[Icecast-dev] Constellation of open source around Icecast

[Geoff Staples]

I hope this isn't too far off topic. But, it seems like the developers 
are the folks to talk to for what I want.

I run an Internet radio station and I am also a rather experienced 
developer and own a web hosting company. I don't have the resources to 
be actively involved in development at the moment. But, I will help out 
in other ways and have some good channels to promote Icecast and the 
constellation of stuff that works with it. (I hope that doesn't sound to 
arrogant - I do realize that Icecast has been around for a long time and 
is a well-known system.)

We've been using Windows Media for our station. I want to switch to 
something that is as close to total open source as possible. Icecast is 
the obvious choice.

I looked at Shoutcast, but discovered a couple of things:

Shoutcast is owned by AOL (which is even worse than Microsoft).

Apparently, they have crazy rules about what you can and cannot do on 
pages that have links to your stream. Who knows what AOL will do next.



Seems like putting a station together that way and promoting it as such 
would be a great way to promote the work you are doing.

Here are my concerns:

Is Ogg Vorbis under active development? (It's been a while since there's 
been any activity).

Are players for Mac, Windows, and Linux readily available, reliable, and 
easy to install? What are they?

What I have to do is come up with a complete set of players as for all 
major platforms and then stream something that is cost effective and 
universal. I'm thinking that I should encode and stream Ogg Vorbis and 
then plain old Mp3. (The Mp3 is really for iPods.). Seems like I also 
need to encode FLAC to have a loss-less master.

Here's the list of formats that an iPod supports. If you have a better 
suggestion than Mp3, I'd like to know about it:

MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from 
iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4) and WAV.

One final item: Are you aware of any alternatives to iPod that support 
ogg vorbis, flac, etc?

I'm interested in anything you have to say and ready to act.

Thanks,

Geoff