Open Source Radio. Murray Saul Seneca College

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Claribel Roberts
6 years ago
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1 Murray Saul Seneca College

2 How to Set up an Internet Radio Station: Why Internet Radio? / Basic Concepts Hardware Requirements / Software OGG vs. MP3 Files Installation & Configuration Radio Station Management

3 Why an Internet Radio Station? Curiosity with Linux Multimedia Apps Frustrated Musician?!? College Radio: Student Interest College Announcements Record Club Meetings Advertise College Programs/ Promote CS image

4 Basic Concepts Broadcasting Server Application to feed audio tracks to Streaming Audio Server Streaming Audio Server to server audio to clients via the Internet Internet User(s) using a web browser or application Remote Server(s) Internet Application to feed audio tracks to Streaming Audio Server

5 Hardware Requirements Type of Hardware to use depends on : Number of users expected to simultaneously connect to audio stream. Other types of applications running on server (eg. Webserver, etc). Server should have continuous connection to the Internet: T1, CABLE, DSL, Server should have sound support ALSA, OSS, etc...

Available Software Many applications are available for MS, Linux and Apple-Mac platforms. There are many proprietary and open-source programs available.

6 Available Software Many applications are available for MS, Linux and Apple-Mac platforms. There are many proprietary and open-source programs available. Linux OS: - Nullsoft Shoutcast - Icecast - Freecast Player: XMMS MS Windows OS: - Nullsoft Shoutcast - Icecast - Freecast Player: Winamp Mac OS: - Nullsoft Shoutcast - Freecast Player: Audion

7 OGG vs. MP3 Files MP3 audio compression technology is currently owned by Thomson Consumer Electronics. This company considers any encoding/decoding software not licensed by there company to be in violation of its copyright. OGG audio compression technology is developped by Xiph.org, and is considered to be a free and non-patented technology that is similar in performance to MP3 in quality. (OGG refers to a *Kamikaze* attack - video game)

8 My Linux Box Icecast Ices A streaming audio server to send audio data to listeners over the Internet. Icecast supports both Ogg Vorbis and MP3 audio streams. A client used to feed audio tracks (OGG or MP3 format) into the streaming audio server. Ices 1.3 supports both MP3 and OGG Vorbis, Ices 2.0 only supports OGG vorbis format.

9 Installation Files Icecast and Ices can be downloaded from icecast.org. Files are available for download as RPMS and Zipped-Tarballs. This website has many resources such as documentation and YP Directory listings. Required Libraries Icecast: - libshout2 - libz Ices: - libshout2 - libogg - libvorbis - libxml2

10 Configuration - Icecast Icecast uses an XML file called icecast.xml for configuration: Limits Authentication YP Directory Settings Mount / Path Settings Logging Settings Relay Settings

11 Configuration - Ices Ices uses an XML file called ices.xml for configuration: General Settings Stream: Background / Logpath Metadata Input Instance

12 Running / Listening to Audio Stream Running Icecast: icecast -b -c icecast.xml (run as root user) Running Ices: ices ices.xml (run as unpriviledged user) Playing Audio Stream: url:port/mountpoint Could create script to killall processes and then run applications url:port/mountpoint.m3u

13 Radio Station Management Copyright Issues Normally, when you play a song, you must pay to an association for artists. The College radio station gives me songs from an authorized database :) Recording Commercials (Audacity) I use the application Audacity (available in Windows & Linux) to record station ID's & commercials. Can use scripts to convert between audio compression types. (mp32ogg, ogg2mp3, etc...)

14 Radio Station Management Checking Broadcasting Statistics Can log in remotely via administrative account: url:port/admin/ Can use awk utility to create reports based on access log: Number of unique clients Type of Applications used to listen to audio stream

15 Wrap-up and Questions

Technical Support Bulletin

Technical Support Bulletin Date: June 7, 2011 Title: Configuring Internet Radio with Control4 OS 2.1 Product(s) affected: Control4 Operating System (OS) 2.1 Topic(s): With the release of OS 2.1, it is