[dfbennett]

Hi,
I plan on having a small get together sometime next week and I'd like to play the same music in both rooms. I've got a G4 350 with 256mb of RAM and OS X. I'd like to be able to stream whatever MP3 iTunes is playing over the net so I can playback the stream on the PC in the other room. Is there anyway to do this or am I gonna have to use Soundjam in classic? Any ideas? Thanks

------------------
Regards,
Dave

[Lordie]

Hi. Personal preference follows. Your Mileage May Vary.

I run Edna. It is a short, sweet python-based mp3 streamer, and is mind-numbingly easy to set up and configure. You need to have installed Python for OS X or MacPython for earlier versions.

Edna will NOT allow you to sync music between 2 machines in 2 different rooms. Edna WILL allow you incredibly easy access to your music, playlists, etc. from the two rooms, or even from any other machines you choose. I currently use Edna in a group setting, where she serves up over 90gig of mp3's. I've installed Edna on redhat linux, OpenBSD, and Win95/98. Running it in MacOS X would be a piece of cake.

You also *could* set up a shoutcast/icecast server on X, then tune both boxes into the icecast stream, and the music would be sync'ed between rooms. I haven't built icecast for macOS X, but I've built it for *BSD. Source should compile straight out of the box.

Either of these help you?

[This message has been edited by Lordie (edited 06-01-2001).]

[anothermacguy]

dfbennet, also look at Shoutcast (console), Current (gui), and Jscream (as an encoder-console-its now called JRev - jrev.org).

I am running Shoutcast-1-666-1 on X, and it runs well, but I do have some quams, which could be solved by more education....

Do any of these servers support VBR? What about just different bitrates on the same playlist? I was using Shoutcast, with Soundjam, but since Soundjam is gone, I haven't been streaming as much.

I've also used Shoutcast with JRev, mkplaylst.pl, with a few quick scripts to automate things. I had a decent remote setup using mkplaylist.pl, and Apache... It wasn't bad, but it did not support VBR, even different bitrates within the same playlist started to skip.

What does support this?

[This message has been edited by anothermacguy (edited 06-02-2001).]

[anothermacguy]

Anyone have any experience with modmp3?

[Lordie]

anothermacguy,
Edna does just fine with different mp3's having different bitrates. I run edna at work, where I mount a dozen different mp3 repositories all 'round the network. Some old schoolers have songs in .wav, .mp2 (I think), and other formats, and some have them in Ogg Vorbis, and they're all in different bitrates. I can hit the 'shuffle' button on a directory full of these things and never hear a skip. Nobody should hear skipping on a 10mbit network.

You could, in theory (dunno if this supports OS X), loop edna through lame (see, there's where I dunno...dunno if it'll build on X), and be able to set the bitrate to whatever you want. If lame will compile on X, I'll show you what code to change in edna.

The only caveat with edna compared to shoutcast is that you're not going to have one stream that many people can tune into. So, no connecting boxes all over your house to the same stream, for seamless music everywhere. Edna is set up to serve what the individual listener wants to hear.

I've got ~100 listeners tuning in to 90gig of mp3s using edna, and I help out on the development. I'm terribly biased...but is just plain works, and takes a whopping 30 minutes to download (python, edna), configure, and install. Most of that time is downloading.

[anothermacguy]

Thanks Lordie. I'm definitly going to look at Edna then. I haven't compiled LAME for X yet, but I have been meaning to.

I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks a lot.

[anothermacguy]

Lordie, is there any documentation for edna? That website leaves a bold to be desired for in the way of installation/customization instructions. I think the configuration instructions are something similar to, "modify config file as required".

I have python installed, and edna looks to run ok, but the directories are not defined properly in the config file (I'm getting errors).

How is this accessed from a browser? What configuration options are there? Where is all this information listed?

Thanks again.

[Lordie]

It's pretty much plug n' go. I know, docs are bad. That's my project for June most likely.

Under the [server] heading of edna.conf you'll see a port listed. 8080 is the default. Set this to what port you want edna to listen on. This way, you can have edna running along side of apache. Me? I use 8080.

The ##DOCCO stuff can be ignored for now. It's advanced schtuff for allowing/denying specific IP addy's.

Next is the directory structure. Essentially, the user you run edna as must have read access to the dir where the mp3's are stored.
I mount several different network shares in my /home/lordie/mp3 directory, and also store my own mp3's in there, too...this means I only have one directory line in my edna.conf:

dir1 = /home/lordie/mp3

After those changes are made, save the file, exit, and run edna.
If you see:
edna now serving on port 8080 (or whatever)

then open up a browser, browse to your localhost http://www.your.host.name.here.org:8080

I'm running apache as well, so I can't have edna serve right to port 80. Instead, I link to edna off my index.

That help? If not, lemme know, I'll toss together some more detailed info, or walk you through.

[anothermacguy]

Thanks Lordie, I'm going to give this a shot. Can I email you? It looks like everything was setup properly then. I never tried to connect to it, I just assumed that the server would output more than the serving on port8080. I expected something more, I don't know why.

I'm going to give this a shot, but I plan on doing quite a bit of customization. This is alright with the developers right? I don't want anyone screaming at me.

What about .htaccess, and running entire playlists, does edna support this? I'm assuming .htaccess is ok.

I'll talk to you later, I'm at work, and can't ssh in from here. I'll talk to you soon...

[Lordie]

Customization is great, and it's *exactly* what we're looking for!
You should sign up for the edna mailing list (on the website). *VERY*
low-traffic, about 5-10 emails a week, but loads of support and ideas.

Most of your tweaks will be on the default.ezt in the templates directory. Read it over. It's really, *really* vanilla. I happen to like vanilla, so I haven't made too many changes to mine.

Edna doesn't use .htaccess files, since...well, edna isn't apache.
You can set up allow/deny lists in edna.conf. Maybe now that winamp doesn't choke on password protected streams (supposedly fixed within the past two patches), password-based authentication might become a reality. Dunno, though.

Full playlists? Sure. Edna will create 'Play All' and 'Shuffle All' playlists on a directory level, or all directories beneath (recursively). Since we have so many mp3's at work, I often just hit "Shuffle all songs' at the base of the mp3 share, and it generates a GIANT playlist.

Email away. My addy is listed in my profile.

[ 06-04-2001: Message edited by: Lordie ]

[Gee4orce]

Edna sounds good - but for what dfbennett wanted maybe that Apache module would be better - modmp3 is it ? With this you'll get the same tracks playing on all the machines.

One question though - I wonder how closely in sync the playback will be ?

[anothermacguy]

The syncing is good in modmp3. I have a friend in Western Canada who listens to my stream. Though we haven't "tested" it, from what we've experienced the sync is good.

Lordie......why can't I change the port to 80? I don't have Apache running, but when I try, I still get errors. Any ideas?

I also sent you an instant message on this BBS, I had a couple questions in there as well...

thanks again!

[ 06-05-2001: Message edited by: anothermacguy ]

[Lordie]

AMG,
Are you running edna as root? In *nix land, all ports <1000 are root priviledged. This protects from some user usurping your mailserver with their own, or replacing your web content with their own stuff. Off the top of my head, that's the only reason I can think of as to why you can't get enda down on port 80.

[anothermacguy]

Thanks Lordie, I tried it out and that was the problem.[/LIST]