How To: Stream Your Music Library to Any Computer
Posted 03/12/09 at 12:30:00 PM by Norman Chan
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Sometimes you just want to browse and listen to your album collection at the office without having to load it all into a portable music player. Pandora and Last.fm are great web services that can help you discover new music, but they won’t let you specify your own music playlist. Streaming music from within a home network is easy with iTunes and Windows Media Player; what’s trickier is getting access to your 100GB music library while away from home. We’ll teach you how to turn your library into an Internet radio station with Apache server software and a little-known program called netjukebox. You’ll be able to browse your collection via a gallery of album cover art, stream custom playlists, and even download entire albums as zip files.
Step 1: Set up an Apache Server
The first thing you need to do is turn your desktop into an Apache web server. This will let you run the netjukebox software and serve web content. Installing an Apache server can be a complicated process, so we recommend using XAMPP (www.apachefriends.org), a web server package, to streamline the setup. This package includes Apache HTTP, MySQL, PHP, and even FTP server support. Download the latest version of XAMPP for Windows (1.7 as of this writing) and run the installer.
Choose the default install location (C:\xampp is recommended, especially for Vista) and choose your desired shortcut icons on the Install screen. You’re also given an option to install Apache as a service, as opposed to an application, which allows it to start even before you’re logged in to Windows.
After XAMPP finishes installing, launch its Control Panel. Click the Start button next to Apache and MySQL to enable the web server. The other options let you run a FileZilla FTP server and a Mercury email server, which we won’t be using here. If Apache and MySQL are activated properly, you’ll see their status as “Running,” highlighted by a green bar. Minimize this Control Panel to the system tray.
You might face a Windows Security Alertfor both Apache and Mysql notifying you that Windows Firewall has blocked these programs. Click "Unblock" for both.
Step 2: Install netjukebox
Head to the official netjukebox website (www.netjukebox.nl/) and find you way to the downloads section. Download the netjukebox for PHP zip package —the current version is 5.10b—as well as the codec pack linked below it. Navigate to the “htdocs” subfolder of your XAMPP install direcotry and extract the contents of the netjukebox zip file into a folder called “netjukebox.”
Open a web browser and type “http://localhost/netjukebox/” into the address bar. If you extracted the files correctly, you should see a light-blue login page.netjukebox will indicate to you that your default administrator login and password are admin and admin, respectively.
Create a new folder called “codecs” within the netjukebox folder, then unzip the 14 files in the previously downloaded codec zip file into this new folder (C:\xampp\htdocs\netjukebox\codecs).
how do i
Submitted by totalgeek13 on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 12:23pm
how do i get it to play my music i just get an error when i click play it says Can't connect to Winamp httpQ plugin on:
127.0.0.1:4800any ideas???
Submitted by chrlesdikkenson on Thu, 10/01/2009 - 11:26pm
/* Style Definitions */
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mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}Even better, the Orb software automatically broadcasts your libraries
to an XBox 360 and PS3 without any setup required. When I go to the
media section on both my 360 and PS3, the "Orb" is sitting right there
with anything I've imported into Winamp.
Tracking
Submitted by PhoneyVirus on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 8:20pm
Turn my old PC in a FreeNAS, Stream Music or host a blog dont know what to do FreeNAS I think.
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Submitted by Cowski on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 9:35pm
Thanks much for this writeup!! Great job on describing EXACTLY what to do! All in all the whole setup took me less then 15 minute to accomplish. No real configuring required. When I heard Apache I got a little nervous & thought I'd try it anyways. The only part I had issues with were the port forwarding due to my situation. But once that was done I was home free. I need to email the authors at NetJukeBox about a few things I'd like to see or get reconfigured for future releases.
As to those promoting Orb.com. I started going that route to see if it was that much easier. I won't lie, it was. BUT...I emphasize "BUT " the small problem I immediately encountered is that Orb is a go between guy. I mean I have to log into Orb and for all I know, they're working for the man! ;-)
Seriously though I like the ease of use with NetJukeBox. It has its downfalls, but what software doesn't?
Orb is too "regulated" by someone other then myself.
Great work!! Thanks again!
Submitted by Tolga on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 10:18am
Orb is a much better, and much more simple choice. I've been using it
for a while. Just get Winamp and Orb, and your entire library is
accessible via an online interface for which you setup a username and
password. The interface looks just like Winamp.--------------
Submitted by jerwilliams on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 9:30pm
Nice solution!
Submitted by gwhenning on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 12:09am
It appears you have to have either WinAmp or VLC player running on your system before this will work. Something not mentioned in the article. Also, from everything I've seen on the netjukebox website, it appears to require winamp on the remote "PC" as well. Haven't tried this from my linux box yet, but it doesn't seem to stream to a Mac so the "stream to ANY computer" part in the title is misleading as well. Not to mention, I cannot install winamp on my work computers, so even those windows PCs are out of the question.
Also, to orangea, check out this link: http://www.netjukebox.nl/install.php
Submitted by orangea on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 1:33pm
When I try to play something, it says "Can't connect to Winamp httpQ plugin on: localhost:4800". I can download stuff, though.
Submitted by jerwilliams on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 9:30pm
You want to click stream, not play. The play button will attempt to play the song on a winamp server.
This is Maximum PC
Submitted by brainwins on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 3:49pm
Although I appreciate the easier alternatives (like Orb), and probably they should be mentioned in the original article, this is Maximum PC, not Reader´s Digest. We read this site and magazine because we want to know and do this kind of thing our way. Like buying a PC from Dell or building your own.
Great Article.
Submitted by pengc99 on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 2:16pm
Or just install Orb (http://www.orb.com) which does all of this, and more for 1/10 of the effort.
Submitted by maskedavengers on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 1:32pm
Another alternative is Yoics, which basically setup up an apache server for you.
There are pre-configured versions for Tversity and MyTunesRSS, all of which is free.
Tversity setup: http://www.yoics.com/?p=22
MyTunesRss http://www.yoics.com/?p=23
Submitted by vincredible on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 12:29pm
Orb is a much better, and much more simple choice. I've been using it for a while. Just get Winamp and Orb, and your entire library is accessible via an online interface for which you setup a username and password. The interface looks just like Winamp.
Even better, the Orb software automatically broadcasts your libraries to an XBox 360 and PS3 without any setup required. When I go to the media section on both my 360 and PS3, the "Orb" is sitting right there with anything I've imported into Winamp.
A thousand times easier than this article.
Submitted by sub_noob 7532 on Sun, 03/15/2009 - 6:57pm
I mainly use orb for streaming video's to my ps3/xbox360 and I'm gonna have to agree that it is a nice simple interface and it's extremly easy to set up. Also I can stream my media collection to my iphone using the orb live app.
Submitted by KaylaKaze on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 3:34pm
The problem with Orb (other than that it hogs your resources by running as a program) is that it has a very rich interface that's not easily compatible with all devices.
Vibestreamer
Submitted by MenoRikey on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 11:32am
A quicker way would be to use Vibestreamer, but the tradeoff is the interface is minimal and the developer stopped working on it, but the current version works.
There is a easier/faster method
Submitted by ghost6007 on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 10:27am
This is a better option in my opinion: http://subsonic.sourceforge.net/
I have been using it for my personal music collection for 9 months now and it work flawlessly.
Submitted by KaylaKaze on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 10:13am
If you already have a web server and MySQL setup and everything, it's not bad. The biggest problem I'm seeing using netjukebox is that it gets file info from the folder structure and file name, not from the ID3 tags. The author says this is because there's not really a unified way to distinguish "track artist" from "album artist" (Zune uses the BAND tag for album artist, so you can have like a soundtrack with differet artist but still being classified as a single album). That seems like a stupid reason to me to not at least provide the option. I'm trying to decide if I feel like going through the trouble to fix it.
Submitted by prey on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 9:18am
I'm having trouble getting the last step to work. Anybody know of a good "how-to" article on port forwarding? The article didn't exactly go into too many details...
Submitted by ghost6007 on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 10:28am
go here:
http://portforward.com/
Submitted by gsxrmike04 on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 8:42am
damn thats alot just to stream some music !!!
Orb media streaming
Submitted by knight2112 on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 6:41am
Another great free option is Orb
Brain dead simple to install and lets you stream music and video. I can now stream my media to my computer at work or my cell phone/PDA. If you have a TV tuner card on your PC you can access it and stream TV.
Submitted by Fixedu on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 5:26am
An interesting way to stream your media, but I salvaged plenty of old parts, added two 1 TB HDD's and Windows Home Server for $99 at the Egg and Webguide add-on allows the same as well as access to ALL my stuff, not just streaming media. You guys previewed Home Server when it first came out, but I have not heard much about it from you since. We love ours!
I've upped my standards, now up yours!
Submitted by bear on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 7:37am
[quote=Fixedu]I've upped my standards, now up yours![/quote]
Oh, yeah? Well, up yours too, buddy!
Just jesting. The tiny formfactor is what maks this really attractive, not necessarily the hardware it's running on.
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