[icecast-dev] song boundaries

Michael Smith
Fri, 06 Aug 2004 14:57:30 -0000

> ah, sorry. what do you mean by the source program? streamer? what is
> external synchronization?

The source program is whatever provides the data stream - ices, for instance.
External syncronisation means performing whatever synchronisation you need to
get the data you want in a seperate program - not within icecast (or ices).

>
> btw, where can i find the mp3 straming specs? that is, i would like to
> know the data format, metadata format and how they are sent together from
> a streaming program to a broadcast server such as icecast.

The mp3 data format is available from many places, including the actual mpeg
standards documents.

The mp3 metadata format is a nasty hack originated by the shoutcast people -
do a web search for "shoutcast metadata protocol", there are quite a
few
explanations of it.

Sending to icecast uses HTTP, with the SOURCE method (an icecast extension).
Metadata in icecast can either be inline (using the same protocol as for the
clients) (though this is rare - I don't know any source clients which
support
it) or asynchronously through HTTP GET requests to /admin/metadata on the
server.

Mike