Max Listeners

[Sammy38]

Hello...

A simple question that I already have the FAQ answer to I suppose:

If there are 10 listeners, does that mean there are 10 streams that are exactly the same. And that is what '10*bandwidth' means? Or is there one only stream but sent to individuals further up the line? I guess the answer is the former and like serving webpages... and the reason there are many services that will do this for a fee.

Otherwise I could have 10,00 listeners and my ISP would be quite PO'ed at me ;-)

Sound about right?

Sammy

[dotme]

Each listener consumes their own bandwidth. So one listener at 128k consumes 128kbps of your bandwidth. Ten would consume over 1mbps if all are connected at once.

[djSpinnerCee]

MaxListeners = Maximum simultaneous listeners.

Bandwidth = bits (or kilobits) per second, per listener -- With Zero listeners the bandwidth required and used by teh server is also Zero -- with 10 listeners at the same time, the bandwidth required is 10 × the Bitrate.

Higher bitrate implies higher audio quality. A stereo stream will ÷ the bitrate in half for left and right, so it's two channels at ½ the bitrate.

If you over-estimate MaxListeners such that you ever have more listeners than your available (outbound) bandwidth, every connected user will begin to lose the stream (they will underrun) and listening will be impossible until the number of connected listeners drops to a level where there is enough bandwidth for each stream + some overhead.

ie: 10 listeners @ 32kbps requires 320kbps to support 10 listeners at the same time.

[Sammy38]

Thats what I figured... ah well it was a good idea. Thanks :-)

I do not remember where but I think I read about it once or twice. The idea was to send a single stream. Then duplicate it somewhere else down the line to multiple destinations only when needed. The goal was to cut down on traffic. But perhaps at this time it is considered too unworkable.

[djSpinnerCee]

That's exactly how it works :)

You can run the source (WinAMP+DSP) from your bandwidth challenged broadband at home, and pay a stream hosting company with big bandwidth to host your stream (the listeners). All you need is the outbound bandwidth to send the source ×1 to the hosted server.

Bandwidth is what you pay for.