I have NO idea where to start.

Talk about Audio On Demand or Streaming
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kp2575
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I have NO idea where to start.

Post by kp2575 »

I run a popular blogging website pointlessbanter.net. Basically it is made up of 60 really popular bloggers from myspace.com. I want to set up a streaming radio station and really have no idea where to start. I need to make it accessible to all the different writers so they can upload music and do their shows from multiple locations.

I know my current website host wouldn't be able to handle it. I have looked at the shoutcast software and some of the different options. This is something that is just over my head at this point. I was wondering if someone could help give me some direction.

Also I was debating if podcasting was just better way to go than streaming audio.
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Jay
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Post by Jay »

well if it helps to decide you need to determine what it is you are wanting to gain from such a service. How do you invision this service enhancing your site's services. If they are just doing a series of shows podcasting may be the way to go. If you want a radio experience then streaming is the way to go.
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kp2575
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Post by kp2575 »

I would like the radio experience. I would prefer to be able to play music and not just have talk shows. We already have a webtv show that does really well on musicplustv.com. Plus all talk would ruin the point of the blogs. I want the station to compliment the blogs and be another reason to come to the site.

So I think I want to go the radio route. It makes sense plus I can eventually sell packaged advertising between the site, the radio channel, and magazine (which will roll out in a year probably).

The problems I see with streaming is I need multiple people to access it from multiple locations. I have no idea which programs to run. There are so many options out there.
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Jay
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Post by Jay »

Well it would take some coding and work but you could have a main encoding system feed music all day long and then with a login or query command to a SAM system have the SAM system switch over to the user who queried it. It isn't easy going this route without alot of technical knowledge. However if you are persistent and willing to learn you could probably use this method. If you do not need your shows to be live you could have them prerecorded and uploaded to the encoding machine to be broadcast later. That would probably be easier given this situation.
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kp2575
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Post by kp2575 »

I don't want to do it live. It would be too much work to rely on everyone. If I did a taped setup could they ftp a show in?
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Jay
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Post by Jay »

in that case you can setup an ftp server on the broadcast system and have the encoder reference the show as a file and each time it cycles through it will just pull from the file. If you need scheduling capabilities you might check out SAM broadcaster for that.
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kp2575
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Post by kp2575 »

I will google sam broadcaster and look into it more.

What do you recommend for hosting, etc?
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Jay
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Post by Jay »

Check out the list at http://www.radiotoolbox.com/hosts/ Any of the reviewed hosts that have higher then 98% uptime are reliable.
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SAM is awesome software

Post by specweb »

I started using Winamp with the plugin, that lasted a whole day. After using SAM Ill never switch software. It supports Shoutcast, IceCast and IceCast and since I have both a SC and Icecast server is perfect
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