USB audio devices

[tommyb]

Hello world
Hi, good fellas. Just registered, but I've been searching through this forum from time to time.

First, let me say I'm amazed at what you've been able to do with the WL-500G firmware. I'm not used to the option that hardware actually gains features as it grow old.

Router status
I've installed Oleg's 1.9.2.7-4, to get Samba possibilities. Using the Howto and then searching again for hints, till samba did work. Now I am in the middle of another howto, trying to install the PHP web server. Just to test how it's done. I'm not much of a linux guru, so I pretty much can't install anything without your detailed descriptions.

And now, to the point
There is one thing I have not been finding much info on here, and that would be the new usb audio features. I have not found ASUS's info on this. The threads here talk about streaming, so I am guessing it's a stream from a media player plugin to the router.

There has been talk about usb speakers, which isn't very exciting. There has also been talk about connectiong cheap usb audio cards. Now, that IS interesting. I've considered something like the terratec noxon to avoid pulling cable. If this would be possible using the router, so much better. And cheaper.

Compability
If the router is able to use usb sound cards, there should be a list, right? I would ask you to make such a new thread in the hardware compability category. I already saw a couple of people telling they got it working, so no reason not to have a list.

Extra packages?
I see some of you are installing/uninstalling packages to use different types of audio streaming. Is this a must to get usb sound? What kind of streams/servers/formats are we limited to? Can some usb sound cards work without a hdd or flash drive enabled, just by using existing firmware? I'll probably manage to install a package, but there is no way I'd manage to compile or manually adapt configurations...

Playback?
I'm thinking the router is only able to stream, not play files from the usb drive. Even if there were packages with media players available, I'm guessing the CPU would be a bit stressed by the idea. Am I right?

Video?
Although the principles would be related, there is no way to find an usb tv-out box and get the router connected to the TV, right? I'm thinking neither the bandwidth, the CPU, available hardware nor linux drivers would be sufficient/available... But, lol, it'd be neat.

Well... To sum up this messy post, what do I need to hook up my amplifyer to the router and make sound automagically appear?

.tommyb

[Graldensblud]

Have just bought the router (in the post now) am intending to investigate USB audio, will report back. Just bought maplins £12.99 usb sound card. works fine ordinarily, waiting to try with router.

Own a USB DVB-T TV tuner. FYI it won't even route the data through a belkin USB2 hub without losing image quality/audio synchronisation. So video may be being hopeful... again will test when have time.

I second the audio compatibility list idea .

[Antiloop]

here is the list,
https://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=2293

I don't own a audio device so I haven't added anything

[tommyb]

Excellent. I'll keep an eye on it, and I'll see if I can't contribute a report or two in the compability threads, later.

[tommyb]

Graldensblud, regarding that TV tuner... Well, I have a TV tuner too, and running it through an USB 1 router is horrid. However, a TV tuner is not optimalized for running over network, there are Winamp TV streams that has better tv quality over adsl than what the tuner can do with the relatively "fast" usb 1.1 standard.

No, I do not expect from this device to stream video with decent quality, but it'd be fun to see if it done at all.

.tommyb