Timed Multi-device Internet Radio

Hi All,

In order to demonstrate multi-device timing, we create demonstrations from time to time. You might have seen the Carnival video posted earlier, which demonstrated video synchronization of on demand content.

As a second demonstration, we’ve looked into live audio. People are used to FM radios, which allow them to turn on as many radios they like. By nature, they are synchronized, and having the radio on in both the kitchen and living room is perfectly normal. Web based radios on the other hand tend to be all over the place, with several seconds difference. While some systems exist to do synchronized playback of on demand content (e.g. Sonos), we have had a look at live, web based playback. We created a small proxy server to timestamp the data, allowing clients to receive a normal Ogg Vorbis audio stream with a known start time. Below is a recording.

If you want more information about any of these demonstrations, don’t hesitate to ask.

Njål