Icecast - Aug 2004 - The future for open streaming solutions at the BBC?

Hi all,

I recently emailed a query to the maintainers of BBC London website
(http://bbc.co.uk/london)  asking if they had any plans to move away from
Real Server as a means for streaming audio and Video of their live radio
and tv broadcasts to something a bit more cross platform like OGG/Vorbis
or even MP3's. The reply I received was :

"I'm afraid we only plan to use Real Player files for our video and
audio
clips for a while yet. This is mainly because the Real Servers are much
easier to support for the BBC and because Real Servers can handle the
traffic that the BBC Website places on them, unlike some other products.

We are looking into more formats and I will take up this matter with BBC
Technology who deal with streaming audio and video."

So my question is what resources are avaible to convince the techies at
the BBC that an open source solution is just as robust if not more so than
Real Networks solution. Do things like Icecast scale well or the Helix DNA
server? What comparisons, if any, are availiable for the best server
serving the best media format (OGG, MP3, RA's QT etc)? Is there a cast
iron argument I can put to the BBC?

Cheers,

Damon.

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Hi:

I take it you're aware that some BBC people are already interested in the
vorbis format and that there were some streams up for awhile.  See
http://support.bbc.co.uk/ogg/

The most recent update isn't particularly encouraging.

Geoff.

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> Don't forget that the BBC have already done some initial analysis 
> http://support.bbc.co.uk/ogg/  but they seemed to have a problem
> with
> staff support than anything else.
<p>It leads one to wonder if one might grab icecast2 by the horns and
turn it into a '1-click install' ...

And while icecast2 comes with reasonable defaults and really isn't
hard to set up, a DEAD-SIMPLE initial-setup wizard and along with
the win32 binary (apologies if such a thing already exists), and/or
a 'beginners' setup shell-script for 'nixes which could build
initial config files and launch the server (so that total time to
get a stream up & running is reduced to, say, '30 seconds' versus
'2
minutes and a little bit of reading') could be beneficial.


--
Icecast2 requires authentication to stream audio.  Pick a password
that source clients will authenticate with.

Enter a password: [           ]

Re-enter password: [           ]

--
What is the target audience?

* 14.4kbps modem, mono  (-q0 --resample 11025 --downmix)
* 28.8kbps modem, mono  (-q-1 --resample 22050 --downmix)
* 28.8kbps modem, stereo (-q-1 --resample 16000)
* 33.6kbps modem
. 
.
.
--
Icecast serves streams by associating a stream with a filename to
request.  (eg. http://yoyodyne.net:8000/faststream.ogg)

Enter the virtual filename to be used for clients to request:
[ slowstream.ogg ]

.
* would you like to set up another stream?
* would you like to set up relaying now? (sending audio from one
icecast server to another)
* would you like to launch icecast now?
* Ok! The server is up... tell clients to connect to
http://yoyodyne.net:8000/slowstream.ogg to listen, or link it rom
your web page.

The source of the audio stream should connect to (soandso) and enter
the password (soandso)...
.
.

<p>The idea is to 'stupidify' setup so people can get running in
seconds, get results, and THEN go back and read documentation.  I
agree, not the best policy perhaps, but nonetheless...

<p>Comments?
~HJ

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On Thu, 2003-03-20 at 00:11, Damon LoCascio wrote:
> "I'm afraid we only plan to use Real Player files for our video
and audio
> clips for a while yet. This is mainly because the Real Servers are much
> easier to support for the BBC and because Real Servers can handle the
> traffic that the BBC Website places on them, unlike some other products.
> 
> We are looking into more formats and I will take up this matter with BBC
> Technology who deal with streaming audio and video."
> 
> So my question is what resources are avaible to convince the techies at
> the BBC that an open source solution is just as robust if not more so than
> Real Networks solution. Do things like Icecast scale well or the Helix DNA
> server? What comparisons, if any, are availiable for the best server
> serving the best media format (OGG, MP3, RA's QT etc)? Is there a cast
> iron argument I can put to the BBC?
One of the key points with this sort of server is that you saturate
network before anything else. It would be nice to have access to setups
where obscenely high load can be achieved but many of the developers
don't have access to that equipment so it will be hard to give figures
and comparisons.

Don't forget that the BBC have already done some initial analysis 
http://support.bbc.co.uk/ogg/  but they seemed to have a problem with
staff support than anything else.

karl.

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