Listening to Spotify through the Xbox 360 (or Wii, or PS3, or media centres)

I love Spotify, I love the Xbox 360. I love the way you can listen to your own music whilst playing games. I didn't like the way there was no way to listen to Spotify whilst playing games.

So with the digital equivalent of gaffer tape. I found a way. :)

I knew I needed to capture the output of Spotify, and convert it into a form that the Xbox 360 would be able to understand. I also wanted to be able to play the output live, so I could start listening immediately as opposed to recording an hour of Spotify output, then listening to that hour.

In the end my solution was as follows:

• Broadwave - captures audio from any recording device, and serves it up as an "Internet radio station".
• TVersity - reads the "Internet radio station", and acts as a UPnP media centre for the Xbox 360 to connect to.
  

Below are some tips for setting these things up. I've not included a full step-by-step install guide because to be frank this is not amateur stuff. If you need help installing an application you probably aren't going to get all this to work together!

Setting up Broadwave

During this process you may need to accept any firewall requests that come up, depending on your installed firewall software. Make sure to allow incoming and outgoing connections if given the option.

1. Download and install Broadwave.
   
2. Click streams.
3. Click live tab.
4. Click add stream.
5. Change "Sound in" device to the general sound output of your PC (will be something like "Rec. playback", or "Wave out", or "Direct Sound Out"). If you don't have a recording device like this, see "No direct sound recording device" section below.
6. Click OK.
7. Click General tab.
8. Change Minimum speed for broadband to 256kbps (This will keep the sound quality at a reasonable level).
9. Click OK.

WARNING:- At this point you've got your own "Internet radio station" running on your computer. I don't recommend testing it on the same computer, as this would create a feedback loop resulting in some very nasty sounds. ;)

Setting up TVersity

Again, during this process, you may need to accept any firewall requests that come up, depending on your installed firewall software. Make sure to allow incoming and outgoing connections if given the option.

1. Install TVersity as standard.
2. In the library, click "Internet Media", then "Internet Audio".
3. Click "Add Item".
4. Enter http://localhost:88/broadwave.asx?src=1&kbps=256 in Audio URL.
5. Enter a suitable title.
6. Click Submit.

If all goes well there should be no error messages, and you can now serve up the output from your PC to the Xbox 360.

Accessing from the Xbox

Simple go to "My music" and TVersity should show up as a music source. From there you should be able to select your stream within the "Songs" menu.

Connected, but no Sound?

1. Check you haven't muted the PC. The direct sound out recording devices literally record what gets output by the PC.
2. Check you chose a relevant recording device. Again if you haven't got an appropriate recording device, see below.

No direct sound recording device?

The first time I used this solution I didn't have a direct recording device built into the laptop, the only recording options were "line in" and "microphone". I got round this by using a USB sound card I had sitting around: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=34128 (other USB sound cards are available but this one definitely works). Plugging this in added the required recording device to the options.

Now I have sound coming out of both my PC and my Xbox!?

If you're like me and don't have a physical volume control on your PC/laptop, just plug in headphones, or preferably any line in cable to the head phone socket. This should shut it up ;). Don't mute it in the volume control.

Finally

Hope this helps some people out there enjoy Spotify a little more! It should work with any device that supports UPnP (Wii, PS3, Media centres etc.). Usual disclaimers apply: the above may not work for you, don't hold me libel if your PC rises up against you and eats your pets or anything.

Comments welcome. Please let me know any improvements you come up with or if this helped you at all!

Credit to http://dempah.com/innehall/18-teknik/340-spotify-till-xbox-360.html for filling in the final blank in my solution. I found their overall solution a little too complex, but the TVersity part of it was what I was missing!