Audio Over IP, Use Camera Or Another Way?

If the camera has an audio out or a speaker it is easy.

If using the audio out you will need an amplified speaker.

Check out these two links to see if they will be of any use for your scenario.

I understand that having that having the cameras UTP already installed is driving the solution, but I have several thoughts.

1) Aside from any specific implementation, do you know the impact that the bandwidth used by streaming audio will have on the camera's
primary and intended function: being an IP camera? It would be back to square one if the audio streaming affected the camera's functions.

2) You mentioned this is for listening to music. There is a continuum of "listening to music", obviously, from high-end systems to background
music. With so many reasonably priced and engineered solutions for listening to background music, including decent outdoor speakers, from
my perspective, transporting the audio signal over the camera's connections seems clunky. And, as you mention, the signal still it has to
be amplified at some point. Amplifying the audio signal is much easier inside the house and using typical passive speakers with low-cost
speaker wire (I know, I know, the cost of copper is outrageous ), and avoids having to figure out how to supply power for amplified speakers
or a "module".

3) Please see one of my earlier posts on audio alerts.: Blue Iris and MPD . While geared to Blue Iris alerts, the concept of using MPD to control IP
audio might give you further ideas. I use a variation of the technique to play audio from a variety of sources in my house, including to back deck,
front porch, and garage speakers I mention this because with background audio you fundamentally need two things: 1) controlling the audio being
played (source) and 2) controlling the volume. One convenient solution is a cellphone, of course, and MPD gives you those basic controls.

It's an interesting idea. Good Luck.

I also forgot to mention something else you might want to research. I know absolutely nothing about it other than it exists, but there is
a "70V (seventy volts)" standard for intercoms and I understand it is or can be used for distributed audio solutions.

Some other considerations....

Real-time audio streaming over LAN — simple, efficient, and noise-tolerant

"Did this many years ago with a Shoutcast server and Winamp Clients! Had it set up in under 20 mins... You might want to also look in to NDI Audio Streaming The "pro" way would be Dante, AVB Protocols"

SoundWire Audio Communication System
Turn your Android device into wireless headphones / wireless speaker. Stream any music or audio from your PC to your Android phone, tablet, or other PCs. SoundWire does audio mirroring (audio cast). You can use any music player on your PC or laptop like Spotify, YouTube, or VLC and stream low-latency live sound over WiFi directly to your Android device. Also works over 3G/4G/5G cell networks or WAN.

High Quality Network Audio Streaming
SonoBus is an easy to use application for streaming high-quality, low-latency peer-to-peer audio between devices over the internet or a local network.

Icecast is a streaming media (audio/video) server which currently supports Ogg (Vorbis and Theora), Opus, WebM and MP3 streams.
It can be used to create an Internet radio station or a privately running jukebox and many things in between. It is very versatile in that new formats can be added relatively easily and supports open standards for communication and interaction.

Streaming on Local Network using OBS Studio

dmcIPCAM said:

I also forgot to mention something else you might want to research. I know absolutely nothing about it other than it exists, but there is
a "70V (seventy volts)" standard for intercoms and I understand it is or can be used for distributed audio solutions.

Click to expand...

In the US it is called a 70.7 volt system although other voltages can be used. Used in PA systems to reduce power loss with long interconnections between speakers. The older systems used tapped transformers to set the power level to each speaker. Set some at 5 watts with others at 30 watts, etc.