Hi, I am the current webmaster at WUML (www.wuml.org) a college radio station. We are looking to purchase a new web cast server which we are planning will run IceCast, but it is a little unclear on the system requirements that IceCast requires. I read somewhere that IceCast can run on as little as a 486 with 32mb of ram but that sounded like those specs were for streaming mp3s saved on that computer. We are looking to stream our live broadcast to about 100 users simultaneously hopefully in multiple formats (low and high quality mp3 and ogg). I would imagine this would require the computer to encode these streams in real time simultaneously and was wondering how much of a computer would be required to do this. We might be able to get a dual PIII 550Mhz machine with 512 ECC SDRam donated, or we are looking at purchasing a dual Xeon 2.4Ghz machine with 1Gb of ram. Would be able to get away with the machine that we can get donated, or should we invest in some beefier hardware, and if so, would this machine be enough? Thank a bunch! -Matt
<20040709163139.GA29682@watanabe.local> Message-ID: <20040709163455.GB29682@watanabe.local> On Friday, 09 July 2004 at 11:56, Matt Farmer wrote:> I read somewhere that IceCast can run on as little as a 486 with > 32mb of ram but that sounded like those specs were for streaming > mp3s saved on that computer. We are looking to stream our live > broadcast to about 100 users simultaneously hopefully in multiple > formats (low and high quality mp3 and ogg). I would imagine this > would require the computer to encode these streams in real time > simultaneously and was wondering how much of a computer would be > required to do this. > > We might be able to get a dual PIII 550Mhz machine with 512 ECC > SDRam donated, or we are looking at purchasing a dual Xeon 2.4Ghz > machine with 1Gb of ram. Would be able to get away with the machine > that we can get donated, or should we invest in some beefier > hardware, and if so, would this machine be enough?You're probably at the edge of what's feasible on a dual 550. I'm running a dual 550 myself, and it can do medium quality Ogg (~80 kbps), 128kbps MP3, and 32kbps MP3 simultaneously. It could probably handle another Ogg stream, but the load is in the neighborhood of 1.5 right now. The Ogg stream is using quality 1 - managed bit rates are currently much more computationally expensive, and my server probably couldn't handle it in real time along side the other streams. -b
Hi Adam, Thanks for your responce. I was planning on doing both, the encoding and serving, form the same machine, and I'm not sure I see any stability gains by splitting it up. Understand having, for example, a file server and mail server on different machines, so if one goes down you can still use the other. But in this case, one service depends on the other (the server has nothing to serv with out the encoder, and the encoder has nothing to send it to with out the server), so I think having these on two different machines would actually lower reliablity. Am I overlooking something? Also, I do realize we wil need an encoder (possibly two), but we haven't looked into which ones we should use. Any suggestions? Thanks! -Matt On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 18:22:37 +0200 (CEST), adam <adam@xs4all.nl> wrote:> Matt, I guess you are aware you will need : > 1. an encoder (eg. MuSE, ICES, DARKICE etc) > 2. a streaming server (eg. Icecast2) > > These can run on the same machine but its generally not a good idea > (although others may disagree with this but I woudl rather not have a > crticial system where a single point of failure could bring the whole > thing to a stop). > > The machine you mention (the PIII) should be sufficient to do multiple > encodings from a single source, although the only way to be sure is to > test it. > > Will you use this same machine as the server too, or will you stream to a > Icecast2 server located somewhere else? > > Kind regards > > adam > > On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Matt Farmer > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I am the current webmaster at WUML (www.wuml.org) a college radio > > station. We are looking to purchase a new web cast server which we > > are planning will run IceCast, but it is a little unclear on the > > system requirements that IceCast requires. > > > > I read somewhere that IceCast can run on as little as a 486 with 32mb > > of ram but that sounded like those specs were for streaming mp3s saved > > on that computer. We are looking to stream our live broadcast to > > about 100 users simultaneously hopefully in multiple formats (low and > > high quality mp3 and ogg). I would imagine this would require the > > computer to encode these streams in real time simultaneously and was > > wondering how much of a computer would be required to do this. > > > > We might be able to get a dual PIII 550Mhz machine with 512 ECC SDRam > > donated, or we are looking at purchasing a dual Xeon 2.4Ghz machine > > with 1Gb of ram. Would be able to get away with the machine that we > > can get donated, or should we invest in some beefier hardware, and if > > so, would this machine be enough? > > > > Thank a bunch! > > -Matt > > _______________________________________________ > > Icecast mailing list > > Icecast@xiph.org > > http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast > > > > > Adam Hyde > adam@xs4all.nl > > r a d i o q u a l i a > http://www.radioqualia.net > Free as in 'media' > > current: > http://www.radio-astronomy.net > > work: > The Streaming Suitcase > Streaming Media Consultant > > contact: > email : adam@xs4all.nl > phone : + 371 938 6752 (Latvia) > email to sms : eseter@sms.lmt.lv > >
<23b252e0407090944ab5f8ef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <002501c465dc$07eba230$1401a8c0@workstation> I personally use Simplecast from spacialaudio.com as my encoder. It will allow you to do MP3, OGG, WMA and also have different bitrates so you can have low and high bandwidth feeds. It runs in windows which is something you may not like and it can take the audio from either Line-in or from if whatever is playing on the computer for example MP3s in winamp.
<23b252e0407090944ab5f8ef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <40EF2520.4050507@groeneheks.nl> Matt Farmer wrote:>Thanks for your responce. I was planning on doing both, the encoding >and serving, form the same machine, and I'm not sure I see any >stability gains by splitting it up. Understand having, for example, a >file server and mail server on different machines, so if one goes down >you can still use the other. But in this case, one service depends on >the other (the server has nothing to serv with out the encoder, and >the encoder has nothing to send it to with out the server), so I think >having these on two different machines would actually lower >reliablity. Am I overlooking something? > >The advantage of splitting up your encoder and your Icecast server depends on your network setup and bandwidth availability. If, for instance, you only have a relatively low-bandwidth connection (say 150 kbps upstream, like a cable connection) from the place you are doing the encoding, then you probably don't want your Icecast server in the same place-- you would only be able to have 3 simultaneous listeners or less for a 50 kbps stream. Or maybe your studio is behind a firewall and it is impossible or inconvenient to let network clients from the outside world to get through to there. In those cases, it's better to locate your Icecast server someplace else that has a high-bandwidth connection and is open to the internet-- then you only have to use 50 kbps of your studio's network connection, while the Icecast server handles tens or hundreds of simultaneous listeners. To answer your question about necessary hardware, Icecast itself barely uses the CPU at all-- it's just extremely efficient at moving data from one socket to a bunch of others, but it doesn't do much if any processing of the data. So you if you use a two machine setup, you will always be safe using the slower one for Icecast or installing it on a server that's already running Apache etc. Encoding, on the other hand, is extremely CPU-intensive, so if you want to be able to comfortably do other stuff with your encoding machine at the same time, the faster, the better. But some people I know still use a 135 MHz or so Pentium for encoding a single 32kbps MP3 stream, and that works just fine!
Matt, I guess you are aware you will need : 1. an encoder (eg. MuSE, ICES, DARKICE etc) 2. a streaming server (eg. Icecast2) These can run on the same machine but its generally not a good idea (although others may disagree with this but I woudl rather not have a crticial system where a single point of failure could bring the whole thing to a stop). The machine you mention (the PIII) should be sufficient to do multiple encodings from a single source, although the only way to be sure is to test it. Will you use this same machine as the server too, or will you stream to a Icecast2 server located somewhere else? Kind regards adam On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Matt Farmer wrote:> Hi, > > I am the current webmaster at WUML (www.wuml.org) a college radio > station. We are looking to purchase a new web cast server which we > are planning will run IceCast, but it is a little unclear on the > system requirements that IceCast requires. > > I read somewhere that IceCast can run on as little as a 486 with 32mb > of ram but that sounded like those specs were for streaming mp3s saved > on that computer. We are looking to stream our live broadcast to > about 100 users simultaneously hopefully in multiple formats (low and > high quality mp3 and ogg). I would imagine this would require the > computer to encode these streams in real time simultaneously and was > wondering how much of a computer would be required to do this. > > We might be able to get a dual PIII 550Mhz machine with 512 ECC SDRam > donated, or we are looking at purchasing a dual Xeon 2.4Ghz machine > with 1Gb of ram. Would be able to get away with the machine that we > can get donated, or should we invest in some beefier hardware, and if > so, would this machine be enough? > > Thank a bunch! > -Matt > _______________________________________________ > Icecast mailing list > Icecast@xiph.org > http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast >Adam Hyde adam@xs4all.nl r a d i o q u a l i a http://www.radioqualia.net Free as in 'media' current: http://www.radio-astronomy.net work: The Streaming Suitcase Streaming Media Consultant contact: email : adam@xs4all.nl phone : + 371 938 6752 (Latvia) email to sms : eseter@sms.lmt.lv
<23b252e0407090944ab5f8ef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <016901c465ea$a1cdfac0$0864a8c0@desk>> ...I think > having these on two different machines would actually lower > reliablity. Am I overlooking something?I can say that Icecast and its sources (liveice or darkice) are very very stable. We never had had problems with having live source and icecast on one machine (and even archiving mechanism). Right now, we have icecast and darkice running 24/7 for 31 days without any problem.> Also, I do realize we wil need an encoder (possibly two)darkice is capable of creating different streams (mp3 and ogg) in different qualities from one source (soundcard). The problem is, it seems to be pretty cpu intens. We are running a P4 2GHz live encoding 3 streams: 128, 56 and 32 kbps with quality 0.8 and needs up to 60% of CPU load. Before darkice and icecast2 we used liveice and icecast1 which produced a 128 and 48 kbps mp3 stream using 60% CPU on a Duron 600 or so. Quite strange. But you will never need that much RAM ;-) Maybe 10 MB on top of your system's memory needs. regards, Enrico
<23b252e0407090944ab5f8ef@mail.gmail.com> <016901c465ea$a1cdfac0$0864a8c0@desk> Message-ID: <1893925021.20040710094943@tcom.ru> Friday, July 9, 2004, 11:26:28 PM, Enrico wrote: EM> darkice is capable of creating different streams (mp3 and ogg) in different EM> qualities from one source (soundcard). The problem is, it seems to be pretty EM> cpu intens. We are running a P4 2GHz live encoding 3 streams: 128, 56 and 32 EM> kbps with quality 0.8 and needs up to 60% of CPU load. EM> Before darkice and icecast2 we used liveice and icecast1 which produced a EM> 128 and 48 kbps mp3 stream using 60% CPU on a Duron 600 or so. Quite EM> strange. for example I run 6 VBR MP3s at average 128 kbps and 1 VBR ogg at average 78 kbps and quality of 1.5 on a P4 2.4GHz. It runs at a load of 75% -- Best regards, Andrey V. Semyonov mailto:wilfre@tcom.ru