I've 'rediscovered' a way of getting Xbox Music to work in a wireless, multiroom audio setup where the same music is being played in more than one room. So if you've ever lusted after a Sonos-like experience for Xbox Music, this will be of interest.
The solution uses Apple's Airplay. This is Apple's proprietary protocol for streaming audio (and video, but that's not involved here). Now if you have experienience with it on iOS, you'll know that an iOS device can only stream to one Airplay enabled device at a time. But what's probably not as well known is that on both Macs and Windows, iTunes can stream to multiple Airplay speakers in sync, very much like a Sonos.
So you need to install iTunes, right? Wrong! Rogue Amoeba (Rogue Amoeba | Quality Audio Software for Mac OS X) has a piece of software called Airfoil for both MacOS and Windows that can take the audio of other programs and transmit it to Airplay speakers. I had used this a few years ago to transmit audio from Windows 7 media player to an AppleTV and an Airport Express (both Apple Airplay devices). A couple of things happened: Airfoil couldn't hook the audio from Metro apps in Windows 8 because of the way they're sandboxed, and then my Airport Express died, leaving only the AppleTV, so I didn't really have multiroom audio anymore. But given that it's just not Christmas without Dean Martin crooning "Baby It's Cold Outside" throughout the house, I revisted Airfoil this week.
Turns out there have been some improvements since I last looked. Rogue Amoeba now has a system level driver available (it's an optional install after the main program is installed) that hooks into the audio system at a low level, and allows airfoil to transmit everything including from Xbox Music or any other Windows 8 app, for that matter. Airport Expresses still exist as well, but there are also a bunch of options for Airplay speakers at a wide range of price points. I picked up an inexpensive Airplay device to connect to my living room stereo (where my old Airport Express used to be) as a test.
This was a success! It requires an x86-based Windows 8 device, of course; I installed Airfoil on my Dell Venue 8 Pro. From the desktop, I ran the program, told it to use the system driver (which started the driver install) and then selected the Airplay devices I wanted to stream to. Then I switched to the Xbox Music app, started streaming, and had the music playing in sync in a couple of rooms.
This ends up being a fairly inexpensive setup (Airfoil is a $25 dollar program and can be used on as many computers as you have). The nice thing is that there's a free trial of Airfoil that lets you test it for 10 minutes at a time. Airfoil also includes a program (airfoil speakers) that lets another computer act as an airplay speaker so if you're interested and you have more than one computer, you can demo the setup for free to see if works for you. (And no, I don't have any relationship with Rogue Amoeba; I'm just excited to find something that works and gets me my whole house streaming back including with my Xbox Music pass.)
The solution uses Apple's Airplay. This is Apple's proprietary protocol for streaming audio (and video, but that's not involved here). Now if you have experienience with it on iOS, you'll know that an iOS device can only stream to one Airplay enabled device at a time. But what's probably not as well known is that on both Macs and Windows, iTunes can stream to multiple Airplay speakers in sync, very much like a Sonos.
So you need to install iTunes, right? Wrong! Rogue Amoeba (Rogue Amoeba | Quality Audio Software for Mac OS X) has a piece of software called Airfoil for both MacOS and Windows that can take the audio of other programs and transmit it to Airplay speakers. I had used this a few years ago to transmit audio from Windows 7 media player to an AppleTV and an Airport Express (both Apple Airplay devices). A couple of things happened: Airfoil couldn't hook the audio from Metro apps in Windows 8 because of the way they're sandboxed, and then my Airport Express died, leaving only the AppleTV, so I didn't really have multiroom audio anymore. But given that it's just not Christmas without Dean Martin crooning "Baby It's Cold Outside" throughout the house, I revisted Airfoil this week.
Turns out there have been some improvements since I last looked. Rogue Amoeba now has a system level driver available (it's an optional install after the main program is installed) that hooks into the audio system at a low level, and allows airfoil to transmit everything including from Xbox Music or any other Windows 8 app, for that matter. Airport Expresses still exist as well, but there are also a bunch of options for Airplay speakers at a wide range of price points. I picked up an inexpensive Airplay device to connect to my living room stereo (where my old Airport Express used to be) as a test.
This was a success! It requires an x86-based Windows 8 device, of course; I installed Airfoil on my Dell Venue 8 Pro. From the desktop, I ran the program, told it to use the system driver (which started the driver install) and then selected the Airplay devices I wanted to stream to. Then I switched to the Xbox Music app, started streaming, and had the music playing in sync in a couple of rooms.
This ends up being a fairly inexpensive setup (Airfoil is a $25 dollar program and can be used on as many computers as you have). The nice thing is that there's a free trial of Airfoil that lets you test it for 10 minutes at a time. Airfoil also includes a program (airfoil speakers) that lets another computer act as an airplay speaker so if you're interested and you have more than one computer, you can demo the setup for free to see if works for you. (And no, I don't have any relationship with Rogue Amoeba; I'm just excited to find something that works and gets me my whole house streaming back including with my Xbox Music pass.)
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