Streaming music over the network

[JayBlay77]

So I will be living in an apartment with 3 other roommates. We all have computers networked together. I will have a media server type computer also hooked up to the network. In each of our rooms we have our own stereos hooked the computers. Is there some way to stream music to each computer simultaneously and in sync with each other from the server so it's the same music being played everywhere? Or if it's easier to do that from my computer as the host.

Basically trying to find the most efficient and reliable way to play the same music over the network to our respective stereos.

Thanks

 

[BassBomb]

could probably run a LAN based playcast setup

not sure how to do that though

 

[aphex]

Yea, i was gonna suggest setting up a shoutcast server and have them all connect to it.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

This can be done with a shoutcast server. But, it will be hard to get them all in sync, they will always be a 500ms-5seconds off from each other And if you do get them in sync, they will drift out shortly after.

 

[mcmilljb]

You could also try VLC media player which is a "cross-platform media player and streaming server."

"VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network." Looks like it'll play any thing you throw at it plus it uses multicast to reduce the bandwidth being consumed.

 

[keeleysam]

I've used multiple AirPort Express base stations to do this.

 

[JayBlay77]

Thanks everybody. I think I'm gonna give VLC a try. Have used it as my media player, never as a server. Google here I come.