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diff --git a/src/Streaming_Audio_Over_SSH.adoc b/src/Streaming_Audio_Over_SSH.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aab6d05 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/Streaming_Audio_Over_SSH.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,71 @@ +Streaming Audio Over SSH +======================== +:author: Aaron Ball +:email: nullspoon@iohq.net + + +== {doctitle} + +At home, I have a server/desktop running nearly 24/7 +(https://archlinux.org[Arch Linux] if anyone is wondering). I use this server +for all kinds of experiments. My backups are there (well, it's one of my backup +locations). My home dlna server is there. It's also hooked up to my sound +system for http://musicpd.org[mpd] so I can have it play my music, controllable +by any device on my home wifi. Recently however, I wanted to be able to stream +my laptop's audio over my sound system, without having to plug it in directly. +The reason being I wanted to stream Spotify over said sound system, but didn't +want to go to the hassle of plugging in a keyboard and mouse, and installing a +GUI and plugging my server in to a monitor, just so I can occasionally listen +to music through not-so-bad speakers. Then I wondered, you can do just about +anything with SSH, why not try to stream audio over it. Here's how I do it +(there are many other ways). + +[[requirements]] +== Requirements + +The server (the computer hooked up to the sound system) needs *mplayer* +installed so it'll have something to play the audio with. + +The audio source system (my laptop in this case) needs alsa-utils installed, +specifically for the *arecord* application. + +Obviously both the server and the audio source system need ssh installed (and +the daemon running on the server). + + +[[command]] +== Command + +Not too much to say here. + +---- +arecord -c 1 -r 32000 | ssh <user>@<server> 'mplayer -demuxer rawaudio -rawaudio channels=1:rate=32000:samplesize=1 -nocache -' +---- + +So what that command does is... + +arecord:: + Is a command line program for recording from audio devices. If no output file + is specified (like in this case), it writes what it records to stdout. For + our purposes, we pipe stdout to ssh in the next command. + +ssh...mplayer:: + Here we send stdout from the previous command (hence the pipe) straight to + the server over ssh. Mplayer on the server plays what it receives from stdin + (the final - ). The rest of the mplayer flags are just for audio quality + control (same for the flags on arecord). The -nocache reduces delay a bit, + but in some cases can cause skipping, so you might want to remove that + switch. + + +There is one caveat to this. While it works fine for streaming internet radio +or any other audio you want really, streaming audio for a video source doesn't +work nearly as well. On my setup, there is about a .75 second delay, so YouTube +videos don't sync up. Otherwise though this works swimmingly. + + +Category:Linux +Category:SSH + + +// vim: set syntax=asciidoc: |