96kbps good enough for second life streaming?

Talk about Audio On Demand or Streaming
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skip65techno
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96kbps good enough for second life streaming?

Post by skip65techno »

Hello, I'm trying to set up a stream of my own audio material on my land in second life. Ive found one company http://www.speedhosting.co.uk/services/ ... osting.php that seems to be really cheap.
What i'd like to know is, firstly whats the disadvantages with the service they are offering? Secondly, is 96kbps really that bad quality? - the music I will be streaming is electronic, minimal stuff.
Thanks for any help in advance.
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Jay
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Post by Jay »

well at that price I would be surprised if they are around for long. That is real cheap.
- Jay
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mouse2mouse
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Post by mouse2mouse »

To answer your question - 96 kbps is fine for music quality streaming if you are clever with a bit of audio processing - I would suggest it would equate to a FM radio signal - should you use a decent mp3 codec to broadcast with.

If you want a reliable host - look at the hosting section of this website to get a better idea of the established companies - as well as some useful independent reviews and stats.
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skip65techno
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Post by skip65techno »

Hi,
Cheers for your reply, very helpful!
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skip65techno
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Post by skip65techno »

Hi, ok now i'm confused about which bitrate to go for...
I'd like decent enough quality with no twinkly artefacts in the sound when streaming into second life. I kind of thought 96 would be the minimum to go for but I guess it all depends on how you encode and to what format...
I have been reading this forum trying to find answers but there is just so much stuff i'm a little confused. Any help on this minefield would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers
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Jay
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Post by Jay »

Unfortunately this is a subjective matter. Quality and artifacts are going to be in any stream. A few possible reasons for lower then reasonable quality is. Poor source content encoding. Poor quality source encoder/player. Misconfigured encode settings.

If you are certain you have configured everything correctly for your 96kbps stream then you need to upgrade the bitrate to allow for more information and less possible artifact loss. However if you are an audiophile then you will probably be disappointed with the standard codec settings. Tune into different stations at varying bitrates to determine what is possible with a given bitrate.
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mouse2mouse
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Post by mouse2mouse »

Agree with Jay on this one....tune into a few stations either here on radiotoolbox or at www.shoutcast.com - try to select one or two at 192kbps, one or two at 128kbps and one or two at 96kbps.

As already mentioned - much depends on the quality of input source and processing that the station utilises - so even at the same bitrate - you will probably notice differences.

One of our clients streams at 112kbps in stereo at 44.1khz sample rate. We assisted them in setting up their stream using SAM4 Broadcaster + some external processors.

In my opinion - it's a pretty good signal at that bitrate -

See what you think here
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skip65techno
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Post by skip65techno »

thanks for that you've been most helpful.
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