Creating streaming audio - internet radio

[DavePMD]

Hello all,

I'm not really a web developer...I'm an audio professional. My company wants to start an internet radio station and I've been asked to find out how to do it. I've been searching the web for days and haven't found too much info. I've got some books on the way but in the meantime I figured I'd ask this forum: How does one setup an internet radio station?

I know that's a broad question, so here are some more specifics as to what I want to know.

What are some software products out there that can help implement an internet radio station?

What services offer servers for streaming purposes? (aside from ShoutCast)

How would you create a player with Flash that could call up an audio stream?

When you go to these internet stations and listen, are the songs being streamed all seperate files being randomly called up by the player or is everything one big file? how would you get a player to retrieve multiple audio files at random?

I have many more questions but I know I can only ask of so much. Answers to even just one of these questions would be a big help. Giving me links to resources that answer these questions would be even better. thanks a bunch.

Dave
progressive marketing dynamics

[Jonny]

call this guy at http://www.windsurfingradio.com

the Ultronz

[daed17]

Check out my site... http://www.radioradio.us I think we are doing what you are asking about. I will gladly help you get this off the ground.

[wmain]

http://www.scriptsearch.com/details/4630.html

KPlaylist Visit | Rate | Error
Description: kPlaylist is a multiuser, multi-lingual webbased mp3, ogg, wma (and others) Web-based streaming system. kPlaylist includes a inbuilt streaming engine, ID3v1 tag editor, user signup tool, search tool, user editor, personal options, personal and shared playlists, listings of new and popular music and a quick way of browsing through albums.
Version: 1.5 Platform(s): All Price: Free Visits: 4579 (~ 3/day) Rating: (4.24 after 103 votes)

[DavePMD]

thanks for your responses. they were helpful.

daed17, I like your site. I would like to ask you some questions about it if you have the time.

davidw@pmdusa.com

[daed17]

sure ask away... I will try to answer them the best I can.

[DavePMD]

Cool man,

For starters...

What software are you using to stream your music? Player, encoder, server, etc.

Do you use a dedicated server? if so, did you rent from a company or did you buy your own? Have you found this to be the most economical solution?

if you house your own server, what kind of internet connection do you have? How much bandwidth do you use (or have available to use)?

thanks dude. get back to me when you can.

[DavePMD]

daed17

btw i emailed you too, and got a mailerdeamon notice.

[daed17]

Dave,

That is odd that you got the error. Can you post the headers here? Or try sending them to engineeering@owltechnology.net so we can see what you got.

I purchased a dedicated server with 4 Terabytes of bandwidth, I found an awesome deal at the time so I could not pass it up (it was cheaper then my buying bandwidth alone). The server is connected to redundant oc-4 and oc-12 connections, from various vendors - always check who is supplying the bandwidth and how many connections the company has for your server.

With the way we got the server set up, RadioRadio has had over 600,000 unique visitors since April 15th (when I launched it). Here are my stats for the year... Max Out: 40.9 Mb/s (40.9%) Average Out: 635.3 kb/s (0.6%) Current Out: 1573.0 kb/s (1.6%) as you can see I have not even came close to exceeding my bandwidth.

Now for the configuration, I have php 4.4 with eaccelerator installed... this drives php-nuke. I have customized php-nuke with modules for the musicians.
The software for the streaming is icecast with ices.

[daed17]

You will need to install some encoders/decoders for the audio... like lame.

There are several good jukebox apps for icecast and ices that you can use.

For the video, I have Darwin 5.5 installed on a server that handles all the video request.

If you ever need any help let me know.

[DavePMD]

Daed17

I sent you that Mailer Daemon error to engineeering@owltechnology.net but actually got another error back. they are posted below. I have another questions for you too. I was reading about LAME encoders, and from what I understand some of the encoders that use LAME take the uncompressed audio through the internal sound card and from there it turns into an MP3. This is not the optimal signal flow in my opinion. Can't I keep it digital and skip unnecissary A/D and D/A conversions? Can I use something free and simple such as iTunes to make my MP3's?
-------
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at host137.ipowerweb.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<webmaster@radioradio.us>:
64.159.95.173 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 550 Administrative prohibition

--- Below this line is a copy of the message.

Return-Path: <davidw@pmdusa.com>
Received: (qmail 67516 invoked from network); 12 Sep 2005 13:55:27 -0000
Return-Path: <""@pmdusa.com>
Received: from unknown (HELO ?10.10.10.30?) (199.103.17.254)
by host137.ipowerweb.com with SMTP; 12 Sep 2005 13:55:27 -0000
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v622)
To: webmaster@radioradio.us
Message-Id: <7a44b1dfb81f80e15acef581d13b3a0b@pmdusa.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=Apple-Mail-2-49774339
From: davidw@pmdusa.com <davidw@pmdusa.com>
Subject: questions about streaming audio
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 09:55:45 -0400
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.622)
X-DCC-ipwdcc-1-Metrics: host137.ipowerweb.com 208; Body=1 Fuz1=1 Fuz2=1


--Apple-Mail-2-49774339
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=US-ASCII;
format=flowed
--------
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at host137.ipowerweb.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<engineeering@owltechnology.net>:
64.159.95.171 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 550 Administrative prohibition

--- Below this line is a copy of the message.

Return-Path: <davidw@pmdusa.com>
Received: (qmail 20601 invoked from network); 13 Sep 2005 16:19:16 -0000
Return-Path: <""@pmdusa.com>
Received: from unknown (HELO ?10.10.10.30?) (199.103.17.254)
by host137.ipowerweb.com with SMTP; 13 Sep 2005 16:19:16 -0000
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v622)
To: engineeering@owltechnology.net
Message-Id: <4435527b7dda010182211466df0865eb@pmdusa.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=Apple-Mail-1-144760670
From: davidw@pmdusa.com <davidw@pmdusa.com>
Subject: the mailer demon error message
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 12:18:52 -0400
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.622)
X-DCC-ipwdcc-1-Metrics: host137.ipowerweb.com 208; Body=1 Fuz1=1 Fuz2=1


--Apple-Mail-1-144760670
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=US-ASCII;
format=flowed

[purefan]

geez...before I started reading I was hoping it would be cheap...now i've certainly lost my thrust for setting up an internet radio station -> it was going to be just for pleasure

[daed17]

well most of the tools are free (everything but the bandwidth), you just need to set up a system that you can use.

if you have a cable modem, just throttle the bandwidth and set up a box at your place to stream with.

if you have a free computer you can use, go get fedora 4 or freebsd and you can be up and running in no time.

you can use something like noip to give yourself a static connection to your server even though it is a dynamic ip.