Netbook Network

Portable media players these days are quite popular, even surpassing the popularity of the netbook or ultraportable. One thing that portable media players generally lack, though, are external speakers. Want to share music with friends? Better bring along some battery powered speakers with you. Fortunately, there’s a way to use your netbook/laptop speakers with your media player, and chances are you’ll always have your netbook/laptop on hand with your media player. Here’s how to set it up.

Before we start, you may ask: Well, couldn’t you just play the music off of the netbook/laptop directly? It depends on whether or not the music can be properly transferred to the netbook/laptop – especially if you’re using a device that’s not your own. And besides, who carries around a sync cable to plug into a friend’s netbook/laptop anyway?

You’ll need three things: A netbook/laptop that runs Windows, a portable media player, and a male to male 3.5MM cable. If you don’t have a male to male cable laying around, you can get one for a few bucks off of Amazon.

Let’s get started.

1. Hook up the 3.5MM cable to your PMP and netbook/laptop’s microphone input. Look for a little icon that has a mic on it – that’s what you need to plug into. It’s not the same as where you plug in headphones.
2. Hit the Start Orb and search for “Sound“. Look for the entry under the Control Panel category (not Sound Recorder!).
3. Go to the “Recording” tab and click on the microphone input. If you have two, begin to play something on the PMP and see which of the microphones react (green bar on the right).
4. Once you’ve found the microphone input you’ll be using, click on “Properties“. If an “Enhancements” tab is available, go there and check off “Disable all Enhancements“.
5. Head over to the “Listen” tab and check off “Listen to this device“. The content that you’re playing on your PMP should now be coming out of your speakers.
6. Can’t hear anything? Turn up the volume and/or head over to the “Levels” tab and increase the Microphone Boost.

You’re set! If the quality of the content that’s flowing from your PMP to your speakers sounds really awful, poke around to see if you have microphone enhancements enabled (some netbook/laptop owners may have to head over to the Realtek audio control panel).

To stop playing back content from the PMP, head back over to the Microphone Properties and un-check “Listen to this device“.