Is there a way to stream PulseAudio over the network?

Is there a way to stream PulseAudio over the network?

There are several different ways to connect to another PulseAudio server (direct connection, tunnel, RTP) or some other network audio device (RTP, RAOP, Rygel). Note all methods described here stream raw PCM audio over the network. This can use pretty much network bandwidth (around 1.4 Mb/s for CD-quality sound).

How to control latency in a PulseAudio stream?

Set PA_STREAM_ADJUST_LATENCY if you want to control the overall playback latency for your stream. Unset it if you want to control only the latency induced by the server-side, rewritable playback buffer. The server will try to fulfill the client’s latency requests as good as possible.

What are the seek and offset arguments in PulseAudio?

To accomplish that the pa_stream_write () function takes a seek mode and an offset argument. The seek mode is one of: PA_SEEK_RELATIVE – seek relative to the current write index. PA_SEEK_ABSOLUTE – seek relative to the beginning of the playback buffer, (i.e. the first that was ever played in the stream).

Can a PulseAudio client be a source or a sink?

PulseAudio clients can send audio to “sinks” and receive audio from “sources”. A client can be GStreamer, xinelib, MPlayer or any other audio application. Only the device drivers/audio interfaces can be either sources or sinks (they are often hardware in- and out-puts).

How is PulseAudio used to share audio between two machines?

You should hear it on the receiving machine automatically — PulseAudio remembers how the audio stream was routed. This option is a good way to share audio between two machines that are physically separated. For example, you will notice that “System sounds” is a listed application under Playback.

What do you need to know about PulseAudio?

PulseAudio is a Linux sound server that, through abstraction layers, promises a myriad of flexible audio features: combining multiple sound cards into a single, multi-channel device, changing output devices on the fly for running applications, even redirecting input and output between machines over the network.

How does a tunnel work in PulseAudio server?

With a tunnel you can create a new sink that forwards all audio over the network to another server. For the sink at the remote server the tunnel looks like just another stream connecting over the network. The same holds for sources.

Can you use PulseAudio and Jack on the same machine?

Combining PulseAudio and JACK on the same machine can be problematic. There are several options, some of which leave PulseAudio and JACK as entirely separate systems with no audio flow between them. Others connect them so that audio from one of them can be heard via the other.

How to connect to other sound servers on LAN?

You can connect to other sound servers running on the LAN by using Zeroconf/ Avahi technolgy. Therefore make sure to compile PulseAudio with Avahi support and load the Zeroconf modules on all machines on the LAN. In addition make sure to load the module-native-protocol-tcp and that it allows connections from other hosts, see Authorization above.

How to set default server name for PulseAudio?

Just set the environment variable $PULSE_SERVER to the host name of the PulseAudio server. Alternatively you can modify ~/.pulse/client.conf or /etc/pulse/client.conf and set default-server. See Server Strings for an explanation of the format.

How to monitor specific output in PulseAudio app?

Alternatively, you can use pavucontrol to do this: make sure you have set up the display to “All input devices”, then select “Monitor of [your sound card]” as the recording source. Monitor specific output. It is possible to monitor a specific output, for example to stream audio from a music player into a VOIP application.

What kind of WiFi is compatible with PulseAudio?

Compatible with Airplay, DLNA, and WiFi Direct (Miracast) devices that are found within the same network, allowing for songs to be shared easily in a distributed audio system

Is there a WiFi Transport for PulseAudio?

Other tools exist that solve the same or similar tasks, including built-in PulseAudio transports. However, they usually don’t provide a good service quality when the latency is not high (I’ve tested latencies from 100 to 300 ms so far) and the network is not reliable (in particular on Wi-Fi).

What is PulseAudio and what does it do?

PulseAudio is a sound system that’s available on many linux-based machines. It is typically used to pipe audio between applications on a computer. But it natively supports sending audio through a network too, just as we want! So this post is mostly about setting up PulseAudio for a networked sound setup.

Is there such a thing as a PulseAudio server?

Server PC is computer whose speakers will reproduce sound being played on PulseAudio network client PC. PulseAudio server can serve as many clients as you like with slightly modified setup.

How to enable network access to local sound devices?

After you are finished with “Network Access” tab”, switch to “Network Server” tab and enable “Enable network access to local sound devices” option. You should also enable “Allow other machines on the LAN to discover local sound devices”.

How to disable PulseAudio automatic device switch?

My speakers are plugged via optical output. Each time my screen wake up from sleep, pusleaudio automatically switch to HDMI audio where nothing is plugged. How can I prevent that ? Let me know if this doesn’t work for you and I’ll delete my answer. I don’t have your speaker system but this should work.

How to enable all audio from all over the network?

To enable all audio from all over the network, set the auth-anonymous=1 argument. A more secure options is to manage access to these servers with an IP ACL. This can look like this in your /etc/pulse/default.pa or ~/.pulse/default.pa startup script for PulseAudio:

How is the size of a PulseAudio stream stored?

Polled – Query the library for available data/space using pa_stream_writable_size () and pa_stream_readable_size () and transfer data as needed. The sizes are stored locally, in the client end, so there is no delay when reading them. It is also possible to mix the two models freely.

Why is there a latency problem with PulseAudio?

A major problem with networked audio is the increased latency caused by the network. To remedy this, PulseAudio supports an advanced system of monitoring the current latency. To get the raw data needed to calculate latencies, call pa_stream_get_timing_info ().