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PC FM Tuner Streamed Over a LAN?

Posted by Cliff on from the better-quality-sounds dept.

ooglek asks: "FM radio seems to be falling out of favor, with many stations putting their streams online. Unfortunately, many choose bad codecs and low bandwidth feeds, which make them practically unappealing. There seem to be a fair number of PCI-based TV Tuner cards that come with a built in FM receiver, and I'm interested in what it might take to stream my local FM stations to the Windows, Unix and Mac boxes in my house over my LAN, as well as my TiVo and Slim Devices SqueezeBox. Is this merely a pipe-dream?"

6 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Use Nicecast by TTop · · Score: 2, Informative

    Capture the FM audio with your tuner card on a Mac. Then use Nicecast to stream it. Nicecast can basically stream any audio on your Mac.

  2. USB radioshark + icecast + liveice by zfalcon · · Score: 5, Informative
    I just set this up the other day so I could listen to local sports broadcasts when out of town.

    I bought a USB Radioshark, set it up under Linux, and used Icecast with Liveice to setup realtime streaming.

    I then setup a cgi to change stations. Works like a charm.

  3. Easy, if you're willing to Think Different(TM) by gellenburg · · Score: 2, Informative

    1. A Mac Mini (you'll understand why in a minute.)
    2. A USB FM Tuner (that's supported by the Mac). Google. There's a few out there.
    3. NiceCast, (or Air Foil) from Rogue Amoeba. www.rogueamoeba.com

    Simple. Seamless. That's the beauty of the Mac. :-)

  4. Put a radio on top of your PC by SIGFPE · · Score: 4, Informative

    I assure you it sounds fine. Well, you might want to move it slightly away from your PC to avoid interference. If you want to listen in many rooms buy a radio for each one - they're pretty cheap. Or buy a portable radio that you can carry with you.

    --
    -- SIGFPE
  5. Re:Slightly off-topic- streaming all audio by Hextreme · · Score: 2, Informative

    You could try EsounD. It's standard on Linux Gnome desktops, and I believe there's windows stuff out there for it. I know there's a WinAmp plugin for it.

  6. Currently doing it with XM by irrelevant · · Score: 3, Informative

    Right now, I'm doing this with my XM receiver (shh... don't tell them) to tune and stream audio throughout the house. I used to do this for FM as well but the server that was running it crashed and I haven't gotten around to redoing that part yet.

    Why do it for XM? I like to listen to music anywhere in the house and I don't want to pay multiple subscription fees. Why for FM? The main reason was to get the audio into the computer and converted to MP3 so that I could record a few programs that I like and listen to them later. Streaming was just an added bonus for me at that time.

    The basics of what you will need are:
    1. An FM tuner card
    2. Software for tuning (depends on card)
    3. aumix for twiddling mixer settings
    4. Darkice to read audio from the card
    4a. Lame, or other CODEC of choice (optional)
    5. Liveice to stream audio to clients
    6. A little bit of fiddling to make it all work.