[icecast] A large streaming project

Ross Levis
2004-08-06T14:23:14Z

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.