I need help finding a solution for an audio problem. I want to have the audio from iTunes play over my hifi stereo system while all other sound from my PC goes through the PC speakers. Possible options I can think of are to either use the onboard audio output device for iTunes and all other audio through my Creative soundcard or somehow have just iTunes going through the 4th output on the soundcard (the one only used for 7.1, I have 5.1 PC speakers.) So far it seems iTunes doesn't have the option to select a separate audio device and the software for my soundcard doesn't have the option to assign a program to a specific channel. There isn't any program specific options in Windows either. Of course I can just go to the CP and change the default audio device when listening to music but it would be nice to have everything working at the same time automatically. System is the one in my sig. Anyone know of a possible solution? Cheers in advanced to any help.
There's no easy way to do that from inside Windows. You can use Airfoil (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/windows/) to send it to an airport express connected to your hi-fi (if you just want itunes then you can do it without Airfoil but Airfoil gives you more options)
Does it have to be itunes? I'm not one one the itunes haters, but there are several other media players that have options for which audio source it sends playpack which would be an easier solution to what you want to do here.
If you buy something which is upnp, you can select the output source devices within itunes. Think its all done via AirPlay support I can do this via my laptop to stream itunes output to a linn akurate ds in the living room, while any 'PC' sounds all come from my laptop speakers. Same for PC upstairs, I can put music on downstairs while I sit reading etc, pc sits upstairs minding its own so to speak
How far are you prepared to go? if you are able to run another copy of windows just for itunes in a VM with a different default audio device, job done!
Hi everyone. An AirPort Express would be ideal but at NZ$169 it isn't really student budget friendly. I will look for a used one on Trade Me or something. I use iTunes for my iPod and the Genius playlists. I know I can sync the iPod with other media players using plugins but Genius is a feature I use all the time so it isn't all that convenient to use something else. Using VLC or XBMC is always an option if I don't want to use Genius. As for UPnP... I should mention the hifi system in question predates UPnP... and Legacy PnP... and Windows 3.1. This thing is a 22 year old Sony. It still has amazing sound quality compared to most modern systems. The volume dial is also completely analogue which is something that is hard to come by these days. Is there anything cheap that I could hook up to it for UPnP streaming? A virtual machine is no big ask. I use Virtualbox often and my uni faculty is a MSDNAA member so I have a lot of free copies of Windows to use. If I was to do that I might as well use my netbook however. I do have an old Dell Dimension 3000 being used as a bedside table atm so I might try putting XP Pro on it and just use that as a music server that I can RDP into. It isn't quiet but I can run an audio cable through the wall so I don't have to have to listen to a Pentium 4 being cooled. Thanks everyone!
I'm in a similar situation, as I have three audio devices in my PC: on-board sound, a 2-in/2-out USB device and an HDMI audio device. I've been looking into this for a while and the short answer is that, without UPnP or AirPlay, you can't change the sound output device for iTunes - it always uses whatever is set to the default device in the Control Panel. You might try looking into an application called Virtual Audio Cables, which is supposed to be able to redirect the audio from specific applications into another device; I've never tested it myself, but the principle seems sound. It's not free, but there is a trial available; the trial only supports a few "virtual cables" and adds an advert every 6 seconds, but it should be enough to test out the principle. Unless you have an iPhone or iPod touch, I would heartily reccomend a different media player. There are plenty of alternatives about - paid for and free - which can direct sound to different devices and feature better codec support than iTunes. Not to mention being less bloated than iTunes and not having a damned auto-update application which *always* steals window focus right when I'm in the middle of playing a bloody game!
I did try this out but it couldn't seem to separate audio from different sources. It does allow the use of more than one output device so I might try it again and just turn off my PC speakers/hifi depending on if I'm listening to music or not. The "This is a trial" going every 10 sec got annoying however.
I hear you, though there's a marked difference between dedicating another piece of tin to a task versus having a low spec VM running quietly in the background. If it's just for music, a single core dedicated to the task should suffice, depending on your system spec you'd never even notice it was going & it can still read the music files from a shared local dir rather than within the vm image, whereas with the netbook like as not you'd be duplicating files. Another option, of course, is to simply not use iTunes at all & opt for something a little more flexible.
