You would think wireless audio would be easy...

May 28, 2008 9:57 PM

Beaming my TV / PS3 audio to my bluetooth headphones (specifically for playing Rock Band)

(The PS3 doesn't seem to let me use my headset for full audio, just chat). My BT headset is a Plantronics Voyager 855. I have seen those bluetooth audio gateways from various cellphone manufacturers but I am not sure they would work for me for various reasons. I was thinking I could go RCA audio out from my TV to 3.5mm in on my Macbook Pro and then once paired to my headset via my laptop figure out some way to get the microphone jack input to transmit to my headset... possible?

posted by dino terror to Technology (4 answers total)

Is this what you are looking for?

Product Description
By streaming music to your the Bluetooth Stereo Headphones, the Bluetooth Home Stereo Adapter turns audio devices such as home stereos and MP3 players into wireless music systems. Just plug the DC800 into your home stereo or MP3 player with an included RCA cable or 3.5mm cable and you're ready to go. You can even hook up to your RCA capable TV!
posted by bargainhunter at 10:30 PM on May 28, 2008

What you want should be possible. I believe the OS X 10.5 Bluetooth stack includes A2DP, which is what you need for audio to be sent to your Bluetooth headset. You'll also need software that will play audio from the microphone in to audio out. While a program like Audacity is overkill for this function, it should do the job.
posted by EatenByAGrue at 10:46 PM on May 28, 2008

I've got the DC800 bargainhunter linked to and I'm very happy with it.
It's built to take pretty much any RCA input and send it out as A2DP. I've got an older mac running Tiger (no stereo bluetooth stack) and have it hooked up to a Griffin iMic; does everything I want just fine (well, when switching outputs between speakers and BT, count to 5 before the BT audio begins). Mine is paired with the Motorola BT Stereo headset also in bargainhunter's link which is also very nice; your only problem would be if the DC800 wouldn't pair with your Plantronics, but I don't see why it wouldn't.
posted by bartleby at 1:25 AM on May 29, 2008

Every A2DP device I've used had a noticeable delay. That is, I click play in a media app, and a few seconds later the audio starts. Or I watch a video, and the audio is late. This is probably due to having to compress the audio into a digital form for transmission over the faily low bandwidth of Bluetooth, then decompressing at the other end.

I own the DC800 also, and various Motorola bluetooth headphones. They work great, but I dont know that bluetooth audio will work for Rock Band due to this delay.

Sennheiser makes some really nice wireless headphones that use FM instead. Since everything stays in the analog domain there's no perceptible delay. You'll probably want something like that for time-sensitive uses like gaming, video, etc.
posted by kableh at 9:55 AM on May 29, 2008