Serious Lag

[DUfire]

Alright! I finally got everything working. I couldn't set up the MIME Types/ASX file or whatever but you can just open it manually with WMP so that works for now.
But I seem to be experiencing serious lag? Well, my listeners that is. I could change the song and they won't get to the new song for a minute or two. So they're pretty far behind.
Is it because I'm using my computer as a host?

[Greg_E]

No that is normal. I have about 1 minute delay on my MP3 stream, and about 10 seconds on my AAC+ stream. Don't know why it is so different, but it just is and there doesn't seem to be a way to change it.

[DUfire]

Ahhh, thanks. I thought it might've been me.
Yeah, I approximated the lag to be about 1 minutes to 1 minute and 45 seconds at worst for some users.

It's funny though, I can listen to Maple-Radio.com and interact with the DJ's and it's simultaneous [E.g. I say Hi to a DJ and he replies to me over the air instantly].
So when you [stream?] with a microphone do you know if there is lag?

[Greg_E]

Interfacing with the phone is different, because when the DJ talks to you it is going back through the phoneline to you, and that delay should be very short.

When you are a DJ and speak into the microphone the delay is exactly the same as when you play music. Everything for our streams gets played through a mixer and goes analog audio to the encoding computer. At the encoding computer we use Orban's Opticodec PE to encode the AAC+ stream, and SimpleCast to encode the MP3 stream. I also tried Winamp to encode the MP3 stream and the delay was about the same 1+ minute. I think it mostly has to do with how the encoding is being done.

[DUfire]

That explains it! Well, I guess it makes more sense.
I messaged the owner and Head DJ of Maple-Radio.com two days to ask him a few questions about how he set-up his Radio.
The reply I got was quite astonishing but I don't know much about it.

If you decide to open a maple story radio station, and we find out what station it is, you'll have to follow regulations and legalities. It's expensive to run a radio station because of royalties, and if you run one without a royalty agency, we'll report you to the RIAA which can penalize you up to $250,000 USD per song, and up to 5 years in prison.

It's not worth making a radio station when there is already one up for Maple Story.

Maurizioh

Do all those stations on shoutcast.com pay royalties as well? 70 cents a song per 1k listeners is a lot for big webcasters.

[Nick@ss]

The percentage that pay to be legal is unknown.

and in answer to your earlier question,

using a mic makes no difference and the higher the bitrate the lower the delay to the listeners.

[DUfire]

Originally posted by nick@ss
The percentage that pay to be legal is unknown.

and in answer to your earlier question,

using a mic makes no difference and the higher the bitrate the lower the delay to the listeners.

That makes me think a lot. I was reading about the RIAA's policy and they since they put in the royalties charges, webcasting charges have shot up. I'm surprised that SHOUTcast doesn't have anything about Royalties on their site, or at least it doesn't stick out.

Oh, well, I'm gonna stick to 24kps for now until I get rid of this computer and get me a good desktop.

[Nick@ss]

2 things here,,

shoutcast discvlaimer says they are not liable for any of the content on the yp.

they are purely a listing and dont give 2 hooys if people are licencned or not, people dont need licences for talk radio or unsigned music only music with a copyright.

Secondly it makes no doifference how big your pc is.

its all about your upstream to the internet that determines your bitrate.


Its always worth remembering that Upload / Bitrate = Max Users

you can get your upstream here http://www.speedtest.net

if you need to look into stream hosting you can find a list of hosts here

http://www.radiotoolbox.com/hosts

[DUfire]

I think [almost know] most of the music I'm playing is copyrighted, but I don't honestly don't think I have to worry about the RIAA/FCC filing charges...I'm only running a 3-4 hour broadcast everyday. Half of it's talk radio anywho.

Oh, I know about my bitrate. I'm probably only going to bump it up a bit because I don't plan on more than about 30 people MAX listening in on one time.
I would like a desktop purely because I can leave it on and not have to worry about it disconnecting or the battery dying mysteriously like my laptop.
Also, I can get a huge harddrive for cheap when it comes to owning a desktop.
:]

[tuckerm]

Well, You don't have to worry about the FCC as they have nothing to do with this. I'd go with Loudcity and expand your programming.

[Greg_E]

There is a disclaimer down at the bottom of the Shoutcast download page about licensing. It really is there.

With the recent licensing battle, I would suggest making very sure that you are properly licensed in the USA. If they can't get the money by increasing the fees, they might look toward fines to increase their budget. Now is not the time to be throwing caution to the wind. Go with a host that pays the royalties as part of your streaming fee.

[DUfire]

Originally posted by Greg_E
There is a disclaimer down at the bottom of the Shoutcast download page about licensing. It really is there.

With the recent licensing battle, I would suggest making very sure that you are properly licensed in the USA. If they can't get the money by increasing the fees, they might look toward fines to increase their budget. Now is not the time to be throwing caution to the wind. Go with a host that pays the royalties as part of your streaming fee.

Alright, I found a good host, but how can I be sure what kind of stream quality I want? I'm sure I won't have over 30-50 listeners. For 50 people max at 96 kpbs is 57.50$, that's not too bad I think.

EDIT: With Mouse-to-Mouse I can double my listening for free if I buy a server now, so all I need to find is a good stream quality to run it at.

One more question: How/Where do I get licensed?

[Greg_E]

To get a license on your own, you need to fill out the forms from ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and Sound Exchange. It's a huge amount of work to keep on top of the paperwork that they periodically require! That's why we suggest going with a host that takes care of the licensing for you. Loud City is one, Live365 another, and there is also the Small Webcasters initiative (see the signature in this post http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....04#post2201804 )

As far as bit rate, if you know all the people are smart enough to install plug-ins and players, then go with AAC+v2 at about 32K and save a little money. If they are not smart enough, then you should go with MP3 at not less than about 96K, maybe 64K if you aren't too concerned about the quality or are running a mono stream. 32K MP3 in mono is not the worst thing in the world, you can sample it and compare to our AAC+ stream at these links:
http://supermix.sunyocc.edu:8000/listen.pls AAC+
http://supermix.sunyocc.edu:8002/listen.pls low quality MP3

[Nick@ss]

it all depends on your upstream and what your pocket allows.

always save a little for overheads.

128k is the norm for near cd quality,

have a browse around the yp and you will hear the various bitrates people use.

check out www.loudcity.net for licensing...

//Edit beaten by greg

[Greg_E]

It really bothers me that I have to put the phrase "if they are smart enough" in the above.... I wish Microsoft and Apple would fix this for me and include AAC+ in their software so that all the dummies could use it.

[DUfire]

Originally posted by Greg_E
It really bothers me that I have to put the phrase "if they are smart enough" in the above.... I wish Microsoft and Apple would fix this for me and include AAC+ in their software so that all the dummies could use it.

It obviously goes without saying, a little extra work goes a long way. The ACC stream quality is a lot better than the MP3 stream. But that's at low quality. I'm just gonna take it it's cheap to run an AAC stream rather than pay a lot more for a high quality MP3 Stream.
I'm looking at LoudCity now, they look really good. Licensing and royalties are taken care of? Now that's a good host. The only thing is this:

AAC+ and Ogg is possible, but our current station directory has very poor support for it. Currently AAC+ and Ogg are not natively supported by embedded players. We believe Internet radio should accessible in as few clicks as possible and asking someone to install additional players and plug-ins is one more reason for them not to tune in.

That and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has some strict rules as well. But since it would apply to any host, it would be the same anywhere I went.

Well, I'd like to thank you and Nick for all your help, I think I'll just decide on a stream quality later on when I make my purchase. If it's anytime soon and it works out good I'll post a link and you can check out, even though you've both probably listened to hundreds of different stations