Icecast dev - Oct 2004 - metadata sent from windows based system

Hello Everybody,

We develop a Windows based radio broadcast system for professional 
radios and we would like to implant an interface in this system to make 
it able to automatically update metadata of an OGG (!) stream (recorded 
from the radio) sent to an Icecast 2.0.2 server.
We read about the

curl --user admin:hackme
'http://ourseverIP:8000/admin/metadata?mount=/ourstream.ogg&mode=updinfo&song=ourArtist_name+Title'

What do you suggest for a method for updating metadata if we want to 
update it from a Windows based program (which would send information 
from our system to the listener's winamp/xmms/etc. about the actually 
played song).
Should we use curl? I don't know if it is allowed to implant curl to our 
prog (or?), or is there an other solution for Windows based progs to 
send metadata to icecast202 with ogg stream...?
Is there a suggested solution for our problem?
Thanx:
Gergely Nagy


PS: Hello Karl, does this update also work for kh48? We could not update 
metadata on kh48 with enabled "vorbis-updates" :

curl --user admin:hackme
'http://ourseverIP:8000/admin/metadata?mount=/ourstream.ogg&mode=updinfo&song=ourArtist_name+Title'

Hello-

The best way to do title/artist update is through an ip socket.
The playout system should provide the title/artist information through an 
ip socket to the encoder that receives this information and passes it to 
the Icecast2 server.

We have an AAC/HE AAC/aacPlus encoder that works with Icecast2 servers and 
accepts title/artist metadata in this manner. (Since these features were 
recently added, they are not indicated on our website yet.)

http://www.orban.com/orban/products/stream/1010_overview.html

Test streams available upon request.

Most professional playout systems use this method.  For security, the 
encoder, or source, is configured to accept a connection from a user 
defined ip address and socket.  There is no username or password 
required.  This method provides near real-time updates, at least as fast as 
the playout system can provide the metadata.

Hope this helps.
-greg.



At 01:31 2004-10-06, =?ISO-8859-2?Q?Nagy_Gergely_-_K=E9k_Duna_R=E1di=F3?= 
wrote:
>Hello Everybody,
>
>We develop a Windows based radio broadcast system for professional radios 
>and we would like to implant an interface in this system to make it able 
>to automatically update metadata of an OGG (!) stream (recorded from the 
>radio) sent to an Icecast 2.0.2 server.
>We read about the
>
>curl --user admin:hackme 
>'http://ourseverIP:8000/admin/metadata?mount=/ourstream.ogg&mode=updinfo&song=ourArtist_name+Title'
>
>What do you suggest for a method for updating metadata if we want to 
>update it from a Windows based program (which would send information from 
>our system to the listener's winamp/xmms/etc. about the actually played
song).
>Should we use curl? I don't know if it is allowed to implant curl to our
>prog (or?), or is there an other solution for Windows based progs to send 
>metadata to icecast202 with ogg stream...?
>Is there a suggested solution for our problem?
>Thanx:
>Gergely Nagy
>
>
>PS: Hello Karl, does this update also work for kh48? We could not update 
>metadata on kh48 with enabled "vorbis-updates" :
>
>curl --user admin:hackme 
>'http://ourseverIP:8000/admin/metadata?mount=/ourstream.ogg&mode=updinfo&song=ourArtist_name+Title'
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Icecast-dev mailing list
>Icecast-dev@xiph.org
>http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast-dev

__________________________________________________________________________
Greg J. Ogonowski
VP Product Development
ORBAN / CRL, Inc.
1525 Alvarado St.
San Leandro, CA  94577  USA
TEL +1 510 351-3500
FAX +1 510 351-0500
greg@orban.com
http://www.orban.com

seems like a lot of queries like this have come up lately...what's the 
status of vorbis stream re-writing in the trunk ? Was this something that 
got merged in or still remains in the kh branch ?  I've always thought that 
being able to update the metadata via the admin interface for all formats 
was a requirement we should meet.  What can we do to get this logic in the 
trunk ?

oddsock
At 03:31 AM 10/6/2004, you wrote:
>Hello Everybody,
>
>We develop a Windows based radio broadcast system for professional radios 
>and we would like to implant an interface in this system to make it able 
>to automatically update metadata of an OGG (!) stream (recorded from the 
>radio) sent to an Icecast 2.0.2 server.
>We read about the
>
>curl --user admin:hackme 
>'http://ourseverIP:8000/admin/metadata?mount=/ourstream.ogg&mode=updinfo&song=ourArtist_name+Title'
>
>What do you suggest for a method for updating metadata if we want to 
>update it from a Windows based program (which would send information from 
>our system to the listener's winamp/xmms/etc. about the actually played
song).
>Should we use curl? I don't know if it is allowed to implant curl to our
>prog (or?), or is there an other solution for Windows based progs to send 
>metadata to icecast202 with ogg stream...?
>Is there a suggested solution for our problem?
>Thanx:
>Gergely Nagy
>
>
>PS: Hello Karl, does this update also work for kh48? We could not update 
>metadata on kh48 with enabled "vorbis-updates" :
>
>curl --user admin:hackme 
>'http://ourseverIP:8000/admin/metadata?mount=/ourstream.ogg&mode=updinfo&song=ourArtist_name+Title'
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Icecast-dev mailing list
>Icecast-dev@xiph.org
>http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast-dev
>

On Wed, 2004-10-06 at 14:36, oddsock wrote:
> seems like a lot of queries like this have come up lately...what's the 
> status of vorbis stream re-writing in the trunk ? Was this something that 
> got merged in or still remains in the kh branch ?  I've always thought
that
> being able to update the metadata via the admin interface for all formats 
> was a requirement we should meet.  What can we do to get this logic in the 
> trunk ?
This is only in the kh branch as an optional module at the moment, there
was never any big push for something like this, in theory it could be
merged without too much trouble.  

Whether adding metadata at the point of icecast is something we should
push for is another matter, nothing is stopping those sorts of urls
interacting with the source clients.

karl.

On Wednesday 06 October 2004 18:31, Nagy Gergely - K?k Duna R?di?
wrote:
> Hello Everybody,
>
> We develop a Windows based radio broadcast system for professional
> radios and we would like to implant an interface in this system to make
> it able to automatically update metadata of an OGG (!) stream (recorded
> from the radio) sent to an Icecast 2.0.2 server.
> We read about the
>
> curl --user admin:hackme
>
'http://ourseverIP:8000/admin/metadata?mount=/ourstream.ogg&mode=updinfo&so
>ng=ourArtist_name+Title'
This works for mp3 streams, but is not the recommended method _even for mp3_. 

The recommended method for doing this is to send the metadata updates 
in-stream, from the source client.

For vorbis, this just works - you start a new logical stream, which contains a 
metadata header, and will update the client properly.

For mp3, we support a mechanism similar to the way listening clients work. If 
you want details, let me know and I'll write it up (it's directly
compatible
with the way shoutcast does client metadata, even though, as far as I know, 
shoutcast doesn't support this for the source to send metadata).

The advantage of this is two-fold:
  a) You don't need to open seperate connections to the server.
  b) The metadata updates are automatically synchronised to the actual data 
stream, so metadata updates happen at the right time (rather than slightly 
too early or too late, as is common with the URL-update mechanism).

Mike

On Wednesday 06 October 2004 23:36, oddsock wrote:
> seems like a lot of queries like this have come up lately...what's the
> status of vorbis stream re-writing in the trunk ? Was this something that
> got merged in or still remains in the kh branch ?  I've always thought
that
> being able to update the metadata via the admin interface for all formats
> was a requirement we should meet.  What can we do to get this logic in the
> trunk ?
Vorbis stream rewriting is desirable for other reasons (to ensure the ogg 
stream is valid, mostly - particularly when switching clients between 
streams). You could build metadata updates on top of that, but I don't think
that's a good idea - we have a sensible way for that to work (the source 
clients send the metadata updates), and I haven't seen any compelling reason
for metadata updates to come from elsewhere. 

I think most of the questions about this are simply because people want to 
know how to do it - I haven't seen any sign of people disliking the current 
mechanism, particularly - have you? 

(Longer-term, we want a better way to do the metadata updates for vorbis 
WITHOUT starting a new stream, but since clients would need to support that, 
it's not a simple thing to change).

Mike

At 08:27 PM 10/6/2004, you wrote:
>On Wednesday 06 October 2004 18:31, Nagy Gergely - K?k Duna R?di? wrote:
>
>This works for mp3 streams, but is not the recommended method _even for
mp3_.
>
>The recommended method for doing this is to send the metadata updates
>in-stream, from the source client.
>
>For vorbis, this just works - you start a new logical stream, which 
>contains a
>metadata header, and will update the client properly.
>
>For mp3, we support a mechanism similar to the way listening clients work.
If
>you want details, let me know and I'll write it up (it's directly
compatible
>with the way shoutcast does client metadata, even though, as far as I know,
>shoutcast doesn't support this for the source to send metadata).
we don't support inline metadata from the source client.  Any mp3 source 
client that needs to send metadata MUST do it via the URL interface.  This 
is how the Shoutcast Metadata protocol works.  None of the mp3 source 
clients that I've seen support injecting the metadata into the stream, 
that's all done by the server/relay.

So URL-based metadata updating is not only recommended but the only thing 
we support for mp3.  While I do agree that it would be nice to send the 
metadata only on song boundaries (you can really only do this by inlining 
the metadata at the source client end), I don't see this as a critical 
thing to add to icecast, but like you said, that comes natively with the 
way ogg vorbis streams are defined.

oddsock

Hi:

Just to explain why people are wanting this feature, some people want the 
ability to generate the stream with something other than the playout 
system.  The most common reason for this is additional processing that the 
playout system can't provide, e.g. dynaamic compression of an
announcer's
voice as well as the music they're playing.

Now, there would seem to be two ways to do this.  One would be to have the 
playout system inform the stream source client of the metadata to be sent, 
and the source client embeds that in the data stream.  The second is to 
have the playout system tell the server directly.

The drawbacks with the first method are mainly that you'd have to either 
make this functionality work with all source clients, or only have this 
ability with certain sources.  That is to say, there's several source 
clients but only one icecast, doing it on the server would only need the 
server to support it whilst sending it to the encoder would require the 
encoder to support it.  It would also require the playout system be able to 
talk to the source client, rather than the server, which could at least in 
theory, be difficult in some circumstances.  That is to say, there'd have 
to be connections available between the source and the playout system as 
well as to the server, rather than merely both being able to reach the 
server.

The drawback for method 2 is, as Mike points out, the increased chance that 
metadata will not properly sync with the audio, as the process encoding the 
audio will not be the one transmitting the metadata.

As I'm not much of a windows user, I don't have a strong view one way or
the other, however at ACB Radio we've only recently found our way around 
this problem with MP3 and I feel that a move to Ogg Vorbis at any time 
would be made more difficult if it were not possible to do this with 
Icecast.

Geoff.