birate changes while streaming

[FlyinVR6]

check this one out.....
if i set-up the station to broadcast at 56kbps, then i walk away and check on the server later i notice it has switched down to 24kbps. what is happening is a pause (or lowering in volume/output due to the style of a certain song) in the music is causing a disconnect from the winamp DSP (could be the server monitor too) and since it's set to auto-reconnect, it does so, but at 24kbps instead of the initial 56kbps. the funny thing is after i go to the encoder tab to see where the bitrate is set at, it still says 56kbps (stereo) even though it reconnected at 24kbps.....go figure?!?!?!? it's really pissing me off because i can't seem to fight off enough of these little bugs to just relax and feel confident in knowing i'll have a rock-steady stream being broadcasted without any problems.
thanks in advance for any help,

[SwissBen]

I have exactly the same problem. For no reason the bitrate falls to 24kbps. I have to then change it to something else and go back on the desired bitrate (128kbps in my case). The problem is that when doing so I lose connection to my listeners.

Any help ?

[club977]

Do any of you guys broadcast at more than one bitrate on the same computer using DSP stacker or two soundcards, etc?

[Kambriel]

You must be using the new DNAS/DSP combo. My bitrate kept bouncing around from stereo to mono to 24kbps to 128kbps and all points inbetween. I reverted back to my previous setup and am waiting for the bug fixes...

[FlyinVR6]

i just upgraded my versions to the latest available and am only running one stream to shoutcast. it goes from 56kbps in stereo to 24kbps mono, and stays there unless i manually disconnect and restart the stream from 56kbps. like i said though in my initial post, if i go to the encoder tab after the stream has downgraded to the 24kbps, it still says 56kbps (stereo). so for some reason when winamp reconnects, it does so at 24kbps no matter what stream you're running.

[dixon]

hi

i think i've found a workaround. all my mp3s in my playlist are in bitrate 128kb/s or bigger except one. it is 64kb/s. when winamp starts playing it the dsp disconnects and reconnect at 24kb/s. so try to keep your play list in consistent bitrate.



Deyan

[kjack]

I'm having the same problem, but we are encoding our live broadcast. I was testing out the difference (if any) between switching the input from stereo to mono (we broadcast at 56k in mono to improve clarity) when I did this, while it didn't show anything on the DSP, all the streams dropped to 22 mono. I did it again, and the same thing happened. I think there is either some type of bug in the DSP, or maybe it just doesn't like sudden changes in the imput (source). I would agree with the previous posting that it may be triggered by a change in bps encoding. Just a thought.

[SwissBen]

Only one stream and yes I use the latest DNSA/DSP. I think I do have one MP3 that use a lower bitrate than 128kbps. That may be the problem. It seems that even though you set the bitrate to 128kbps for broadcasting, when the DSP disconnects and reconnects it doesn't care what bitrate you chose. It just use the default 24kbps.

Is there a bug reporting page on shoutcast website ?

[trey007]

My friend and I have just setup our SHOUTcast server for our LAN (not enough bandwidth for Internet), and we are running 3 broadcasts and 1 server. We are experiencing the same problem with the disconnects and bitrate default setting. We have noted that the only broadcasts that are doing this are the remote broadcasts. The server is running the 3rd stream with no problems and has been up for at 3 days now. We can't seem to figure what is causing the connection between the server and broadcast stations to reset. The config files don't seem to contain anything relating to this, but it definitely appears to be a problem with resetting fo this connection. The default bitrate for broadcasting is 24 kbps Mono, but technically once the stream is setup, it shouldn't stop for no reason. Anyone have any luck out there?

[quackPOT]

I had this same problem for awhile, been like a week now since it happened last. Come to think of it, I have some higher than 128 bitrate mp3s floating around in the playlist. I'll see if I can recreate this after work tonight.

[FlyinVR6]

the stream was doing just fine for a long time since the last reset to 24kbps until i came home tonite to find it had happened again. I took your advice and removed the few MP3's that i had in the playlist that were lower than 128kbps and then i started the stream at 128 last night. i checked on the stream today from a friends house and it was still going strong this afternoon at 128, but when i got home just now i noticed that it had reset to 24kbps again.....UGH!!! I tried to see at what time this had happened, but the server monitor only goes back so far because it touches the server monitor every minute and only scrolls back for 60 minutes or something like that, which led me to vent with another post in this forum about changing the server monitor for the next version.
very frustrating stuff.
take care,
-chris

[trey007]

I contacted the SHOUTCAST bug tech support, and they suggested I try using the Encoder 2 instead of Encoder 1, and that this was a known bug. I switched to using Encoder 2 and the bitrate seems to be at a constant 192kpbs for a good 2+ hours. However, there is one flaw with this that I have found. Now my song titles aren't streamed, only song that began the stream.

[FlyinVR6]

i shut down encoder1 and i now have had encoder2 streaming for almost a full 24 hours now without any problems. However, I have 400+ songs in my playlist which equates to over 29 hours of music.....so i have to make sure that i make it through all 29 hours before i breathe easy and feel confident of trey007's explanation. (thanks a ton by the way to trey007 for providing the info in the first place) I'll post one more time as to whether I make it all the way through the playlist without any problems.
-chris

[FlyinVR6]

yep, that was it. as long as you use encoder2 the stream will stay locked on whatever bitrate you choose. i've had absolutely no problems since i switched over to encoder2.
thanks for everyone's help,
-chris

[trey007]

Can anyone figure out how to get the titles to stream again? When I switched to Encoder 2, only the title of the first song was streamed from that point on. Not liking this much, I edited the config file to stream only the name of the station until I can find a fix for this.

[BIGDADDY]

I hope you bothered restarting winamp/shoutcast or rebooted. broadcastliness is next to cleanliness. or some bs.

[trey007]

BIGDADDY,

Of course, I've restarted. I've rebooted the computer several times. It is a Windows machine, and therefore would require rebooting at least once a week.

Did you have any other suggestions for getting the titles to stream from Encoder 2?

[beebop]

Ok im new to this and have already learn more in the two minutes Ive been posted than the entire time that I have been using winamp. But now here is my dumb question. I have the same problem that you guys have. I just switched to encoder 2 on the shoutcast source, did a reboot to lock it in fillout all information and now I receive a not output. Encoder2 - MP3 Encoder-56kbps,22050khz mono. What am I doing wrong

[FlyinVR6]

i think if you just scroll down the list of bitrates on the encoder screen you'll see both mono & stereo settings. It's a long list within a small window so it's easy to miss at first.

[beebop]

just wanted to say thanks, that part I did get but I was looking around and found the posting a few minutes ago. man It took two days to find some one to spell it out for me. The Encoder 2 that I was looking for was the one next to the port / password. So now using output 1 with encoder 2 hope it works. Again thanks.