Ideas for a NEW SHOUTcast DSP - 1.8.3

[Christopher A. Haslage]

Streamers,

If you don't know who I am, I run a successful station called NexMix: HNER ( www.nexmix.com ). When I stream online, I use SHOUTcast because of the ease of use and the versatility.

For the last few years I have been using SC DSP 1.8.0, a wonderful tool that could be stacked and allow multiple bandwidths. It also told you your listener count (and if someone made another plugin it could prolly tell you how long your expected life-span was).

I too have had problems with 1.8.2. My biggest problem is the built-in codec. I think there should be an option to turn off that codec and use the primary external codec.

The listener count issue is an annoyance but can be tolerated.

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Otherwise the DSP is a great plug-in. It just needs some skilled tweaking and maybe shrunk down in size. Listed are the ideas I have for the updated DSP:

- Aim for the Height and Width of WinAmp itself. This will be a decent size and will not inhibit of being larger than it has to be.

- Allow for external codec use. I have a professional codec and it beats Lame any day of the week. I understand that most SHOUTcasters cannot afford it, that is why Lame was used. But for us who can afford it, allow external.

- Advanced Broadcast Archiving. Instead of archiving the stream when it starts, make it a separate tab after the INPUT tab. You can even choose what settings to encode the stream at and you can turn it on (or off) with a simple button. EVEN put an ID3 tag on it! Great for archiving shows!

- Bring Back User Stats. It really does help when you can see how many connected you have. If you want to make it illusive, maybe you can configure that option?

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Those are my ideas. I hope they are accepted and well read. I also hope my colleagues will back me up and even add more ideas.

Later Days,

Chris