Adding an Apple Airtunes compatible streaming client like Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil Speakers?

Hi All,

First, I hope this is the correct forum for this…

Apple’s Apple TV uses a version of their RAOP protocol (now called Airplay - formerly airtunes) for streaming audio and video from iTunes.  One of the neat things about that protocol is that it allows synchronized audio amongst all of the clients (typically Apple Airport Express’ or Apple TV’s).  Basically a lower cost competitor to SONOS with many additional features, to provide whole house audio (and now video); at its core it becomes a low cost zoned audio system. Especially considering the price of Apple TVs and Airport Express’ are ~$99  (stick with me as I’m getting to a point…)

A company called Rogue Amoeba has “adapted” that protocol to allow their own application, called “Airfoil”, to stream to the Apple Clients (from any sources on a MAC or PC including iTunes, websites, media players, etc).  In addition Rogue Amoeba also created an app called Airfoil Speakers that can be hosted on an Ipod Touch or Iphone as well as on a PC.  Most important is that the Airfoil program can synchronize the playback on all devices that Airfoil sees (both hard devices like the new Apple TV or Airport Express, as well as soft devices hosting the Airfoil Speakers App)… 

Couple the power of Airfoil and its Airfoil Speakers to an Airfoil Speakers Plug-in for the WDC Live Plus (essentially another App like the Netflix Player) and a real power house is born.  For instance a living room WD Live can be coupled to a Yard WD Live Plus for Party mode, all playing the exact same music at the same time.  Individual volume controls allow complete tailoring of the sound, and a remote app allows control of the sources from any smart phone.  Currently the WD Live Plus cannot do this, but it has the processing power, so…

Does WD provide any facilty for Plug-In development?  I would like to develop an Airfoil Speakers Plug-in for the WD Live Plus.  For the $99 a WD Live Plus costs this would be an awesome improvement (imho).

Any help here would be appreciated!

Regards!

CRSounds

Why would you do this?  Wouldnt you have to have a TV  on to do this?  I use Itunes to do this now and it seems to its easier to have computer or Ipad or Iphone on for control than have to TV on. Maybe I’m not reading what you want the right way.   Itunes broadcasting to 4 express’s and using Itunes for controler cant see a reason to add a TV in the mix??  Just asking

Hi,

Perhaps I wasn’t clear.  There is no TV needed, the WD Live TV Plus acts like an Apple Airport Express.  That is, it looks like an audio zone (or even simpler a remote set of speakers) to the Airfoil application.  So TV On or off, if you want to listen to audio in a room that has a WD Live TV Plus connected to its speakers you simply select that room from your Airfoil application and the audio goes there (or anywhere else you want it to go, all in perfect synchronization). 

If your iTunes already broadcasts to Airport Express’ then you already know what I mean (no TV needed).  This would simply act like another set of speakers that itunes can be broadcast to (but for these you need the Airfoil application because unfortunately iTunes cannot see the non-Apple speakers directly).

Using the iTunes remote lets you select the audio that you want to play remotely from an iPhone/Pad/Touch.

Bottom line it would simply be another input that the WD Live TV Plus would be able to play from  (this input would just be audio though).

Hope that clears things up.

I guess it would  work I just hooked an express to my reciever

I already use 4 airport express’ for a multizone system.  I can control them all or one at a time remotely via my iPod Touch.  Music selection is simple.  Replacing the airport express with a more capable unit that can do the same audio functions is all I am really talking about.  The beauty of it all is that any computer running iTunes can select which speakers they want, so others can listen to their own music in whichever zone they decide to listen in (assuming they have a remote access to their iTunes via an iPhone or similar).

I would love to help develop the airfoil speakers application for the wd live tv plus and I am currently looking at the WDLXTV community, as they have opened up the WD Live Plus for just these types of plug ins.  Would have been nice if WD provided a similar development environment…

Regards!

I’m looking for exaclty this solution as well.

Airfoil speakers for linux is available for download.  Good news is, It’s actually windows DLLs based on mono. I looked around a bit and there is an alternative frimware that allows ipkg installation on the WDTV ( http://b-rad.cc/optware-for-wdtv/),,) but unfortunately no mono in the package list.

So, if we can crosscompile mono, we could probably run airfoilspeakers and are done.(please correct me if I’m wrong, my mono knowledge is very limited and I dont even know if WDTVs CPU is x86 compatible)

However, I set this up with my ubuntu based NAS and it works great.

Anyone done this before? There is a guide here: http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Optware/AddAPackageToOptware

I will try to do this but have no WDTV so far, so cannot test anything. If anyone succeeds in the meantime, I’d love to hear if it’s working.

This would totally rock!

I was thinking about buying appletv2 for this very feature, but the device limitations are a bad joke.

Yeah I totally agree that appletv2 is a joke, but thats Apple.  Have you had any luck with the b-rad solution?  I would love to try and port the Airfoil Speakers app, but ran into a brick wall.  I even tried getting in touch with Rogue Amoeba, and they were quite good in responding, but made a clear case why they didn’t want to get involved (basically WDLive Plus is to small a market for them).  To bad since I think the WD Live Plus had so much potential, it just needs a killer app and a good following to push it over the edge.

Anyway I will continue to try and work this, as for me if I could have WD Live plus’ in each of my audio zones, I could have the best of all worlds a zoned audio, and a zoned video player.

Regards!

CRSounds

I just posted a new topic on this subject, before realising you already asked the question - Doh !

I too would love to see this facility. I already have a WD TV Live in one room and want more around the house.

An interesting article here from Windows 7 Senior Programmer

“A number of manufacturers are working on syncrhonized audio products that interoperate with the Play To feature, so we look forward to seeing how they expose the ability to (1) specify what devices should be synced, and (2) how to manipulate controls like mute and volume for each individual device in the collective zone. The scenario for casual users was our focus, and we are really excited to see where device manufacturers improve the overall capabilities. Windows 7 is DLNA compliant for media server, media player, media renderer, and media controller, so has a fantastic interoperability story.”

Seeing as WD support the “Play To” feature, perhaps they’ll work on a ‘syncro’ facility.