Does iTunes have some means to broadcast an MP3 stream? I'd love to have the same music that's playing from my powerbook in the living room be playing from my g4 tower in the kitchen.
Well, if you turn on the music sharing feature in iTunes 4, then you should be able to connect to your PB Music Library from your PM via Rendezvous and play what you want... although that's not quite broadcasting.
Yes, I'm aware of the "sharing" feature in iTunes, but that's not quite what I'm looking for. I want to broadcast from one computer and have the other computer be playing the exact same thing and the exact same time.
After doing a bit of investigating I have found Quicktime Streaming Server for Darwin, and an applescript called "Export iTunes Playlist". While this isn't as transparent as broadcasting a playlist directly from iTunes, it seems to be one of the most simple free options available. There's a more complex solution available at MacOSXHints.com:
Thanks, but Broadcaster is part of Quicktime Streaming Server.
After using QTSS (Quicktime Streaming Server) I've got a few comments:
1) It's not too clear how to tune in to a stream. I was able to find that streams are located on port 554. Each playlist requires an "insertion point" which becomes part of the address required to tap in to the stream. So, you create a playlist and call the insertion point "/streamingMusic" and then the address to get to the stream is 127.0.01:554/streamingMusic (where 127.0.0.1 would be your ip address).
2) Playlists must have unique names, but these become the name of your "station" when iTunes receives the stream. This sucks for bookmarking your broadcast in iTunes because the bookmark name will change to the playlist name.
3) For some reason, the streams lose synch after a couple of songs. The tower in the kitchen will slowly start to fall behind the stream running from the laptop. This kind of ruins the whole point of doing this in the first place.
4) All files used by a playlist must have identical encoding. This sucks because I've been ripping new files using AAC but all my old files are mp3. I don't want to go back and re-rip all my music. But any file that differs in format from the first one in the playlist will be ignored. Ugh.
5) Starting a different playlist will kill the stream being received by the other computer. Arrgh. Yet another deal breaker. If I want to broadcast a different playlist than the one currently running, I would have to re-start the stream from the other computer.
6) File permissions are a big problem for the applescript that converts my iTunes playlists into playlists QTSS can use. I need to keep changing file permissions before the script will work properly. Pain in the neck!
While this solution technically works, and it's free...it's not what I had hoped for. The live streaming solution offered by MacOSXHints.com seems better because It seems I could control on-the-fly what is broadcast to the other computer and it wouldn't matter if files have different encoding. It takes up much more CPU, though.
Comments
After doing a bit of investigating I have found Quicktime Streaming Server for Darwin, and an applescript called "Export iTunes Playlist". While this isn't as transparent as broadcasting a playlist directly from iTunes, it seems to be one of the most simple free options available. There's a more complex solution available at MacOSXHints.com:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...20704134818926
If anyone has other recommendations or tips, I'm all ears. Seems like this should really be built in to iTunes. Maybe in version 5?
After using QTSS (Quicktime Streaming Server) I've got a few comments:
1) It's not too clear how to tune in to a stream. I was able to find that streams are located on port 554. Each playlist requires an "insertion point" which becomes part of the address required to tap in to the stream. So, you create a playlist and call the insertion point "/streamingMusic" and then the address to get to the stream is 127.0.01:554/streamingMusic (where 127.0.0.1 would be your ip address).
2) Playlists must have unique names, but these become the name of your "station" when iTunes receives the stream. This sucks for bookmarking your broadcast in iTunes because the bookmark name will change to the playlist name.
3) For some reason, the streams lose synch after a couple of songs. The tower in the kitchen will slowly start to fall behind the stream running from the laptop. This kind of ruins the whole point of doing this in the first place.
4) All files used by a playlist must have identical encoding. This sucks because I've been ripping new files using AAC but all my old files are mp3. I don't want to go back and re-rip all my music. But any file that differs in format from the first one in the playlist will be ignored. Ugh.
5) Starting a different playlist will kill the stream being received by the other computer. Arrgh. Yet another deal breaker. If I want to broadcast a different playlist than the one currently running, I would have to re-start the stream from the other computer.
6) File permissions are a big problem for the applescript that converts my iTunes playlists into playlists QTSS can use. I need to keep changing file permissions before the script will work properly. Pain in the neck!
While this solution technically works, and it's free...it's not what I had hoped for. The live streaming solution offered by MacOSXHints.com seems better because It seems I could control on-the-fly what is broadcast to the other computer and it wouldn't matter if files have different encoding. It takes up much more CPU, though.
1) Buy Audio Hijack Pro
2) Download and compile/install LAME -- I'm not sure where you can find a precompiled binary of this.
3) Download the command-line SHOUTcast server for OS X
4) Read this Rogue Amoeba article
It works great for me.