Stream Audio Via WiFi?

raid517 · l33t Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 946

Hi is there such a thing as a wireless sound card I can use with my laptop?

Currently I have my laptop hooked up to my external Yamaha Dolby digital/DTS receiver via about 5 meters of optical cable - which is very cumbersome and not very useful.

Ideally I would like a card that plugged directly into my laptop (so no external box) and beamed the sound wirelessly from my laptop to a receiver on top of my external AV amplifier.

If I was dreaming I would wish for something that did full dolby digital sound reproduction too - although again possibly the chances of this are quite slim.

I did look at the Linksys WMB54G, but this seems quite old and has been discontinued in many places and I don't think that it's supported in Linux.

One thing I thought of is that the Linksys just uses a virtual sound driver and then streams this as a raw/compressed audio stream to a receiver that can decode it.

But I have a modded Xbox 1 - and I have Ubuntu installed on my laptop too. So I wonder if there are any projects that have designed a virtual sound driver like this for directly streaming audio to a device that can decode it?

It's a long shot - but it seems a feasible thing to do.

Linksys have posted the GPL code for this though:

A virtual device driver that can stream compressed MP3 (or ogg) audio to any device that is capable of decoding it sure sounds like a neat idea.

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_CASupport_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1166859909889&packedargs=sku%3D1137451822026&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=0988922026B03&displaypage=download#versiondetail

However it is a bit beyond my abilities to make any useful sense out of this source.

octanez · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:26 pm Post subject:

Have you looked at the Slim Devices Squeezebox? Not quite what you are asking for, but might give you a good place to start? And SlimServer is already in portage!

There is also the Roku SoundBridge based on the same software, if you like the look of it better.
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raid517 · l33t Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 946

No, sorry, not even close. But thanks all the same for trying.

I thought I was very clear? I am trying to eliminate the wire between my laptop and my external AV/hifi amplifier.

Did you look at the WMB54G? This is exactly what this does. It simply creates a virtual sound driver, then encodes the sound as (presumably) an MP3 stream, then beams this stream over WiFi to a receiver capable of decoding MP3 streams.

This is like a 'virtual sound card' - as it simply serves the raw sound wirelessly to a a receiver hooked up to normal Hi-Fi.

The problem with the WMB54G is that it isn't compatible with Linux (which is ironic since it runs on Linux).

However the idea of a virtual sound server that plays sound over Wi-Fi at least sounds feasible to me. Call it a Wi-Fi enabled sound server if you wish.

Why would I want to do this? Well there are many scenarios where my home AV equipment is vastly superior to any smaller set of dedicated computer speakers - and it is certainly infinitely superior to the sound on my laptop.

Also I am not just limited to music files, since as something like the WMB54G would work as a virtual sound card, any sound from any source (regardless of which application I was using, or whether or not the audio was DRM protected or whatever) would play without restrictions. (So for example the sound from a game on my laptop would play wirelessly on my home AV system too).

I hope I have explained things a little better now?

nooser · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:22 pm Post subject:

I know that it probably isn't compatible with Linux, but doesn't Apple have something like this that can work with iTunes? Wonder if someone could write a plugin for Amarok or the like that could interface with that? (AirPort Express)

http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/

nooser · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:24 pm Post subject:

infact...it appears that someone might have something cooking:

http://raop-play.sourceforge.net/

raid517 · l33t Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 946

Still not it I'm afraid.

What I am looking for is a networked sound server that can stream compressed MP3 or OGG sound to any device that is capable of decoding it.

Think of it as a wireless (or virtual) sound card if you want.

I'm not certain how I can make it any clearer?

I think things like esound, polypaudio and nas (short for 'networked sound system') do something similar, although I think they need a specific client app on the other end to receive the networked audio and to decode it.

In my case I don't particularly want to run another computer with a dedicated client app just to decode the audio stream. My old Xbox 1 can play streamed MP3's - as can my phone (Nokia N95), so a better solution for me would be something that streamed every sound my computer makes over wifi to any device capable of decoding an MP3 stream.