Streaming Multiple USB Audio Inputs

[mossball765]

Hi Everyone,

I'm working on a project for my thesis, and I've hit a bit of a snag in the process.

Right now, I've designed and built 3 usb audio inputs that are connected and working (arecord makes great sample clips) with the pi (running raspbian). The issue I've encountered is trying to find some software to stream these inputs out across my network to remotely located Pi's (which are connected to remote speaker systems). I need a program that I can run multiple instances of, and that I can launch using python scripts. The idea is to be able to send each input to a remotely located Pi (or some combination thereof). So for 3 inputs, and 3 remote pi's, there are 9 possible combinations of outputs (input1 to pi1, input1 to pi2, input1 to pi3, ect...)

I suspect that the processing power of the Pi is a little low to accomplish this, but it's really just a proof of concept. I've spent months researching and trying to find an answer to this problem, but to no avail. I've tried using Gstreamer with some minor success, but the stream was very choppy and had a lot of dropped frames (I was only using one usb input connected at that time too). It's possible that I may have missed something in the pipeline configuration though.

I'm a bit new to using linux, but I'm starting to come around on the command line. Keeping that in mind, any advice or guidance you could give would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Stephen

[mossball765]

Just an FYI for anyone who stumbles across this in the search:

The Pi was not able to process the incoming USB data from 3 audio codecs fast enough to support streaming. 2 codecs worked with some patchy results ( at 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, MP3 encoded bitrate=192 ). Using darkice and Icecast2 to stream the audio worked well, but only worked reliably when using only 1 audio codec. Connecting a second codec caused the USB to drop packets and the stream to degrade and skip (also, audio sounded "Chipmunk-ish").

Stephen

[wp666]

Thanks a lot for this. Bookmarking it for future reference as this is something I want toy around with.

Ben

[mossball765]

I'll try to make up a project file in the near future to describe, in detail, what it is I'm working on. It won't be this month unfortunately, as I'm swamped trying to finish the project, preparing to graduate, and move to start a new job.

I'll see if I can post some of the details in the coming weeks as I work on my final thesis report.

Stephen