Vorbis - Apr 2007 - icecast

Being one who deals with one software after another, and now looking at the
possibility of using icecast to stream ogg clips on my website, I would like to
ask before I go much further in the matter:  Is icecast likely to introduce
further issues and irregularities among visitors to my site?  Will using icecast
pull me deeper into programming, or will it be mainly a matter of setup?

Right now I simply let people download with the default open/save option, and I
provide a link for an immediate download of Winamp from my server for those not
currently able to play oggs.  This particular method seems to eliminate as many
mysterious issues as possible.
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Hello Steve,

If all you need is your users to download files to play them locally,
then Icecast is not something you need.  Icecast is for streaming.  If
you had an online radio it would be very useful to you, though.

Furthermore, Icecast is not easy to setup for the inexperienced
computer-user, albeit after setting up correctly, you probably
wouldn't have a need to touch it again ever.  The process is
transparent for the users, though.  They only need to open the
streaming file on winamp or any other audio player with stream support
and that's it.

Can I ask you a favor?  Would you reduce the font size on your future
messages?  Or disable HTML e-mail completely if that works out better
for you.  It's somewhat annoying.

-Ivo

Hi,

Sorry for breaking the threading, I originally sent this from the wrong 
Email account.

Hi Steve,

I'm guessing you want visitors to hear specific files from beginning to end.
Icecast doesn't really help you here either, or at least it doesn't do
anything that a simple webserver can't do.  Icecast is meant for live
streams that people tune into the middle of, if that makes any sense.

My suggestion is to get them to click on a .M3U or .PLS playlist pointing to
the file you want them to hear, and it should just work.

For example:

<A HREF="http://www.myserver.com/song.m3u">Click here to
listen</A>

where song.m3u contains

http://www.myserver.com/song.ogg

You can of course use Icecast in fileserving mode to serve files, and it
will autocreate .M3U files for you if asked to do so (e.g. by calling
http://icecast.myserver.com:8000/song.ogg.m3u), but installing Icecast
simply to do this would be overkill

The .PLS format is more complicated and I don't have an example in front of
me, but the advantage of using it is that you're much more likely to strike
a player with Vorbis support (M3U should open in the default MP3 player
which may not necessarily have the required codec installed).

Hope this helps,
Geoff.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve" <srussell@innernet.net>
To: <Vorbis@xiph.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 7:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Vorbis] icecast


(Yes, I can reduce my font size.) Thanks for the great reply. I could use
just a little further clarification, please.  I program with various
softwares, so I'm not inexperienced. I do not prefer to require my site
visitors to open/save files.  I would prefer to stream transparently for
those who have an appropriate player.  These clips range from 2 to 7 megs.
So trying to put together what you and I have written, would you perhaps say
that Icecast would be desirable for my purposes and would probably be fairly
easy for me to set up, and that it would not require anything but a
compatible player for my visitors?
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves
  To: Vorbis@xiph.org
  Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 12:22 PM
  Subject: Re: [Vorbis] icecast


  Hello Steve,

  If all you need is your users to download files to play them locally,
  then Icecast is not something you need.  Icecast is for streaming.  If
  you had an online radio it would be very useful to you, though.

  Furthermore, Icecast is not easy to setup for the inexperienced
  computer-user, albeit after setting up correctly, you probably
  wouldn't have a need to touch it again ever.  The process is
  transparent for the users, though.  They only need to open the
  streaming file on winamp or any other audio player with stream support
  and that's it.

  Can I ask you a favor?  Would you reduce the font size on your future
  messages?  Or disable HTML e-mail completely if that works out better
  for you.  It's somewhat annoying.

Ivo
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  Vorbis mailing list
  Vorbis@xiph.org
  http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/vorbis


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