Remote audio in 2013
February 7, 2013 11:49 AM   Subscribe

I have two sets of speakers on opposite sides of a room, connected to Windows boxes, that I would like to stream music to. AirPlay isn't working out too well. What's the best alternative?

Both the computers are running Windows 7. I'd like to be able to play music on one and have it play on the other. They're in the same room so sync is important.

Right now I'm doing this by running Shairport4w on both machines and streaming to it from my Macbook using iTunes. The problem with this is a) I hate using iTunes, and b) Shairport4w is pretty flaky, even when I plug into the wired LAN. Every time the client stops working on one of the machines, the music stops on both and I have to restart the client on the affected machine. This gets old pretty fast (although when it works the sync is usually pretty good).

I tried using OSX 10.8's AirPlay streaming support so I can use another audio player, but as far as I can tell it only supports one output. iTunes seems to be the only free OSX app that can do multiple outputs. Porthole seems to be an option, but I'd rather cut the Macbook out of the equation altogether, and just stream from one Windows box to the other.

What are my (freeish) options here? AirFoil looks good, but it's $25 and seems like overkill since I don't actually "need" AirPlay support. There's oAEP which I haven't tried yet, but it seems abandoned and I'm still relying on Shairport4w as a receiver. Any ideas?
posted by neckro23 to Computers & Internet (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
VLC HowTo/Easy Streaming
posted by carsonb at 12:07 PM on February 7, 2013


Best answer: Squeezeboxes support synced playback. You could try running the Squeezebox server (now Logitech Media Server) and use PC clients (Softsqueeze, SqueezePlay) with it.
posted by wongcorgi at 1:56 PM on February 7, 2013


Response by poster: Hey, Squeeze is pretty much just what the doctor ordered. Can't believe I didn't find it earlier. I can even tweak the sync between clients!
posted by neckro23 at 9:33 PM on February 7, 2013


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