Stream Media to Multiple PCs on Home Network?

[chisoxfan84]

This is something I've been trying to accomplish for years but never really figured out. If anyone can tell me how to do this, I'd give you a kidney if you needed one. I'd like to be able to stream media over my home network; eg: start my .mp3 playlist on my office PC and hear it synched on my bedroom and kitchen PCs. There's gotta be a way to do this. Can anybody clue me in? Thanks in advance.

[edDV]

First clue us in on your network and PC inventory.
Got Mips?

[chisoxfan84]

D-link 4pt wired router <soon to upgrade to a 4pt + wireless>
2 PCs both running XP pro sp2 <soon also have a laptop with external extigy card feeding living room speakers>
Win MP 11 on both <new notebook will probably be running Vista & whatever WMP version comes OEM>

Sorry, I have no idea what Mips are

[edDV]

A 100Mb/s wired Ethernet LAN will allow moving video between machines. Wireless B and G networks may be glitchy. They run sustained at half to a quarter advertised bit rates.

Mips means processing power. You can use something like Windows Media Encoder 9 or VideoLan to realtime compress to lower bitrates for easier wireless streaming.

[SCDVD]

I agree, wireless doesn't cut it for streaming video. If you are looking for an easy and cheap way to stream video from one machine to another, you can put the videos in a shared folder in the other PC(s). Obviously they have to be on a common network. Then all you have to do is access the shared folder from the system that you want to view the video on and select the video and play it. There all more costly ways to do this with a more elegant user interface but it's just eye candy, it doesn't make the video play any better.

[chisoxfan84]

I'm mostly interested in utilizing the PCs for playing music simultaneously. As long as they're in synch, eg: if I'm throwing a party and I leave the living room to grab a beer from the kitchen, I want my ears to not skip a beat. Sorry if I misworded my intentions. Video streaming would be cake, but getting the same music to each part of my place through my home network all at the same time is what I'm really after. Lot less data atleast. Is there a program I should be using to do this or some WMP config process to go through? Thanks again everyone.

[DarrellS]

I'm not sure how you'd be able to play them all simultaniously since you would have to open the file in a differenent player on each machine.

You might try putting speakers in different rooms. I believe there are surround receivers that have the ability to run speaker systems in two different rooms and video cards capable of playing on two different monitors/TVs.

My brother and I share a wireless network and transferring files is a long slow process. It took me at least 24 hours to move 110GB of movie filres to his PC. I would've just shared them but I needed to make more space in my PC.

Was looking at my Airlink routers website and they have a new 300 mbps rate instead of the 100 mbps that my existing router has. The router is only $59 but the 300 mbps USB adapters cost $69 a piece and we have three PCs on the network.

[edDV]

That would produce severe echo unless each room is acoustically isolated. Distribute analog line level audio or speaker wire instead.

[DarrellS]

My brother was using his ATI card to watch TV on his computer and every time he'd turn it to the channel I was watching I'd hear that echo. I finally talked him into putting a TV in his room and cured the problem.

[chisoxfan84]

hmmm... okay. I just really wanted to avoid running wires through my hallway. I suppose I can snake a line through my air duct, but I'll probably just put this idea to rest then. Thanks for the input.

[JohnnyMalaria]

How about wireless powered speakers?

[chisoxfan84]

can you guestimate $$$ for me? How clear would the signal be for me in a concrete & steel structure building too? Signal would only need to reach 25ft or so, but ... wait. Actually now that I'm thinking about it, the only walls blocking line of sight are non load bearing. I like the idea, think I'll look into that.

[SingSing]

If you can't send the music thru wireless speakers, then you most likely also have larger problem with wireless network in this building.

Wireless speakers are in FM range. If your FM radio work, then your wireless speaker should work.

Wi-Fi networks are in cell-phone range, that has less ability to work in concrete building than FM.

Compare to wi-fi, and wired PA speaker, wireless speaker is a better choice in term ease of setup, and with a bit of added cost.