Audio over our company's network...

[Kelemvor]

At our office we have some areas that have refreshments set out since this facility is mostly for training. We had a request today to setup some sort of audio system so that they could pipe music in to those various break areas and play songs (mp3, etc) over the network.

Someone mentioned some Networkable DVD players that can play movies, music, etc over the network which would work but they'd have to be plugged into a TV or something in order to work and they are full size.

I was thinking of something like a Barix Exstreamer that plugs into the network and streams music over it to whatever powered speakers you can plug in.

Anyone have any other ideas on how to do this?

Could be a central server the sends audio out over the network. Could be a central receiver that we run audio cables around the building to the specific locations needed. Could be anything to let us get audio to all the various places we need to.

We are still in the invetigation stage so if there's any other info I can provide, let me know.

Thanks.

 

[chuckywang]

AirTunes?

 

[nakedfrog]

I was looking into this for home usage, and so far VLC seems to be the leader. I haven't set up the network at my new house yet, so I haven't had a chance to test it.
I plan on streaming (while playing) from my main PC, and opening the stream on my living room and downstairs PCs.

 

[Kelemvor]

I already do this at home but I have the songs playing to remote amps using standard RCA cables and don't have the music actually going over my network. I just have the server on the network so I can control it from my laptop.

I use Command Cubes http://www.commandcubes.com to control everything and it works great. But I went with the cheapest solution I could find which is why the music isn't on the network. But since this is for work we can spend a bit more than I could. We may go with CommandCubes again but use the Barix pieces to do the streaming over the network.... Hmmm.