I am currently playing music over my stereo from an old laptop. I am doing this by using VNC and iTunes.
However, this is pretty cumbersome and instead, I would like to be able to run iTunes on my main PC and have the music play on my stereo, which is hooked up to the other laptop. I don’t want any other sounds other than iTunes (or apps I explicitly allow) to be played over the stereo.
Can I do this in Windows? Can I do this with some Linux-app, using cygwin?
Is the other laptop running iTunes?
Are both computers hooked up to your home network?
I am by no means knowledgeable on networks, but I do know that I can play my girlfriend’s music on my laptop because she shares her library over the network. All through iTunes - no fancy scripting or whatever necessary.
The other laptop is running iTunes and playing media shared by my primary PC. I currently log on to that laptop remotely using VNC to access iTunes on the other PC. It’s a bit cumbersome, though, even when I leave the VNC window open all the time.
So why not just share the library? Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Sharing and click “Share my library on my local network”.
I understand the question. I’m doing the same exact thing except I’m on a couple of macs and I agree it’s somewhat cumbersome. This is not the same as sharing your library as others have suggested.
In my case, I have a mac mini connected to my whole house stereo and to the TV. Said machine has all my video and music library on it. I control it by screen sharing (VNCing) to it from my laptop. I do this because the mac mini does not have a keyboard or mouse. In my case, it’s not too bad because I can also use the apple remote to say select a TV show, movie or playlist to listen to. If I want to do something complicated I have to screen share in with my laptop.
The downside to this approach is that media doesn’t actually reside on my laptop. So if I take my laptop off my network, I don’t have access to my music (actually I have a separate copy on my laptop, which presents a whole different set of challenges).
If you have an iPod touch or an iPhone the remote app will give you a little better control over your library but it’s not going to replicate the functionality of VNCing into your iTunes.
One option, I’ve been considering is splitting my library so that the TV and movies were on the HTPC and the music was on my laptop only. Then hooking up an airport express to shoot the sound over to my stereo. One disadvantage I see to this, is when I’m listening to music, it’s cool to turn on the TV and see the full screen artwork thing. Another disadvantage is when purchasing music and video, I’d have to be careful to only buy video OR music when I purchase to make sure the correct file gets into the correct library.