Monitoring sound at a remote Mac

Question

Level 1

37 points

Monitoring sound at a remote Mac

Any way to hear sound (i.e, picked up by the iChat camera or an attached mike or other sound input) from a remote Mac via Remote Desktop? I have searched all over the app's options and online instructions for it, and I can't find coverage, instructions or capability. Am I missing something here, obvious or otherwise?

2 GHz dual g5 and various Intel Macs, Mac OS X (10.5.8), also running Snow Leopard on Intel machines

Posted on Sep 25, 2009 12:45 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Sep 25, 2009 1:54 PM in response to Steve Jolly

Sorry but no, ARD cannot transmit sound. I'm not aware of any remote-control app for Mac that can (other than iChat which, to the best of my knowledge, you can't connect without user intervention on the receiving end).

Reply

Answer 2

Steve Jolly Author

Level 1

37 points

Sep 28, 2009 1:32 PM in response to Steve Jolly

Still hoping for a bolt-from-the-sky easy solution for this, i.e., a remote-control app that DOES transmit/replicate sound from the remote Mac.

For now, what I've been doing is (as pointed out above) using iChat -- logging in on the remote machine using ARD, turning on iChat on their end, clicking through an iChat connection on both ends, then monitoring using iChat at my end. It's kludgy and time-consuming, and it takes awhile for the bandwidth utilization on iChat to fully utilize the released bandwidth when I quit the ARD connection, but it works. Sort of.

C'mon, if MI6 and the CIA can do it to us, we can find a way to do it to ourselves... suggestions?

Reply

Answer 3

Steve Jolly Author

Level 1

37 points

Feb 8, 2010 10:42 PM in response to Steve Jolly

My own comment gave the best solution so far:
Use Apple Remote Desktop, take control of the remote Mac whose sound you wish to monitor, launch iChat at both ends, log into a session at both ends, and then either play media on the remote end to allow you to hear media or software sounds, or activate a listening device such as a mikeon the iChat camera to hear ambient sound at the remote Mac's location.

Reply