Stream Audio to XBOX

[derek2006]

I need to stream live audio (The "What You Hear" setting) from my PC to my Xbox 360 through my home network. I have a really nice audio setup for my computer but it can only play to that room. The Xbox is in our living and entertainment room with a home media center hooked into it. I would like to be able to play the same exact audio on both systems at the same time and have them be in sync. Both audio systems are very powerful and if it's out of sync it would be very noticeable and annoying, something under 50ms is ideal.

I have done some searching but the solutions I found are dated back from 2007 and setting it up can take 3-5 different programs; also these old threads had a lot of deadlinks and their directions in these programs were for older versions.

I read of a way it might be possible with VLC player. It's to create a stream (.strm) file that has your ip address where the stream would come from and put it into your windows media player and play it through that on the XBLM. However I cannot put the .strm file into my library. If I could get someone with more info on this way or a better solution it would be great.

 

[eibgrad]

When streaming content across your network, it’s going to be extremely difficult (probably impossible) to synchronize the output at both ends of that stream. The problem stems from the way TCP/IP works. It’s designed to be highly tolerant in terms of latency. The goal is to make sure data gets to its destination AT ALL, not so much whether it gets there ON TIME. In the case of your request, you have just the opposite requirements. You could tolerate a momentary audio “glitch” from time to time (an error, ala static on the radio), but what you can’t tolerate is any lose of synchronization due to latency. If you’re listening to say, Pandora, it’s not like terrestrial radio (realtime), it’s buffered. And it has to be since latency is inevitable and will lead to periods of no data. And without buffering, the listening experience would be greatly diminished.

So it’s relatively easy to get the audio from your PC out to other devices. I personally use Windows Media Encoder Series 9 and make the stream available to my clients (e.g., my Roku R1000). And I’m sure your XBOX could easily play that stream as well. But it’s NEVER going to be synchronized. About the only thing you can do is perhaps use QoS (Quality of Service). But even that can’t GUARANTEE synchronization. And that’s assuming a wired connection. Wireless only exacerbates the problem.

P.S. If you want information on setting up Windows Media Encoder Series 9, let me know. It’s a bit tricky the first time but overall pretty simple. Of course, there are other streaming options (e.g., Shoutcast), but I just used Windows Media Encoder because it was simple, free, and available. I’m sure there are far better solutions if you want all the bells and whistles.

 

[derek2006]

The xbox cannot play a stream. I used the software to create a station and that worked great and I also found a way to combat the lag of 9 seconds.

To do this I set my default sound device as my onboard sound card. Itunes automatically plays to the default.

Windows media encoder 9 does not allow you to use the audio from that devise so I ran a physical connection from the headphone slot on the onboard to the line in slot on the XFi. I set Windows media encoder to take the audio from that.

Then I went into windows media player and set it to open the stream that was playing from itunes and I set WMP to play onto the XFI so I could hear it, this combated the 9 second delay since my audio was also playing from the internet stream.

After all this I still need to find a way to open the stream in the xbox. I tried TVersity but it says failed to process try again later.

 

[eibgrad]

“I set my default sound device as my onboard sound card. Itunes automatically plays to the default. Windows media encoder 9 does not allow you to use the audio from that devise so I ran a physical connection from the headphone slot on the onboard to the line in slot on the XFi. I set Windows media encoder to take the audio from that."

That shouldn’t have been necessary. Sounds like you configured something improperly. WME (Windows Media Encoder) is configured on my machine to encode whatever is playing over the default audio device. That could be either on-board audio or some add-on card (e.g., XFI). I did this by setting the Recording Control of the mixer to "Stereo Mix" (aka "What You Hear"). Now whatever audio device is configured as the default is streamed.

But if for some reason this isn’t working for you (and I don’t know why it wouldn’t), then I suppose you could (and it appears you did) redirect the on-board audio into the XFI and stream that device instead. But again, that shouldn’t be necessary.

“I also found a way to combat the lag of 9 seconds”

The reason there was a lag is because that’s what happens when streaming from one audio device to another audio device via the network, whether it’s on the same machine or another machine. So no matter what you had to do to get streaming working on that machine, that’s not going to eliminate network lag once you get your XBOX to play that stream. And it was my impression that was the lag that concerned you (having the machine sending the stream and the machine receiving (playing back) the stream be out of sync).

One way or another I’m sure you’ll get the XBOX to play the stream, either by changing the format, bitrate, etc., or finding a more compatible streaming server (it still floors me the XBOX can’t play a simple audio stream from MS’s own Windows Media Encoder). But you haven’t eliminated your network synchronization problems (lag) at all.

 

[derek2006]

I have pretty much givin up on this. What I am going to do is get a radio broadcasting unit for my pc and then just use the sounds systems radio to tune in.

 

[Mizztwizted]

When streaming content across your network, it’s going to be extremely difficult (probably impossible) to synchronize the output at both ends of that stream. The problem stems from the way TCP/IP works. It’s designed to be highly tolerant in terms of latency. The goal is to make sure data gets to its destination AT ALL, not so much whether it gets there ON TIME. In the case of your request, you have just the opposite requirements. You could tolerate a momentary audio “glitch” from time to time (an error, ala static on the radio), but what you can’t tolerate is any lose of synchronization due to latency. If you’re listening to say, Pandora, it’s not like terrestrial radio (realtime), it’s buffered. And it has to be since latency is inevitable and will lead to periods of no data. And without buffering, the listening experience would be greatly diminished.

So it’s relatively easy to get the audio from your PC out to other devices. I personally use Windows Media Encoder Series 9 and make the stream available to my clients (e.g., my Roku R1000). And I’m sure your XBOX could easily play that stream as well. But it’s NEVER going to be synchronized. About the only thing you can do is perhaps use QoS (Quality of Service). But even that can’t GUARANTEE synchronization. And that’s assuming a wired connection. Wireless only exacerbates the problem.

P.S. If you want information on setting up Windows Media Encoder Series 9, let me know. It’s a bit tricky the first time but overall pretty simple. Of course, there are other streaming options (e.g., Shoutcast), but I just used Windows Media Encoder because it was simple, free, and available. I’m sure there are far better solutions if you want all the bells and whistles.

HI eibgrad
Could you send me information on how to set up the Windows media encoder series 9. I want to stream audio from whatever is playing through my speakers to my Xbox 360. Such as Pandora or XM radio.
thank you so much for all the help you can offer.

 

[eibgrad]

HI eibgrad
Could you send me information on how to set up the Windows media encoder series 9. I want to stream audio from whatever is playing through my speakers to my Xbox 360. Such as Pandora or XM radio.
thank you so much for all the help you can offer.

I would not recommend using Windows Media Encoder Series 9 anymore, only because MS abandoned support for it many years ago. It's hasn't been updated since probably 2002-2003, and only works reliably w/ Windows XP.

What I recommend today is VLC ( http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html ). It's kept up to date, works w/ Windows 7, and it’s free. The VLC interface can be a bit overwhelming the first time you use it, so I've included some code that you can execute from a batch file that runs VLC from the command line to get a basic local stream working over HTTP w/ the MP3 codec. Once you learn the VLC interface, you’ll know be able to generate your own code, with your own preferences.

start "" "%ProgramFiles%\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" dshow:// :sout=#transcode{vcodec=none,acodec=mp3,ab=128,channels=2,samplerate=44100}:http{mux=raw,dst=:8100/} :no-sout-rtp-sap :no-sout-standard-sap :ttl=1 :sout-keep

Note: %ProgramFiles% is just a placeholder for where you’ve installed VLC. You may need to replace this or add the environment variable and appropriate value for your own situation.

In the above example, I’m using port 8100 for the mp3 stream. It can be accessed from a remote client as http://<domain-name or ip-address>:8100

Naturally you can change the port if you want/need to. And you could change the codec as well from something other than mp3 (assuming that codec is available on both the server and client).

Note: This will only work if the audio *recording* (NOT playback) option on the server side (the side running VLC) is set to stereo-mix! If you failed to do this, then VLC would still create the stream and make it available, but you’d hear nothing on the client side, just silence.

Of course, you can use this same technique to stream ANYTHING, including playlists, mp3 collections, videos, even your screen display! Very powerful tool.

 

[sebastien_warin]

Hi !

I have developed for my personal use a software named "Stream What You Hear" (SWYH) !

Stream What You Hear (SWYH) is a Windows application to broadcast the sound of your computer (ie: “what you hear”) on an UPnP/DLNA device such as TVs, amps, network receivers, game consoles, etc...

The software also exposes "what you hear" as MP3 over HTTP that can be play by a Web browser, VLC, or other ...

SWYH can stream live audio from your PC to Xbox 360 with the PCM/L16 format (since version 1.2):
1- Install SWYH
2- In Settings window, select "PCM/L16" as default format and save change !
3- Right-click on SWYH icon, enter in the menu "Stream To" and select "Xbox 360" as receiver !
4- Wait few second and enjoy

More informations on http://www.streamwhatyouhear.com/

 

[omadawn]

Hi !

I have developed for my personal use a software named "Stream What You Hear" (SWYH) !

Stream What You Hear (SWYH) is a Windows application to broadcast the sound of your computer (ie: “what you hear”) on an UPnP/DLNA device such as TVs, amps, network receivers, game consoles, etc...

The software also exposes "what you hear" as MP3 over HTTP that can be play by a Web browser, VLC, or other ...

SWYH can stream live audio from your PC to Xbox 360 with the PCM/L16 format (since version 1.2):
1- Install SWYH
2- In Settings window, select "PCM/L16" as default format and save change !
3- Right-click on SWYH icon, enter in the menu "Stream To" and select "Xbox 360" as receiver !
4- Wait few second and enjoy

More informations on http://www.streamwhatyouhear.com/

Dear sebastien, I just found your application after searching google for few hours, and I find it great - it does what I need it to do (stream "what you hear" to my android and/or xbox.. thank you very much!