Send Audio Over A Network

[SpikedCola]

Is it possible, or more specifically, does anyone know of a program that I can install (just an idea, there may be other ways) a server on one computer and a client on the other, and the client can connect to the server and transmit its audio over my network and have the server play it?

In case this seems kind of confusing (and reading it back I can see how it would be) I decided to have some fun in Paint to explain my idea

Edited July 6, 2009 by SpikedCola

[CoffeeFiend]

That's built right into WMP12 (Win7). You can right click and select "play to", and then select where you want it to play i.e. another computer (e.g. HTPC with the good speaker set), or any DLNA certified device (Xbox360, PS3, Popcorn Hour, media extenders and hundreds more devices).

There are other ways, but nothing that simple and that just works out of the box. DLNA makes this easy and standardized (and hopefully should be in most living room electronics shortly)

That also works for video, BTW (including on-the-fly transcoding).

Combined with libraries (and homegroup), it's a killer feature. You can tell your DLNA device to play stuff that's on other PCs too, just as easily... Nice for MCE too (MCE remotes are cheap now as well).

See this or this for example.

[SpikedCola]

I only have Windows 7 on one PC, does this mean I cant use WMP to send to the Vista computer? I tried right-clicking a song in WMP but I dont get the Play To option.

[ripken204]

there are many "web remotes"

such as:

http://www.playerpal.com/

and depending on your OS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Player_Daemon

Edited July 6, 2009 by ripken204

[cluberti]

I only have Windows 7 on one PC, does this mean I cant use WMP to send to the Vista computer? I tried right-clicking a song in WMP but I dont get the Play To option.

Play To: Windows 7 as a Universal Remote Control for your Media Collection

In addition to playing media streamed from other shared media libraries within Windows Media Player, Windows 7 can now send media to be played on other Windows 7 PCs and DLNA-certified digital media renderers. We call this feature “Play To.” With “Play To,” you can browse or search from within Windows Media Player or Windows Explorer to find your desired media, and then choose where you want it to be played. A versatile remote control window is presented for each “Play To” session, providing you with the ability to control the entire experience.

The caveats are there - one, Win7 must be on both hosts (or the remote host must be a DLNA music player or extender, like the xbox 360 or a MCE extender), and 2, both hosts *must* be running WMP actively at the time. Hence why it doesn't show up in your list, you probably have no valid endpoints that WMP found as valid DLNA devices (or your firewall blocked the scan, or both).