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vincegarcia
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Paid admission

Post by vincegarcia »

More and more of my Super 70s listeners are committed (our perhaps should be committed) to keeping me on-line and have even offered to pay. I need an easy to implement technology that allows me to block all but paying listeners. My accountant has already determined what I need to charge each listener so I can show profit after 125 subscribers.

Thanks.

Vince Garcia
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ardi
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Post by ardi »

I'm very interested on the same subject so if somebody can help plz do.

Ardi,
AIR.
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Jay
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Post by Jay »

these things are possible, but it requires you to write either a front end server for your shoutcast server (and why do that if you can already write a server then you should just write your own solution) or use php or ASP and an apache server as a front end to your stream (not recommended because then all traffic would be relayed through your webserver).

There is no easy way to do this with shoutcast at this point, my best advice would to say wait, someone will come along with technology to handle sessions better. I cannot guarentee this solution will be free because you would be making money off of their product.
- Jay
radio163
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it is being tested right now

Post by radio163 »

hi!
this is under testing atm and will hopefully be launched during august/september 2002.

//Benny - www.internetradio.nu
// www.radio163.com - not the best but it is running !
vincegarcia
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Post by vincegarcia »

Here's what I'm doing for now:

I've set up a sign up/login page: http://garciav.streamguys.com/super70s
This is not "public" yet because I'm having my domain moved to a forwarding service.

When listeners login, they'll be taken to a page in another directory with an embedded REAL player "hard wired" to my station. The code of this page is encrypted as well as the links. The idea of using the embedded player is so they can't see where the server is located.

I figure this will work for now. I'm beginning the "Listener Club" Aug. 1st.

Vince
Vince Garcia
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Post by Jay »

Vince, that's a good attempt however there is one problem, 'netstat'

this command will tell anyone the IP of the server they are listening to.

This is why the server itself must handle the traffic, but it should do for now just don't rely on it as a long term solution. BTW what's the difference between the preview player you have and the actual pay stream, is the quality higher?
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Post by sound selecta »

The problem is that its just way too easy to figure out where the connection is coming from to your computer even if you embeded the player.
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Post by vincegarcia »

Jay: You're right, it's a good temporary solution. I'm assuming the average listener will not know how about "netstat." Hell, I didn't know about it. If I notice I have twice as many listeners as subscribers, I'll know something is wrong. The "DEMO" you're hearing on the page is just my stream for now until I produce a 3 minute audio presentation.

Sound Selecta: Taking into account a guy could just look at the source code to see the ip:port, I encrypted the code. It's not just the encription that adds a bunch of junk along with the code, it's the real deal. When you click on view/source, you get a message. Nothing is right clickable, etc. With the embedded player, I'm not aware of any other way to determine the ip:port other than viewing the code... unless I'm missing something?

Thanks guys,

Vince
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Post by sound selecta »

Vince

I'll email you the info how to find out the source. I wont post it here even though many people will already know.


Arek
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ardi
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Post by ardi »

Hey vincegarcia,

can you send me an email at [email protected] with information how I can do the same thing that you have done. I've been looking for a solution for a long time.

Thank you
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Post by djamps »

I am working on a set of scripts which should allow the shoutcast DNAS in RIPONLY mode to work in a subscriber environment. After the user has payed, they will be able to login with a username and password to a php front end. Once logged in, the IP will be stored in the RIP file for a few minutes, and then removed. Within this timed window, they will be able to connect to the shoutcast server, and listen continuously until they disconnect, which would then simply require logging in again. THis is possible because if a person's IP is removed from the RIP file while they are listening, it will not disconnect them.

This idea takes care of dynamic IP subscribers, and also allows a subscriber to listen from anywhere. The only catch is that the script would have to run continuously as a cron job to make sure the RIP file is maintained properly.. if you have any ideas, Jay, please jump in!!

-amps
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Jay
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Post by Jay »

djamps wrote:I am working on a set of scripts which should allow the shoutcast DNAS in RIPONLY mode to work in a subscriber environment. After the user has payed, they will be able to login with a username and password to a php front end. Once logged in, the IP will be stored in the RIP file for a few minutes, and then removed. Within this timed window, they will be able to connect to the shoutcast server, and listen continuously until they disconnect, which would then simply require logging in again. THis is possible because if a person's IP is removed from the RIP file while they are listening, it will not disconnect them.

This idea takes care of dynamic IP subscribers, and also allows a subscriber to listen from anywhere. The only catch is that the script would have to run continuously as a cron job to make sure the RIP file is maintained properly.. if you have any ideas, Jay, please jump in!!

-amps
heh use Mp3 Toolbox in private server mode and ditch SHOUTcast. Seriously though I pondered the same things and it's real difficult but your idea may work, instead of a cron you could use register_shutdown_function() and have the function sleep for x amount of seconds before removing the IP from the rip file. Also on each login attempt varify that the RIP list is empty before authentication, that way if register shutdown function croked it will only stay in the RIP list temporarily.

BTW I got max user connects in beta 6 of Mp3 Toolbox so now you can limit the number of streams utilized through mp3 toolbox. Not sure how well it will work with 500 connections but it does a good job with 3 or 4. You can now also kick clients, this thing is looking more and more like a shoutcast server ;)
- Jay
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Post by djamps »

i considered using toolbox, but I cannot rely on my webserver to serve up my station, it seems to randomly cut out after 10-20 minutes of listening probably due to the cpu load of hosting 250+ other websites - it's never consistant. Perfect for on-demand, but I shudder at the idea of relaying my stream off it, and the admin probably does too =)

Many people have contacted me about adding a 128k relay so I am considering payed hosting as long as people are willing to pay for their slice of the bandwidth. Hopefully this script will do the trick.
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Post by Jay »

I totally agree, I was just joking. Mp3 toolbox while great could only be as good as the webserver you put it on, that's why standalone solutions work better to handle live streaming.

I spent last night hammering mp3 toolbox on apache here and apache seemed to be the one to puke the most. But i got as many as 18 simultaneous connections on it from throughout my network. not bad for a php script apache and a 500 pentium celeron laptop. one thing that I never really considered was that setting the MetaInterval higher saves CPU usage.
- Jay
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djamps
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Post by djamps »

Jay wrote:one thing that I never really considered was that setting the MetaInterval higher saves CPU usage.
the same is true for the shoutcast dnas =)
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