Hi, In our design of Icecast2, our multiple sources will stream their high quality audio via a dedicated audio encoder (not a computer): Live audio > L+R microphone > pre amplifier > audio encoder > Icecast2 VPS So far I have a shortlist of 4 possible brands of audio encoders: Sonifex PS-SEND, Barix Instreamer, Bric-Link, Outcaster OC100. All have their pro's and cons. My main requirements are Mount specific authentication (username & password) & Balanced XLR analogue input. A very hard to get combination, as most encoders only support the Icecast2 Source authentication (this password is applicable for all mounts). Only the Outcaster also supports the Mount specific authentication, but has no balanced analogue audio input. Is anyone having positive or negative experience with these or other brands, or perhaps even built one yourself (Raspberry..)? Thanks and best regards, Maarten Netherlands -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/icecast/attachments/20150122/126ebe92/attachment.htm
Hi! I've just set up Raspberry Pi with external USB soundcard and the Darkice encoder. Seems to be working just fine (25% CPU utilization). Check this for a writeup on that: https://stmllr.net/blog/live-streaming-mp3-audio-with-darkice-and-icecast2-on-raspberry-pi/ - Marius On 01/22/2015 01:43 PM, Maarten S wrote:> Hi, > > In our design of Icecast2, our multiple sources will stream their high > quality audio via a dedicated audio encoder (not a computer): > Live audio > L+R microphone > pre amplifier > audio encoder > Icecast2 VPS > > So far I have a shortlist of 4 possible brands of audio encoders: > Sonifex PS-SEND, Barix Instreamer, Bric-Link, Outcaster OC100. > > All have their pro's and cons. My main requirements are Mount specific > authentication (username & password) & Balanced XLR analogue input. A > very hard to get combination, as most encoders only support the Icecast2 > Source authentication (this password is applicable for all mounts). > > Only the Outcaster also supports the Mount specific authentication, but > has no balanced analogue audio input. > > Is anyone having positive or negative experience with these or other > brands, or perhaps even built one yourself (Raspberry..)? > > Thanks and best regards, > > Maarten > Netherlands > > > _______________________________________________ > Icecast mailing list > Icecast at xiph.org > http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast >
Maarten S:> Is anyone having positive or negative experience with these or other brands, or perhaps even built one yourself (Raspberry..)?well, sort of, with a PI, Ices2 as a client, and an USB audio device as input, e.g. a "class compliant" audio recoder like Olympus LS5, Zoom H2 etc., but also a little mixer like the Behringer Xenyx 302 USB. The problem i've encountered is with USB class1 devices, i.e. so called "full speed" USB (which is the slowest one). It requires to force the PI into USB1.1 at boot time, which affects the network stack and probably others. The result is not satisfying, distorted sound and drops. All fine with USB2.0, but haven't found a suitable pre-amp yet. I'd love to try with a Sound Devices Mix Pre (battery driven, 2 HQ mic inputs, USB1.1 + 2.0 compliant, according to the specs). the price tag has prevented that experience so far... ;) Power supply is an issue, esp. when you need a mobile unit. Should be stable and not too weak. Overall it's nice with the PI, Ices2 is stable and you can setup your scripts for link control, remote operation, login per ssh to control level via ALSA mixer etc. pp. bests, u.
stupid me... not Ices2 of course, i mean Darkice... --u unosonic:> Maarten S: > > Is anyone having positive or negative experience with these or other brands, or perhaps even built one yourself (Raspberry..)? > > well, sort of, with a PI, Ices2 as a client, and an USB audio device as > input, e.g. a "class compliant" audio recoder like Olympus LS5, Zoom H2 > etc., but also a little mixer like the Behringer Xenyx 302 USB. > The problem i've encountered is with USB class1 devices, i.e. so called > "full speed" USB (which is the slowest one). It requires to force the > PI into USB1.1 at boot time, which affects the network stack and probably > others. The result is not satisfying, distorted sound and drops. All fine > with USB2.0, but haven't found a suitable pre-amp yet. I'd love to try > with a Sound Devices Mix Pre (battery driven, 2 HQ mic inputs, USB1.1 + 2.0 > compliant, according to the specs). the price tag has prevented that > experience so far... ;) > Power supply is an issue, esp. when you need a mobile unit. Should be stable > and not too weak. Overall it's nice with the PI, Ices2 is stable and you can > setup your scripts for link control, remote operation, login per ssh to > control level via ALSA mixer etc. pp. > bests, u. > > _______________________________________________ > Icecast mailing list > Icecast at xiph.org > http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast
Marius Flage:> I've just set up Raspberry Pi with external USB soundcard and the > Darkice encoder. Seems to be working just fine (25% CPU utilization). > Check this for a writeup on that: > > https://stmllr.net/blog/live-streaming-mp3-audio-with-darkice-and-icecast2-on-raspberry-pi/hi Marius, which audio card are you using? btw: thanks for the howto, used it while ago, it saved me a lot of try&error when setting up the PI --u
Hi u, On Thu, 22 Jan 2015, unosonic wrote:> well, sort of, with a PI, Ices2 as a client, and an USB audio device as > input, e.g. a "class compliant" audio recoder like Olympus LS5, Zoom H2 > etc., but also a little mixer like the Behringer Xenyx 302 USB. > The problem i've encountered is with USB class1 devices, i.e. so called > "full speed" USB (which is the slowest one). It requires to force the > PI into USB1.1 at boot time, which affects the network stack and probably > others. The result is not satisfying, distorted sound and drops. All fine > with USB2.0, but haven't found a suitable pre-amp yet. I'd love to try > with a Sound Devices Mix Pre (battery driven, 2 HQ mic inputs, USB1.1 + 2.0 > compliant, according to the specs). the price tag has prevented that > experience so far... ;)Shouldn't USB2.0 ports be able to connect to USB1.1 devices without changing the entire stack to USB1? Can the Xenyx USB mixers be attached as USB2.0 and do these work reliably? I'm looking into creating a setup like that with a 5-input Xenyx mixer if this works.. Best, Maarten
On 01/22/2015 12:43 PM, Maarten S wrote:> Hi, > > In our design of Icecast2, our multiple sources will stream their high > quality audio via a dedicated audio encoder (not a computer): > Live audio > L+R microphone > pre amplifier > audio encoder > Icecast2 VPS > > So far I have a shortlist of 4 possible brands of audio encoders: > Sonifex PS-SEND, Barix Instreamer, Bric-Link, Outcaster OC100.Out of curiosity do any of those support anything else than MP3? I'd expect to use a more state of the art codec at high quality settings for an "intake" stream. MP3 even at very high bit-rates has its known problems.> All have their pro's and cons. My main requirements are Mount specific > authentication (username & password) & Balanced XLR analogue input. A > very hard to get combination, as most encoders only support the > Icecast2 Source authentication (this password is applicable for all > mounts).You're confusing two concepts here: - The global source password - authentication using "source" as the user name It is quite unfortunate that many a software (or in this case hardware) doesn't support username/password, but hardcodes the username to "source". This does NOT however stop you from having a different source password per mountpoint. Just don't define a username or set username to "source" in the <mount> definition.> Only the Outcaster also supports the Mount specific authentication, > but has no balanced analogue audio input. > > Is anyone having positive or negative experience with these or other > brands, or perhaps even built one yourself (Raspberry..)?Personally I'd outright discard the RPi, due to its many design deficiencies and low performance. Coincidentally I've been recently looking into various aspects of a hardware based Icecast source, preferably open source hardware (OSHW conformant, rpi isn't), native Ethernet (USB based sucks), decent audio codec, preferably not just Line-in but also balanced inputs. I have some devices based on the Qualcomm Atheros AR9331 that use a decent Wolfson 8918 audio codec. While the codec is capable of also balanced and DMic inputs, sadly as such the devices are configured as output only. I also have, for an unrelated project, an AllWinner A10s based Olinuxino board on my desk. It at least has a line level input and native ethernet. I'm not particularly fond of USB sound cards, at least the cheaper ones, as their frequency reference is often horrible and on a professional setup the last thing you want is for your stream to run away after an hour or two. I need to do some more experimenting, but might consider prototyping a open hardware device that would fulfill all those requirements, but fit a budget. A likely target would be one of the recent open hardware boards that has native LAN and could attach a good, linux supported, audio codec over I?S or similar. Cheers Thomas
> I need to do some more experimenting, but might consider prototyping a > open hardware device that would fulfill all those requirements, but fit > a budget. A likely target would be one of the recent open hardwarethat'd be cool! why not kick-starting it? (no personal experience, but a friend realized a niche project in the $25k range successfully, so...) --u