Synchronizing mp3 playback over a network
 

Anyone know of any solutions to synchronize mp3 playback over a network? The preferred would be to not use a set top stand alone unit that streams the mp3 from a server, rather, a plugin or piece of software that synchronizes playback.

Thanks

If you mean having multiple computers in a house/apartment/room playing an MP3 at the exact same time so that the sounds run together and you can walk from room to room listening to the same music, it won't work.

A friend of mine tried this (fairly recently), and I'm taking his word for it, as he's a computer engineering genius. Even if the songs start off perfectly in sync, they'll slowly go out of sync due to minor network issues, harddrive seek times, soundcard inconsistencies, etc.

Sorry if this isn't the answer you're looking for, or if I misread the question.

Synchronizes playback with what? Other mp3 players? I haven't seen players that sync with each other. Suppose I'd use streaming media server. Some kind of training environment?

Edit: (after reading Pragma's)
It could be done. Slew is built into audio/video formats but standard issue mp3 doesn't provide for it. You'd need a heartbeat server anyway, so may as well use existing streaming media.

For home use long speaker wire is probably the simplest solution. :)

there are some winamp plugins that can do it...

you have to have the same files on both computers and they have to connect to each other over the network...

when I messed with it I had mixed results... but I didnt spend a lot of time on it...

I can say from personal experience that tuning both "players" into the same shoutcast server doesn't synchronize them. The machines will have different buffer rates which will start them playing different bits at different times.

I'm considering finding a wireless speaker system that will solve this issue for me.

Yea everything I've read points to problems with network lag / bit rate differences / buffer times, etc. Seems like it might be too much to ask for from standard mp3 :P

Multiple machines on one LAN could be kept very close. Streaming buffer sizes are configurable, traffic can be managed, even multicast. Should be okay for speech. For music it'd be the last fractions of a second I'd fear given how sensitive people can be. You'd need some dead space between speakers or the multiple systems sliding around within a few milliseconds would make for a variable echo. Yuck.

sounds like a lot of work. yuck indeed