Editing User:Aaronshaw/audio setup

== The problem ==

I have an amplifier and speaker system installed in my apartment to which I want to transcode audio ouput from any application on my laptop over my home WLAN. My roommate has an apple airport express, but I can't/refuse to connect through it. Turns out there's no need. I found two useful solutions. One involves transcoding directly from my pc (currently a Lenovo X1 1st generation running Ubuntu 16.04) via UPnP and a few other things. The other involves running a UPnP server on the laptop and connecting remotely from the phone. It took me a somewhat lazy Saturday morning to sort this out, so I'm recording the information here for future reference and sharing.

== Prerequisites ==

* WLAN with both (a) any device you want to transcode/serve content from and (b) any device you want to receive/access content with are connected.
* Primary device (Lenovo X1 in my case) with Ubuntu 16.04, which seems to come with a UPnP/DLNA media server baked in unlike earlier versions. 
** If you don't use Ubuntu 16.04, you might do well to try setting up Rygel or something similar. Check out [http://askubuntu.com/a/485753 this askubuntu post] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20140823094620/http://dpc.ucore.info/blog/2012/11/07/dlna-streaming-in-ubuntu-12-dot-10/ this old blog post] for some ideas about that.
* Software to sink media output to any UPnP/DLNA connected device. In my case, this turned out to be [https://github.com/masmu/pulseaudio-dlna Pulseaudio-DLNA], which (surprise!) uses the pulseaudio server to direct media output to any DLNA-connected output. The first record I found of pulseaudio-dlna was posted as [http://askubuntu.com/a/567075 this AskUbuntu answer] by the creator, Massimo. Note that I installed the <code>pavucontrol</code> package as well in order to manage the audio output as Massimo suggests in the post. 
* Audio receiver device with a UPnP renderer installed. In my case, this was an oldish Nexus 5 phone running a current version (13-point-something) of CyanogenMod or some other reasonably contemporary Android OS.
** I am using [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bubblesoft.android.bubbleupnp BubbleUPnP]. That's a link to the free version. If you want to run the stream for more than 30 minutes or so, you may need to buy the full version for about $5. I have not tested this with other UPnP/DLNA rendering tools out there. 

== Method 1: Transcoding ==

From what I understand, transcoding requires that you have (a) a working UPnP/DLNA server setup on the machine you want to transcode from as well as (b) a UPnP/DLNA renderer. The keys here were really finding the right software. I tried a bunch of things before finding the baked-in Ubuntu UPnP/DLNA server, Pulseaudio-DLNA, and BubbleUPnP. Once I had those up and running it was almost seamless.

* Launch BubbleUPnP on the receiver (phone). From the menu select "renderer" and choose "Local renderer."
* Launch pulseaudio-dlna. Launch pavucontrol on the pc. Use optional flags as described by Massimo in the [https://github.com/masmu/pulseaudio-dlna#cli pulseaudio-dlna documentation] to do things like set the streaming codec, default devices, etc. If everything is working as planned, the UPnP rendering device (receiver) will appear in the pavucontrol "Playback" tab drop-down menu next to the application currently generating audio output and the "Output Devices" tab. Select it as the output in the "Playback" tab drop-down.
* You may need to press "play" or something similar through the BubbleUPnP renderer interface on the receiver device. 
* Check your volume levels :)



== Method 2: PC as server ==

* Open the "Settings" in Ubuntu and select "Sharing" from the available options.
* Toggle the "Active" option for "Media Sharing." Note that I have not tried this for sharing the screen or any other options.
* Open the BubbleUPnP application on the renderer/receiver device. From the menu, select "renderer" and choose the server device (laptop in my case). 
* The Ubuntu UPnP/DLNA server seems to have reasonable defaults and so I was able to navigate directly around relevant subdirectories of my home directory on my laptop's filesystem at this point. 
* Select the file or directory and, assuming everything is connected as it should be, check your volume levels :)

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