[afnog] Audio Streaming

[Mike Barnard]

On 10/26/05, Thato Molise <info at datacom.co.ls> wrote:
>
>  Hi all
>
> I am running Redhat Enterprise 3. We want to advance our services to Radio
>
> Streaming. Is there anyone who would like to tell me how to implement
> Radio
> Streaming as an ISP?
>

i believe that all you need is a computer that can access the radio station,
TV-FM card should do the trick.
there are a number of software that you could use for this to happen, most i
have seen are windows based,
but i believe that winamp, real and some others provide you with some that
can run on UNIX/Linux systems.


What hardware devices should we use?
>

a PC with a TV-FM card and a sound card (on-board or PCI). preferably one PC
per radio station.

What software will best fit this service?
>

if you are running on Linux or UNIX, i would recommend trying winamps
solution for this. it is what i have used and it has worked well.
windows advanced server does come with its own encoding software but that
ties you down a whole lot. i avoid windows at all costs.
FreeBSD is the platform i run on and it runs like a baby with winamps
software, just download the necessary scripts it from winamps site (
winamp.com <http://winamp.com>) and get rolling.

How is this service implemented?
>

you will need to locate a streaming service provider somewhere out there who
support the encoding that you are using. these are the guys who are going to
give you the global connectivity that you want. after encoding, and
registering with them and paying the fee, they pick up your signal and
publish it out there for reception.

the bandwidth that you want goes in hand with the number of listeners you
want at any one time (50 listeners have a certain bandwidth provided).
remember that these machines need considerable amount of bandwidth from you
as well. i would suggest 256/512 for a single radio station pc, if you are
looking for appreciable listenership and clarity. whichever bandwidth gives
you satisfactory results will do as well. bandwidth also is determined by
the compresion factor that you are using on the encoded media.

the encoding you use restricts your listeners to that media player. if you
use real, then they need real media player, if you use winamp, they need
winamp. the other option is to have a media player embedded into a browser,
this makes it easier for people to listen regardless of any media player. if
you want this option, find a service provider who has this provided.

We have a number of Radio Stations who would like to use the service.
>
> Will each radio Station need its own server for streaming?
>

ideally yes each station needs its own server for streaming, unless you can
figure out a way to use one tv-fm card to catch two stations simultaneously.
one thing that you could try is to have two tv-fm cards and an extra sound
card. direct the output from one tv-fm card to the extra sound card. the
trick here is to now use two different encoders for the two stations or run
two instances of the encoder, this means two network cards to pump out the
encoded signal to different IP addresses, or even the single network card
(though it may give you problems). there are complications in running two
stations of one PC. but may be there is someone out there who knows how to
get it done better.
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