[icecast-dev] more on default values....

[oddsock]

While we are talking default values for options and features in the config 
file, It seems like an appropriate time to bring up again, a discussion we 
have been having regarding the default value for burst-on-connect, a new 
feature of icecast which was created to eliminate the large startup times 
reported by many listeners of icecast streams.

The question is whether to enable this by default or not in the "base" 
config.  It is my belief that most users are using the stock base config 
(changing things like listen port and password) and not really bothering to 
look at other options.  There are alot of options in the config file, and I 
believe most users just take the high road and mostly ignore them.  So to 
me, this means, if we turn off burst-on-connect by default, it will rarely 
get used...users have a tendency to not seek out new options, and features 
unless they are told about them, and very few actually read the 
documentation (I don't mean to offend anyone here who really is diligent 
about reading docs, but anyone who hangs out in #icecast would know that 
reading docs does not to be users' strong point :)).  So I'd advocate 
enabling this by default so that it will actually get used....

The downside of enabling this is it adds a small amount of latency between 
the source client and the end-user listener.  I did a small testing using a 
128kbps MP3 and Vorbis stream and using Winamp 5 with default client 
buffering values.  When burst-on-connect was disabled, I saw a latency b/w 
the source and listener to be about 1.5 seconds.  By this I mean that if a 
clip was played on the source client, that clip was heard by the listener 
1.5 seconds later.. When burst-on-connect was enabled (changing nothing 
else), this latency grew to 3 seconds.

So my feelings on the matter are that I think that more users would 
consider it better to have their stream served faster overall on startup 
than having an additional latency between the source and the 
end-user.  Thus, I'd advocate it's setting to be enabled by default.

any other thoughts/opinions ?  Any thoughts from users is most welcome.

oddsock

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