Network audio system

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The Network Audio System (NAS) is a transparent client-server audio system.

It was originally developed by Netword Computing Devices (NCD). It has already been implemented on many platforms .

For audio, NAS is something like the X server for graphics . It can be used anywhere where sound from the remote computer is to be played on the local computer. Appropriately, from an application started remotely, both the display (DISPLAY environment variable) and the sound (AUDIOSERVER environment variable) are redirected to the user's computer. However, the following properties also allow a different use than the one originally planned.

properties

  • Hardware-independent sound over the network
  • Many sound formats
  • Caching audio in the server for quick playback
  • Mixing and manipulating sound possible
  • Simultaneous use of the sound card by several programs (also with different sound formats). In contrast to Enlightened Sound Daemon or Phonon , NAS is not tied to a specific window manager .
  • Free license

architecture

The server is started on the user's computer. The remote application is informed by means of the environment variable about which X server it should bind to and which audio server it should send audio data to. To do this, the application must be compiled with the NAS libraries; many applications already offer a corresponding option. Others can be used by means of a pre-loaded library which redirects access to the sound card to the audio server.

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