Audio Distribution/Synchronization

[Martin Naef]

Matt Picone wrote:
> Is it possible to get synchronized distributed MP3 playback in multiple 
> locations on a network? Basically want to turn the machines on the LAN 
> into a multi speaker playback system.

Inexpensive or professional? What's the application?

The tricky bit: If you want this to work as a single "speaker array" or 
surround setup, you need synchronisation down to sample level, otherwise 
you might get all kind of nasties. There are quite a few companies who 
sell audio transport systems over Ethernet for the pro market (e.g. 
*big* venues), they obviously solved the tricky issues.

For art installations, where sample-level synchronisation isn't 
required, I'd probably patch something like this together in Max or PD. 
Maybe you could also trick VLC into such a use, as it supports remote 
video screens and therefore might also support remote audio streams.

I don't know of any "off the shelf" solutions, but I'm reasonably sure 
something along these lines exists somewhere. In the UNIX world, I would 
just start a media player remotely and make sure the application has 
access to the local audio resource...

Martin