AirPort Express Streaming Audio From Any Program

Foobaz writes "Until now, the only application that can play audio on Apple's AirPort Express has been Apple's own iTunes. But Rogue Amoeba, makers of Audio Hijack, just released Airfoil, a program that lets you redirect anything to your AirPort Express, like streaming audio from mplayer, RealPlayer, or VLC."

Sync issues

Has anyone used this? Are there any sync issues if running audio from (as an example) VLC from a video file?

Re:Sync issues

They answer that question in the FAQ. Yes, the audio will be out of sync. This can be solved with VLC or MPlayer by manually synchronizing the video and audio. This cannot be solved with DVD Player.app, RealPlayer, or anything else that won't let you decouple audio from video. There's probably nothing they can really do about this.

Re:Sync issues

There's probably nothing they can really do about this.

I said that, but it's not true. They could write software that would buffer everything coming out of the compositing engine, or perhaps just one window, and play it back a second or two later. Obviously this would be resource intensive and prone to annoyances, but it could work on big, burly machines.

Re:Sync issues

There is a sync issue with this. It's got to do with the APEX standard and nothing the DEV's can do about it.

However. This is not a problem since VLC and MPlayer can move the sound all around. So just watch your torrents with VLC(which I guess you do anyway) and make the sound be a few seconds early. Easy peasy.

More info at http://www.rogueamoeba.com/forum/ubb/Forum7/HTML/0 00010.html [rogueamoeba.com]

Crippleware

It emits noise after using for ten minutes, unless you purchase the "pro" version

Re:Crippleware

It emits noise after using for ten minutes, unless you purchase the "pro" version

That's just your music. Try this site [itunes.com] and see if it helps.

Re:Crippleware

Yes, after ten minutes it turns into steaming audio.

Re:Crippleware

what, does that mean that it plays raunchy pron over the wireless connection

No, not origasmi. I was thinking more the kind your neighbor's dog carefully arranges on your lawn. Dogs certainly know their feng shuit.

Re:Crippleware

Sure there is. It's called JustePort [nanocrew.net]

Still not the only feature I want

I want to be able to use my computer as an AirTunes sink, not a source. I'm not about to buy an Airport Express, but I'd like to be able to pipe audio from my girlfriend's iBook to my desktop's speakers.

Then yeah, I'd like to be able to do it with DVD Player.app as well as iTunes.

Re:Still not the only feature I want

why not turn on sharing in both of your itunes? then you can access one another's libraries.

Dishonest marketing

Until now, the only application that can play audio on Apple's Airport Express has been Apple's own iTunes.

That is dishonest marketing. JustePort [theregister.co.uk] has been doing that for quite some time. It's even more dishonest when Rogue Amoeba probably relied on JustePort to write the AirFoil.

Or....

mplayer, RealPlayer, or VLC...

Or... Doom3. Wonder how long it will take for the neighbors to call the cops.

Rogue Rawks

I purchased Audio Hijack to rip AAR to my iPod (you know... before the election) It was crashing on my iBook however. Rogue's support was great, we went back and forth with emails of things to try for a few days. The conclusion was me getting a new build that cured the problem. YMMV of course, but I'd buy from them again.

This is a completely unsolicited endorsement (a /. rarity)

VLC streaming to AirPort Express

There is an excellent article on (the excellent site) http://www.macosxhints.com/ [macosxhints.com] regarding how to stream from VLC http://www.videolan.org/ [videolan.org] to iTunes here without any additional 3rd parts apps:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20041 023154910602&query=VLC [macosxhints.com]

I've been using this solution for playing DIVX files from my laptop (which is connected to my projector, while the audio is routed to AirPort Express) for some time, and works well, thanks to the author's knowledge, and the power of VLC !

Re:Are Airports lossy?

Only if you fly with TWA.

Re:Are Airports lossy?

It's lossless, but there's lag.

Re:Apple's not going to like this.

It probably won't be a problem, for two reasons:

1. It's been in beta for a while, Apple could have easily done something about it earlier.

2. It still uses iTunes. The backend uses the iTunes API to add a local stream to the library and send it to the Airport Express.

What would really make Apple upset is if someone had discovered the key being used to encrypt the audio, but that hasn't happened here.

Re:CAN ANYTHING HELP ME WITH STREAMING VIDEO?

Sure. Look into the hardware from El Gato [elgato.com].

Re:Will the foil fly?

If Apple didn't like it and wanted to be proprietary, they wouldn't have used Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) [rtsp.org], which is a well documented and supported protocol, as the transport method.

Re:Will the foil fly?

My claims? Considering Apple uses RTSP for it's Quicktime streaming [rtsp.org] it would only make sense for them to use the thing they know for their other products. Any more proof? Shall I telnet to port 554 on my Airport Express and show you the RTSP signature? How about a Apple Press Release [macobserver.com] in which they updated RTSP in the Airport firmware. I'm sure Apple always updates protocols not supported by their hardware!

Re:Will the foil fly?

As explained in this blog [typepad.com]:

RAOP protocol itself has already been analyzed by DVDJon and its implementation is availabe as an open source C# software called JustePort. RAOP protocol is based on RTSP wrapped with AES and RSA cryptography, on which Apple Lossless files are streamed.

AES and RSA are also open methods in conjunction with RTSP. Seems pretty open to me.

Re:Audio Hijack

they're the first high-profile implementation of the algorithm that Jon Lech Johansen reverse-engineered:
(http://nanocrew.net/blog/apple/revairtunes.html [nanocrew.net])

and yes... this is THAT Jon... the one that got yanked into court for reverse-engineering the DVD encryption. all hail Jon! :D

what we need now is for mplayer and VLC and the others to implement airport express streaming directly in the media player...

Re:I don't want to troll but:

...considering that only 3% of all computer users use a mac...

When did we get that extra 1%?

Yeah, that iTunes program is wicked expensive

---But it requires iTunes, so there's one more thing that I'm not going to buy from apple.---

You do realize that iTunes is free, and works just fine with all sorts of file formats you can rip from your own cd's or buy elsewhere right? It'll even convert your WMA files to AAC.

---If I buy a Chevy vehicle, I want it to work with any gasoline that's been refined properly. I don't want to buy Chevy gasoline, or gasoline from an "approved Chevy distributor". Same goes for my music... If I buy something that plays music, I just want it to play my goddamned music... Not music from store A, or through service B.----

Sounds pretty much like iTunes fits the bill for you then, as long as you avoid buying music downloads from any seller with proprietary DRM (pretty much everyone selling major label songs for download, Apple included).

--- Until things change, Apple ain't seeing a dime from me.---

You should really stick it to them by downloading it and using it for free then.