How can I forward sound over VNC?

Question

I use TightVNC and Remmina Remote Desktop to connect my Raspberry Pi to my Ubuntu laptop over VNC. It works great for the most part, except for the fact that there is no sound.

I have googled all over the place, looking up forwarding sound over VNC, sound over VNC via SSH tunnel, sound forwarding via PulseAudio Network Transparency. I can't find how to do it.

Does anyone know how to get sound over VNC?

VNC does video only, not sound, AFAIK. Are you already running PulseAudio? Or some other sound server? — derobert, Jun 20 '14 at 19:55
I'm not currently running PulseAudio. However, I believe I am running a form of JACK. I *can* install pulseaudio, if need be. — RPiAwesomeness, Jun 20 '14 at 20:46
it's possible with realvnc https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/audio/ — user151496, Jun 01 '21 at 16:39

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 09 '15 at 22:55

12

VNC does not support sound.

You can use PulseAudio to move sound over SSH, though, which may be better than nothing for you.

Check out this post: https://razor.occams.info/blog/2009/02/11/pulseaudio-sound-forwarding-across-a-network/

answered Sep 09 '15 at 22:55

Nathan V

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score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 11 '17 at 12:36

According to the libvirt documentation, qemu has an extension to VNC to include audio. Some viewers, such as xvnctitanviewer, support that extension as implied by this answer support that extension. If you are forwarding audio via qa qemu VM, then you can do so over this VNC extension.

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 19 '17 at 05:51

I tested tightvncserver and got it running with xfce4 then tried remmina. I got an 8-bit display even though i had specified 24-bit. Then I ran xwininfo -root and it said X was 24-bit. So I tried xtightvncviewer. The display was nice and smooth 24-bit. So I started to have some fun and fired up the Opera web browser. It showed me a YouTube link so I just clicked on it. Immediately, there was a video that looked interesting, so I just clicked there so I could try full screen and other hotkeys the player supports. All the keys I regularly used work OK then I realized there was sound! So I think it is a matter of xtightvncviewer vs remmina. Give xtightvncviewer a try. I have no idea how it accomplished sound, but it did it.

FYI, I did all this on Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS with tightvncserver 1.3.10-0ubuntu3, xtightvncviewer 1.3.10-0ubuntu3, and remmina 1.1.2-3ubuntu1.

You have to answer the question in a rigorous manner going straight to the point. You cannot wander around relating a story out of the topic to arrive to the only interesting part the conclusion. **xtightvncviewer** works and **remmina** no. — El pupi, Mar 18 '21 at 22:28

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 18 '20 at 07:38

4

The latest RealVNC supports Audio. However, it is supported only on Enterprise and Professional licensed software. Check this article -

https://help.realvnc.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002504358-Audio-FAQ#how-do-i-turn-the-audio-feature-on-or-off--0-5

answered Sep 18 '20 at 07:38

Darshan L

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How can I forward sound over VNC?

4 Answers4

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