"Broadcast" Media From PC To Stereo and TV

Wirelessly Transmit Streaming Media
Through Your House—On the Cheap!

Problem: Your PC is in one room and the entertainment center in another. Your aging stereo receiver isn't Internet-ready and your budget doesn't include a replacement any time soon. For the same reason, purchasing a dedicated hardware component is out of the question, even if there is room in the entertainment center for another box.

And yet you would really like to be able to stream Internet radio, rockumentaries, and other media sources from your PC to your entertainment center.

Solution: Several companies offer an inexpensive transmitter/receiver package that can "broadcast" both video and a stereo audio signal between rooms. These are easy to install and generally work very well—easily pushing the signal through walls. Although there are several from which to choose, one such system is the AVS-5811 from RF Link (pictured), which is under $120. Savvy eBayers might pay much less.

Such transmitter/receiver sets deliver the A/V signals using radio frequencies (RF differs from infrared, the latter requiring an unobstructed line of site and offering limited distance). The RF Link AVS-5811 operates in the 5.8 GHz range, where wireless phones and microwave ovens won't cause interference. It also has four channels from which to select in the event that something else in your home causes interference. (Whichever channel you use, make sure that both the transmitter and receiver are set to the same one.) And although a clear line-of-site is not required, the RF Link AVS-5811 boasts a 300 foot transmission distance in such installations.

Audio: You'll need to purchase of some inexpensive adapters to hook up the transmitter to your PC. The red and white audio leads require a single female stereo RCA-to-male 1/8" mini-plug adapter, about $2. Connect the male end to the audio out jack on your PC's sound card, usually located at the rear of the PC chasis and color-coded light green on recent-vintage computers. Match up the red and white female RCA leads of the adapter with the corresponding male cables on the RF transmitter.

Now connect the red and white male RCA leads from the RF receiver to an unused set of RCA inputs on the back of your stereo receiver (except those marked Turntable). The inputs marked Tape 2 Record would be a good choice.

To listen to Internet radio, first access the audio source on your PC. You'll want to control the final volume level from your stereo receiver, not your PC, so set the PC volume to be sufficiently loud. Now select the Tape 2 Monitor input source (often labeled "Mode") on your stereo receiver. You should now be hearing your Internet audio source and, if this is all you want to do, you're all set. See the summary below.

Video: Transmitting video from your PC to TV is a bit more involved. First, it's best if your TV is of recent vintage and includes auxiliary inputs either on the front or rear of the set. These provide a better quality picture. If your TV is not so-equipped, purchase a simple RCA-to-coax adapter for a few dollars. It is to be connected between the yellow video cable of the RF receiver and the coax antenna input on the TV. (The picture quality may or may not be to your liking in this scenario.)

Continued...
On the PC side of this setup, we're going to assume your PC video subsystem doesn't presently offer an S-video output on the rear of the computer chasis (if it does, skip to the next paragraph). If this assumption is true, the least expensive way to convert your PC video is to replace the present video subsystem with an adapter card that includes an S-video port. There are many, but a quick Internet search turned up a PNY GeForce FX 5200 256MB VGA card for under $50.

A few more dollars gets you a male S-video to female RCA adapter, which you'll need to connect the RF transmitter's yellow cable to the PC's S-video output. On the RF receiver side, simply plug its yellow composite video cable into the matching colored RCA receptacle on your TV. Here you will most likely have to select a video input mode on the TV, similar to when you watch a DVD or VHS video tape.

Summary: None of this is rocket science, with the possible exception of replacing your PC video subsystem. Get a knowledgeable friend to help. Beyond this portion of the project, your local electronics retailer (Radio Shack, Best Buy, et al.) can help you. Cables To Go is also an excellent source for online chat help as well as for purchasing most of the requisite adapters.

Streaming media aside, we should also mention that RF transmitter/receiver sets such as the RF Link AVS-5811 can be used for other applications when not being used to transmit streaming media. A common example is in the simultaneous viewing of video programs on a second TV/monitor without use of any wires. Another is the ability to relay any indoor audio source to a set of self-amplified speakers positioned outdoors.

Use PC To Stream Concerts & Films To Your TV

Regular Floydians know that we are avid fans of concert videos and documentaries about aspects of the music industry. Sometimes you can even find great offerings in on-demand streaming video format, as was the case with the fabulous PBS series, Ken Burns' Jazz, and Festival Express we recently viewed (again) from Netflix. (I also note that you can stream the excellent Tom Dowd and the Language of Music from Netflix until July 1.)

Listening to All Things Considered on National Public Radio during my commute home yesterday, I heard a piece about streaming video programs from various Internet sites to one's home TV. Content sources include the aforementioned Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and a cool new site I just discovered named The Auteurs. In the report, the better half of a home theater-owning couple described their electronic components in a cursory manner, then expounded on the trevails they experienced while attempting to view City of God.

My feeling was that many listeners wouldn't even try streaming video after hearing Yuki Noguchi's story. I also believe that many potential viewers mistakenly think that a specialized electronics device is required to view streaming video. This simply isn't so. In fact, all you need are the following:

• Television with some type of auxiliary input connection (see illustration below)
• Reliable broadband Internet connection
• Personal computer, preferably located within 25' of your TV
• Ethernet cable connecting the computer to the Internet
• Method of payment (Netflix, Amazon, The Auteurs only; Hulu is free)

Do not try to use a wireless Internet connection for the data transmission rate will be insufficient. Next, the illustration(click to enlarge) lists several types of computer-to-TV connections, in order of video signal quality. Check which type of connection(s) your TV provides, then match it up with your the video output on your computer.

With the exception of HDMI to HDMI, all of the connection types require a separate audio connection between your computer and your TV. This is also very easy to do, using your computer's headphone jack as the output source. You'll need a common 1/8" stereo mini plug–to–RCA adapter cable to do this hookup. Optionally, connect the RCA plugs to your stereo system for better sound quality—important when watching concert videos!

If a cable adapter and/or video extension cable is required, J & R Music World, Cables To Go and Cyberguys are all excellent places to shop online, or try locally at Best Buy, Fry's Electronics or Radio Shack. In many cases, you may even be able to use a low-cost RF transmitter/receiver set to "broadcast" the program from your computer to your TV location if they're separated by more than 25 feet. There are even ways to relay the video signal from your computer to the vicinity of the TV by way of a CAT5e Ethernet cable, so don't hesitate to explain what you need to a knowledgeable salesperson at one of the aforementioned retailers.

And here's a troubleshooting tip—if at first you don't succeed, try, try again! After rechecking cable connections, we find that rebooting the computer will often solve a problem with a poor data stream. Especially for those with a DSL hookup, sometimes you just have to try another time due to user congestion. The NPR story aside, however, making the connection and enjoying streaming video programs really is as simple as spelled out here!

Increase Remote Control Range w/ IR Adapter

Beam Me Up, Scotty

I've been meaning to write about a device I recently purchased for some time. Readers of this blog know that I have a three-zone, 'Net-enabled stereo that permits listening to Radio Paradise, or MP3s from my media server, all over the house. And on the patio.

It was a bother, however, to have to dash inside all the time to either adjust the volume on the patio speakers, change a music source, mute the audio, or any other function. Installing an outdoor volume control would have helped some (and was my original plan), but doing so wouldn't answer the other requirements. Plus, such a control would mean having to get up, or run over from wherever, to manually adjust the volume up or down.

Thinking ahead, I set up the patio speakers on their own separate "slave" amplifier—designated zone 2—with the slave getting its audio feed via a stereo RCA cable to its CD input from the master Yamaha RX-V2700 home theater receiver. And Yamaha was thoughtful enough to include a second remote control that is easily switchable between zones 2 and 3. So far so good, but the zone 2 remote wouldn't work very well from out on the patio due to its native infrared (think line-of-sight) signal.

Looking for a viable solution to extend the distance at which at the controller would function, and simultaneously eliminate the inherent limitations of infrared (IR), a quick Google search led me to Smarthome.com. There I found an adapter (SKU 80451) that, for under $50 (online price), turns any IR controller into a radio frequency (RF) transmitter, sends that signal to a supplied RF base unit (pictured above), then converts the RF back to IR for the short jump to the audio receiver. Smarthome's kit includes everything you need, whether your IR controller accepts AA or AAA batteries.

Now I can control audio outdoors, including instant mute should the phone ring or a service person need to ask a question—at any angle, through the walls, from about 100' away from the base!

The only drawback is that the adapter could benefit from a better set of instructions (a subject close to home, as I write instructions for a living). Though I'm very intuitive around gadgets and can eventually interpret instructions written in Engrish, even I fumbled around for awhile before figuring out how to set it up. So here's the scoop: The cylindrical transmitter, in conjunction with a small rechargeable battery, takes the place of a single battery in your IR controller. The supplementary battery is to be placed within the adapter's base so as to be fully recharged when the first one poops out. Plugged into an AC socket, the base is to be positioned in such a way that its window (from which the IR signal emanates) faces the audio receiver's own IR sensor.

You do not need to buy this particular adapter—there are others on the market. My purpose is to cause you to be aware that a solution does indeed exist to IR line of sight and distance issues. That said, I can attest that this adapter functions well and it was a pleasure doing Internet commerce with SmartHome. Since receiving their catalog along with my order, I've since found several other gadgets that look like they'll solve problems we face, such as knowing for certain whether we've left the garage door open during the course of a day.

Note: Additional adapter base units are available separately for multiple zone use.

Your Own Touchscreen MP3 Jukebox

Ever thought about creating a touchscreen jukebox for your MP3 collection? It's doable!

For this project, first you'll need copies of MusicLobby3, MainLobby3, and MLServer3 from Cinemar. These all reside on top of J. River MediaCenter, so you'll need that, too. Fortunately, you can make your purchase in one place, that being Cinemar's website.

Now you need a touchscreen, so look no further than ELO—the monitor folks, not the rock group! With a bit of luck, you may find a used one on eBay at a great price, as I did, but bid wisely! (Disclaimer: The author accepts no responsibility for eBay ripoffs, defective merchandise, and the like. Caveat emptor.)

What's left? Oh, yeah—the box itself. Here you can let your imagination run wild, only to be reeled in by limited personal fabrication skills and/or disposable income. For inspiration, I suggest these, with my personal favorite for a living room application being the Seeburg Selectophone (pictured at right).

Touchscreen jukebox or no, J. River's MediaCenter is an excellent all-in-one software package for those readers (like me!) having very large music collections. Hook your media server video output to your widescreen TV, load up a groovy MediaCenter visualization scheme, turn out the lights and...WHOA! Like it says in my profile—who needs Owsley? Now if only MediaCenter included a karaoke option...

I leave it to you to download your own MediaCenter 30-day trial version and check it out for yourself. Also note that Cinemar offers MusicLobby PPC, whereby you can remotely control your MusicLobby-enabled media server from many Pocket PCs (mine is a HP iPAQ).

Add an MP3 Playlist To Your Website!

Here's a cool trick to play MP3s on a web page. The idea is that any time a surfer accesses the page, or performs a forced refresh (Ctrl+F5 in Internet Explorer), a different audio track is selected at random.

(Note: For those of you who know your way around M3U playlists and such, you may question the following methodology. Trust me when I report, after much testing, this was the only way I could get a MP3 to be consistently chosen at random.)

Overview—Let's say you've created a vacation page called Coastal Trip that contains both text and photos. For optimal organization, it's a good idea to create a subfolder, called Images, one level below the folder you've created for the CoastalTrip.html file. Similarly, it's a good idea to create another subfolder, named Music, in which to store the M3U playlists and their corresponding MP3 files. This is all done within your FTP utility software; the one I use is the free WS_FTP Lite. (Note that web page design applications such as Dreamweaver have FTP built-in.)

The Playlist—For each MP3 you want to include in your random playback, create a M3U playlist in any ASCII text editor. Notepad works just fine for this. Through experimentation, I discovered it's best to include the MP3's full URL (where it will reside on your Internet host server once you upload it), i.e., http://{your domain}/CoastalTrip/Music/{track_title}.mp3. A sample playlist, perhaps taking the name Hippolyte.M3U, looks like this (indentation for illustration only):

http://{your_domain}/CoastalTrip/Music/Hippolyte.mp3

Create additional M3U files, one for each MP3. To complete this phase, you should now FTP (upload) each M3U playlist and corresponding MP3 file to the Music subfolder on your Internet host site.

The Magic Code—Now you have to add some magic JavaScript code I lifted somewhere off the 'Net. Code it just as you see it here, inserting it immediately after the BODY tag in the HTML code of your CoastalTrip.html page.

<!--embed src=http://{your_domain}/CoastalTrip/Music/Unto_the_Burning_Circle.m3u autostart="true"type="audio/mpeg" / width="0" height="0" loop="true"-->

<script type="text/javascript">

var sound=
[
"./Music/Unto_the_Burning_Circle.m3u",
"./Music/Dancing_with_the_Lion.m3u",
"./Music/Hippolyte.m3u",
"./Music/Dance_of_the_Masks.m3u",
"./Music/Pearls_Tears.m3u",
];
var soundFile = escape( sound[ Math.floor( Math.random()*sound.length ) ] );
document.write ('<EMBED src= "' + soundFile + '" hidden=true type="audio/mpeg" autostart=true loop=true>')

</script>

Note: Regarding the ./Music/ portion of the M3U file paths, the ./ is a bit of programming shorthand that instructs the browser to look for something within a Music subfolder, one level below the present folder. So if your CoastalTrip.html page resides in the CoastalTrip folder, oddly enough, the browser will look in the path CoastalTrip/Music. Experience the results of my coding by making sure your sound is engaged and clicking here.

So there you have it. There are other ways to include music on a web page, but playing a random track is a horse of a different color. And there are other examples of random playback scripts on the 'Net, but this is the only one I found that actually worked. Enjoy!

Audio Gear: Yamaha Home Theater Receiver

Since August the wife and I have been engaged in a 100% top-down remodel while we live amongst the chaos. Tearing the family room down to studs enabled me to install a 7.1 surround sound system, with in-wall speakers and cabinets furnished by Polk Audio. The fronts are Polk LSi7 series speakers, coupled with the biggest, baddest subwoofer Polk offers, the PSW505. Well, OK...it's the biggest and baddest for my price range, their PSW1000 being beyond my reach. (I did have to buy other gear, ya know!)

The star of the show, though, is the new Yamaha RX-V2700 A/V receiver with power to spare, full network capability built-in, and a USB port on its front panel. Slip in any flash drive or flash player loaded with MP3s (or WAVs, what-have-you), and the Yamaha plays them back in series or at random. Attach a large capacity external USB hard drive holding your entire collection, the drive formatted as FAT32, and you never have to fumble with another CD, cassette, or LP ever again! And just for you iPodders, Yamaha sells a compatible docking station.

The Rx-V2700 includes technology to enhance MP3s, "filling in" those lost bits heard in the original format of your songs. Couple that with 7.1 enhanced stereo (the thing is magic, I tell you) and you won't believe just how fantastic your MP3 collection sounds!

Even cooler is how, via DHCP, the Yamaha so easily found its home on my network and discovered the cable Internet connection. (No chocolate mess!) Using the adjacent TV as its display (HDMI), it's a pretty simple matter to navigate 'net radio stations located all over the world and of just about any genre. I was initially concerned that my favorites, Radio Paradise (RP) and KXJZ, would go missing but—lo' and behold—they're listed among the hundreds of choices. Even the wife got excited when I sampled a highly-listenable Christian channel this past Sunday, and she clearly enjoyed hearing The Mavericks (!) on RP tonight (that's just how eclectic RP can be).

The feature I haven't been able to test is the unit's ability to interface with my homebuilt, 1TB RAID5 media server where my MP3 collection resides. This is because the RX-V2700 doesn't support UPnP at this time (c'mon, Yamaha!), instead relying on Windows Media Connect to stream audio from my server. And, of course, the latter requires Windows XP to which I haven't yet migrated my big box. (The unopened OS package is somewhere out in the garage, a.k.a., storage central).

Now, if I could just get the Yamaha and the HP DLP TV to directly interface with J River's Media Center 12...