playing music over network or home system
 

is there any way to broadcast mp3's over a home network so it plays through all computers? or to have it play through my home system?

You can make it playable from any computer using NFS or SMB. (SMB is likely what you'll use.) SMB let's you setup a server that let's you mount network drives on other computers in your network. Sorry to say I've never set up something like that on windows..I've always used linux with samba, so you may wish to look up the directions. I'm just poking you in the right direction. I hope

you dont need samba, this is a great solution if you have a linux file server, but would be a pain in the ass if you didnt.

just share the folder holding the music on one computer, set up a home network, and you should be able to map the network drive on other computers on the network. I think you can get wireless appliances that will let you play your music through the home stereo. otherwise you can just run a line from a headphone jack on a laptop out to the stereo (not ideal, but works).

To get more information you'd have to tell us what kind of systems you're running, OS, etc.

I've got 1 windows machine with a shared directory of music. It's plugged into a switch, along with 3 other computers. I just browse the network until I find the shared directory of music and then hit winamp/xmms and play the files. Works perfectly.

i have a file server in my basement with a couple of 200Gb drives running linux. this way with a public ip i can access my music collection from anywhere, i also have the drives accessed through samba so i can just map the network drives and run the music wirelessly through my laptop. I also have a jack set up so i can just plug the wire into my laptop and play music over the stereo.

You people like to overcomplicate things with your linux fileservers..
You could always just run a shoutcast server..That way any computer LAN or otherwise (if you are ok with your IP being public, or sign up for a dynamic ip hosting site) can access the music on the station.

actually i want to start an icecast (linux equiv of shoutcast) on my file server, but i want to keep it private, so i can change the playlist depending on what i want to hear and stream my own music.

the linux doesnt really complicate things at all though. samba is easy to set up, I need a linux box anyways with ftp and shell access so i can access files and manipulate them. I think that is the main thing i have against windows servers is no ssh access.

Linux equivalent to Shoutcast? Where did you pull that out of? Shoutcast runs like a champ on *nix environments.

I do that, combined with the Winamp Web Interface plugin to let me listen to my music while elsewhere--at work for instance. I can stream the audio from my computer and control it from the web, so its like I have my own private radio station that I control :)

sorry, that should have been gpl version.

I'm doing it on our home network. I wired the house w/ CAT5 four years ago and also have wifi in place now. One PC has a shared folder with MP3s. Remote PCs can just look at 'my network places' and click on the folder. Simple as can be - and works fine over wireless, too.

thanks all, i set it up this way and its working great