Hi I've just become involved in a company that is starting a new large project which involves streaming thousands of Internet radio stations, possibly up to 8000. They were heading towards the Windows Media format but I mentioned Ogg Vorbis streaming and they are interested. This will be a major boost to Ogg Vorbis in the market place if they decide to do it. I'm not exactly sure how streaming works as I've not ever been involved in it. I presume from what I've read that audio is encoded to Ogg Vorbis format at the desired bit rate on a PC (Windows or Linux) which then sends the encoded data to an IceCast server which makes it available on the Internet. Is this basically it? If a hosting company is providing the Internet bandwidth then I presume the hosting company will need IceCast running on many of their servers, and we will be streaming the encoded Vorbis data to their servers. Does this sound right? I just need to get the concept right before I let them know. Some other questions. Is IceCast ready for a project like this? Can IceCast run on Windows? Probably not required but just interested. If the hosting company isn't interested in compiling etc, would someone on this list be willing to create binaries that can be easily installed on a Linux server? I guess it depends on the Linux distro. Thanks, Ross Levis. --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ icecast project homepage: http://www.icecast.org/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'icecast-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
Ross Levis <ross@stationplaylist.com> said:> Hi > > I've just become involved in a company that is starting a new large > project which involves streaming thousands of Internet radio stations, > possibly up to 8000. They were heading towards the Windows Media format > but I mentioned Ogg Vorbis streaming and they are interested. This will > be a major boost to Ogg Vorbis in the market place if they decide to do it.That sounds really great.> > I'm not exactly sure how streaming works as I've not ever been involved > in it. I presume from what I've read that audio is encoded to Ogg > Vorbis format at the desired bit rate on a PC (Windows or Linux) which > then sends the encoded data to an IceCast server which makes it > available on the Internet. Is this basically it? If a hosting company > is providing the Internet bandwidth then I presume the hosting company > will need IceCast running on many of their servers, and we will be > streaming the encoded Vorbis data to their servers. Does this sound right? > > I just need to get the concept right before I let them know. Some other > questions.This is all accurate.> > Is IceCast ready for a project like this?I think so, but I haven't done any testing on quite this scale. Presumably this would be distributed over many servers anyway (I don't think icecast2 right now would cope well with 8000 seperate streams - though on a reasonably fast server it should be ok with 8000 clients (I've only tested up to 3000 personally). The only major thing is this: do they require RTP (multicast)? If they do (and they may well not), then right now, icecast2 isn't an option (since we don't do RTP).> Can IceCast run on Windows? Probably not required but just interested. > If the hosting company isn't interested in compiling etc, would someone > on this list be willing to create binaries that can be easily installed > on a Linux server? I guess it depends on the Linux distro.Yes, it does run on windows. Compiling packages for linux would be fine (I run debian, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who wouldn't mind compiling it on most other distributions). Mike --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ icecast project homepage: http://www.icecast.org/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'icecast-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
> As a guess, how many IceCast streams could be supported on one Linux PC > (say 1.5Ghz PC).Icast at one point had about 456 stations or so. We were able to do this (all the music was preencoded) with 8 machines quite reliably. Basically 4 machines sourced streams, and 4 machines served them. Only three machines were really needed, so failures were taken care of if only one machine failed. These were dual cpu p3-600s if I remember correctly. I'm not sure if only one set of four was dual or not. I suspect the source machines were duals and the icecast boxes were not. 8000 streams is quite a lot. Not to mention the amount of music you would need to make the content in 8000 streams more than trivial :) Or do you just mean 8000 simultaneous listeners? Because that is quite a different problem. jack. --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ icecast project homepage: http://www.icecast.org/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'icecast-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
On Thu, 27 Feb 2003, Ross Levis wrote:> And a guess at how many OddCastDSP clients (with Winamp2) could be > supported on a similar Windows PC.No idea, but that's going to depend on the bitrate and quality of the vorbis stream. The higher the quality, the more CPU it's going to consume, therefore the fewer instances will be able to run. Geoff. <p>--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ icecast project homepage: http://www.icecast.org/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'icecast-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
Just some more questions. As a guess, how many IceCast streams could be supported on one Linux PC (say 1.5Ghz PC). And a guess at how many OddCastDSP clients (with Winamp2) could be supported on a similar Windows PC. Are there any other solutions for streaming Ogg Vorbis without IceCast? Thanks, Ross Levis. Ross Levis wrote:> Hi > > I've just become involved in a company that is starting a new large > project which involves streaming thousands of Internet radio stations, > possibly up to 8000. They were heading towards the Windows Media > format but I mentioned Ogg Vorbis streaming and they are interested. > This will be a major boost to Ogg Vorbis in the market place if they > decide to do it. > > I'm not exactly sure how streaming works as I've not ever been > involved in it. I presume from what I've read that audio is encoded > to Ogg Vorbis format at the desired bit rate on a PC (Windows or > Linux) which then sends the encoded data to an IceCast server which > makes it available on the Internet. Is this basically it? If a > hosting company is providing the Internet bandwidth then I presume the > hosting company will need IceCast running on many of their servers, > and we will be streaming the encoded Vorbis data to their servers. > Does this sound right? > > I just need to get the concept right before I let them know. Some > other questions. > > Is IceCast ready for a project like this? > Can IceCast run on Windows? Probably not required but just interested. > If the hosting company isn't interested in compiling etc, would > someone on this list be willing to create binaries that can be easily > installed on a Linux server? I guess it depends on the Linux distro. > > Thanks, > Ross Levis. > > --- >8 ---- > List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ > icecast project homepage: http://www.icecast.org/ > To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to > 'icecast-request@xiph.org' > containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is > needed. > Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. ><p>--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ icecast project homepage: http://www.icecast.org/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'icecast-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
Ross Levis <ross@stationplaylist.com> said:> Just some more questions. > > As a guess, how many IceCast streams could be supported on one Linux PC > (say 1.5Ghz PC).Seperate streams? Probably a couple of hundred. There's been no effort put into optimising this - with some work, this could be lifted a lot further. Clients? On a 1.5 GHz server, you're unlikely to hit limits due to icecast - you'll hit limits due to the PC architecture from doing lots of network I/O first, I suspect. I had 3000 clients (though only over loopback, not in a real environment) on my old machine (450 MHz p2/celeron). Mike <p>--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ icecast project homepage: http://www.icecast.org/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'icecast-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.