a (presumably dumb) question about wireless pc/home entertainment networking

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so, i'm tired of having to have a cable trailing from my stereo to my laptop when i want to hear music/watch dvds, and i was wondering whether it would be possible to simply plug the stereo into my desktop pc, and then use my wireless network to play stuff on the laptop via the desktop? my naive guess was that this would be easy, but i haven't been able to find out anything about it. the laptop's running xp, and the desktop's a rather creaky 98se affair.

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 09:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Airport express is good, my windows using boss has one and is suitably impressed by it. You are limited to using iTunes as your playback software though which might not be your cup of tea and I'm not sure if it works with 98. There are plenty of other products out there. The Elgato eye Tv home is goos if you want to stream movies but you need a separate wireless router for it to be wireless.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 09:47 (twenty-one years ago)

should there not be some software solution though, ed? given that i have a home wireless network and desktop linked to stereo already...

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:05 (twenty-one years ago)

there might be a bandwidth problem, especially with dvds

to clarify: where are the mp3s? and you want to use the laptop like a big remote control?

plenty of linux media server things that'll let you access / setup playlists over http (ie from the laptop) and the files can be either local to the server or remote (ie on the laptop). but i don't know of much in the way of windows software that'll do the same thing. i'm sure there is stuff (not least because a lot of these solutions will be php on apache which'll sit on windows quite merrily)

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:34 (twenty-one years ago)

i was thinking airport express too, but i can tell you that iTunes does not work with w98se (which i have, sadly), unless you do some crazy patches that are unreliable.

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:36 (twenty-one years ago)

are the patches any better for windows ME?

― Porkpie (porkpie), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:59 (twenty-one years ago)

someone at work is running slimp3.com (which is a hardware solution that'd replace your server, just takes mp3 data in through its network port and squirts it out as audio data over phono sockets). anyway, they have server software (executables and perl source) on their website that might help (but also might be pointless without the hardware)

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 11:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah I misunderstood.

Try vlc http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 11:33 (twenty-one years ago)

ed - that looks interesting. cheers.

to clarify: where are the mp3s? and you want to use the laptop like a big remote control?

mp3s are on the laptop. i guess i just want whatever data gets sent by winamp to the speakers to be sent over the wireless network to the desktop machine, and then from that to the stereo. but i know next to nothing about computers so have no idea how plausible this is...

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 12:33 (twenty-one years ago)

shoutcast could be another option

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 12:38 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

ok, a couple of years on i have a similar question!

about to move to the US, and will need to get a wireless router. i imagine that prices on all these kind of things have dropped a bit lately, so i'm wondering if it's possible to network a few more things. specifically, we have two mac laptops, and i think it would be nice to be able to attach our printer to the router and be able to print from wherever. is this feasible? presumably we'd need some kind of adapter for the printer, and maybe a special router?

also, are there affordable devices for wirelessly streaming music these days?

― toby, Tuesday, 19 June 2007 09:50 (nineteen years ago)

Again, Airport Express (now costs about £60) will let you wirelessly connect printers (well, you plug the USB printer cable into it, but then the path to your macs is wireless), as well as do the music streaming thing. It will work with your existing router.

― Alba, Tuesday, 19 June 2007 09:58 (nineteen years ago)

thanks - that looks good. does anyone know of any cheaper non-apple alternatives, though? i feel like there should be some...

― toby, Tuesday, 19 June 2007 12:46 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

I recently purchased an Aiport Extreme, which would ideally have three computers connected to it. Two of them DO connect: my MacBook, which has OSX, and a PC netbook.

The problem is a desktop PC that I cannot get to connect. It recognizes the signal, and on an old Belkin router it worked absolutely fine, but it simply will not connect to the Airport.

Can someone give me advice or a step-by-step set of directions on how to make this work? I've lost many hours trying to figure it out, and I'm just NOT tech-savvy...

― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Saturday, 3 April 2010 18:51 (sixteen years ago)

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