winamp or something similar.

I've been looking around for a while for something like this, and I haven't had much success. I've been thinking about going ahead and rolling my own if one doesn't exist, but I don't have the time or energy right now.
posted by SweetJesus at 2:12 PM on December 10, 2004

I've been using SlimServer from Slim Devices for over a year. It's a Perl based streaming server that runs on Linux, MacOSX, and Windows. It's got a nifty web interface and is completely free (source code and everything). I doing port forwarding over SSH to keep it secure and my music behind a firewall, but aside from that wrinkle it's very easy to set up and use.
posted by roue at 2:12 PM on December 10, 2004

Not exactly answering your question, but I recently picked up a LaCie 160GB External USB 2.0 for extra storage. I now keep all my music and other media there. I'm now able to take it with me when I want to hear tunes at the office. Might be worth it for you. Cheaper than the iPod, tons more storage.

Can't do it, I think... I work in a classified lab, and I'm pretty sure I can't bring in personal computer equipment.
posted by SweetJesus at 2:15 PM on December 10, 2004

I'd look into some Winamp plugins. I think ml_www (or perhaps Shoutcast) do what you need.
posted by muckster at 2:15 PM on December 10, 2004

roue: I was looking at that, but I thought it was just communications software for the little hardware units they're selling.
posted by SweetJesus at 2:16 PM on December 10, 2004

Nope, it works with iTunes, XMMS, winamp. It's terrific. No plugins required. You do need to use the web interface to change tracks etc, and there's that introduces a little lag (change song, 5 seconds later it changes), but if you can deal with that it's fairly well perfect.
posted by roue at 2:19 PM on December 10, 2004

Andromeda.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:20 PM on December 10, 2004

If both your computers were macs, this would be easy, since there's a rendevous hack out there to mimic a remote machine on your local network, so you could just use iTunes' native network streaming.

Not sure if there are similar hacks for the PC.
posted by mathowie at 2:20 PM on December 10, 2004

off-topic: you can't bring in any of your own equipment, but they'll let you ssh into your home computer?
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:21 PM on December 10, 2004

This is sort of roundabout (and requires you to use iTunes), but after a little research I think it might work. Set up your home computer to allow incoming VPN connections, then connect to it from work. When iTunes is open on both computers, you should be able to see your home music library from the list on the left side. This requires that you turn on music sharing in the iTunes options.
posted by savetheclocktower at 2:24 PM on December 10, 2004

Andromeda

Yeah looked in to it, but you have to run it from a web server, and you need to put all your mp3s under the Andromeda directory. It also has (in my opinion) a god-awful interface.

off-topic: you can't bring in any of your own equipment, but they'll let you ssh into your home computer?

Well, the difference is we have classified machines and unclassified machines, and the unclass ones are the only networked ones. There's no way I can send out something classified over the network, so it's not as big of a security risk. I'm not sure about personal, portable hard drives.
posted by SweetJesus at 2:28 PM on December 10, 2004

Audigen by Red Chair Software? I use their Irivium software for my iRiver H120, and it works well. Also, they say it has an embedded web server. I have not tried it though, so I can't speak for how well it works. The software it's based on (Xstreamer) works well enough, but I haven't tried using over the internet.

There's a trial edition too, so you can see if you like it first.
posted by bDiddy at 2:47 PM on December 10, 2004

Grouper?
posted by keswick at 2:52 PM on December 10, 2004

They'd probably kibosh iPods since they're being increasingly used for corporate espionage. I'd imagine they'd be wary about letting you come in with a big old hard drive.
posted by fenriq at 2:58 PM on December 10, 2004

Shoutcast should work great for what you're trying to do.
posted by borkingchikapa at 3:17 PM on December 10, 2004

They'd probably kibosh iPods since they're being increasingly used for corporate espionage.

You'd think, but I work with a few people who have IPods, and they don't seem to have a problem with them.

Thanks for all the other answers.
posted by SweetJesus at 3:34 PM on December 10, 2004

Jinzora may also do what you want. They have an all-in-one install that doesn't require you to set up a full-fledged web-server. It can stream.

I think it may have a similar directory location issue to what Andromeda has, but you may be able to get around that. If the filesystem is NTFS, you can use the linkd command to create a unix-style symlink and keep the actual files somewhere else. (linkd available here.)
posted by kreinsch at 3:38 PM on December 10, 2004

Third the Shoutcast rec. I do exactly what you describe with a combination of no-ip.info dynamic dns, tightVNC, and shoutcast/WinAmp. By default I stream all of my mp3's in random order, but I can VNC in and change the playlists. These tools are all cost-free and available on the internet.

Sometimes the VNC connection can get hinky, and there is a lag between hitting play and receiving the stream (although I think you can winnow that down at the expense of bumps when the network clogs), but it certainly works.

If you have access to a dvd burner at home and a dvd drive at work you could burn the mp3's and play them right off the disc without copying them to the hard drive.
posted by mzurer at 3:39 PM on December 10, 2004

Do you have a static IP on your home machine? Without that, whatever solution you use will need to have some centralized tracking service that both machines communicate through. If you do have that, why is Apache any less secure than any other daemon you might install? And if they won't let you bring in a hard drive, will they let you use a streaming client through their firewall? Lots of issues to figure out before you get going.
posted by scarabic at 3:41 PM on December 10, 2004

If you have access to a dvd burner at home and a dvd drive at work you could burn the mp3's and play them right off the disc without copying them to the hard drive.

I'd been thinking about this, but I've got too many mp3's to make this manageable (~10000 or so, with more on the way).

From what I know about Shoutcast, I was under the impression that you don't have any control over which mp3 is being played when you're at the remote location. Something along the lines of the SlimDevices software or ml_www would be better.

I also took at look at Jinzora, and had it running on my machine a few months ago, but I found it to be really unstable with large mp3 libraries with lots of sub-directories (It doesn't store it's information in a DB, so I think it's doing a lot of read's each time it generates a directory list...) and I crashed it within about 1/2 an hour.

Do you have a static IP on your home machine? Without that, whatever solution you use will need to have some centralized tracking service that both machines communicate through. If you do have that, why is Apache any less secure than any other daemon you might install? And if they won't let you bring in a hard drive, will they let you use a streaming client through their firewall? Lots of issues to figure out before you get going.

I've got a dynamic IP on my home machine, but there are plenty of ways around that. I also imagine some little program sending out an IP string to some computer on the net would be more secure than Apache with PHP CGI on Windows XP...

And sure they'll let me use a streaming client through their (nasty) firewall. I've been listening to streaming NPR for months. I'm not so worried about the remote end, as I am the home end, because there are a ton of exploits over HTTP for windows.
posted by SweetJesus at 3:55 PM on December 10, 2004

Also, their network policy might forbid personal streaming audio (or it might begin to do so as soon as the network admins think of it.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 3:55 PM on December 10, 2004

Not sure if there are similar hacks for the PC.

Yeah: RendezvousProxy. It's Java, actually, and you'll need to establish an SSH tunnel to the remote machine (use cygwin on the server and putty on the client), but it works great. I'm listening to my home iTunes collection (hosted on a Mac) right now at work (on a PC).
posted by kindall at 3:56 PM on December 10, 2004

I second using the slimserver software over ssh. SlimDevices gives out the server software for free (and it runs on Windows, Linux, and OSX). It has a _very_ active development community and is quite easy to use.

They also sell the squeezebox (which I also own), but there is no requirement for you to have one of those before using the software.

One other nice thing you can do is use the lame decoder to downsample the stream if you're going to a lower bandwidth place.

You also don't have to use an SSH tunnel either if you don't want to (thought it's more secure). The software has a built in webserver, advertises itself on port 9000, and if you open up that port on your router, you can access it directly. There's also some relatively simple built in security in the product (ip filtering, password protection), though SSH is going to be safer.
posted by freshgroundpepper at 4:28 PM on December 10, 2004

I'm experimenting with the SilmServer now, and it looks very very nice.

Only problem is, I'm not getting any audio when I stream... I'm using a shitty laptop, so that may be the problem. My other PC is in the midst of being torn apart, but I'm going to install it once I get it back up and running.
posted by SweetJesus at 4:34 PM on December 10, 2004

Mercora might provide a different approach to achieve a similar end.
posted by rushmc at 5:41 PM on December 10, 2004

there are a ton of exploits over HTTP for windows.

That's your biggest problem right there: Windows.

Anyway. There are some programs that are free and OS-independent: go to freshmeat.net and search for "stream mp3" or some such. (Last winter I had fun with "edna".)
posted by davy at 5:55 PM on December 10, 2004

Quicktime Streaming Server. Free, runs on most platforms, good admin interface.
posted by tomierna at 8:12 AM on December 11, 2004

i do this everyday at work with the ml_www plugin for Winamp. all you have to do is leave winamp on at home, and make sure your files are added in the media library. you can stream/download files at work through a pretty slick browser interface (just drop http://(IP Address):(Port) in the address bar). you can setup multiple password-required accounts. it's pretty slick. setup is as easy as running the installer and going to winamp's ML preferences (Ctrl+P -> Media Library Plugins - > ml_www)
posted by lotsofno at 9:12 AM on December 11, 2004