Easily stream audio and video between two Macs

May 04, '09 07:30:02AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

Problem: I wanted to watch Live TV from a Mac upstairs in a room downstairs with another Mac. Hardware: Elgato EyeTV EZ, AirPort, and two Macs. There are some streaming solutions out there (VLC, CyTV, EyeTV, etc.), but they either do not support my hardware, or seem complicated, or stream re-encoded video only (no live TV, of course).

But there's a really simple solution: OS X 10.5's Screen Sharing, which works flawlessly and 'streams' all of my Mac's contents. The only pity is that it doesn't send the audio as well. Enter Soundfly -- it streams audio in good quality (various settings available). Now with Screen Sharing and Soundfly running, I can watch live TV and movies downstairs. Because I also can remotely control the Mac upstairs, it's also possible to start and stop recordings, and more. This works quite well.

Note: As far as I can tell, Soundfly simply redirects the audio from one Mac to the other -- the sending Mac is then mute. If you want audio on both Macs, install Soundflower, which gives you the ability to hear the audio on both Macs.

[robg adds: I haven't marked this one 10.5 only, even though Screen Sharing is a 10.5-only feature. Pre-10.5 users should be able to do the same with the various VNC server/client solutions out there (i.e. Vine Server, Chicken of the VNC, Jolly's Fast VNC, etc. I haven't, however, tested any of those solutions.]

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