[icecast] ices 0.3 released

[Chris G Moguta]

>> > - Most listeners will have to upgrade to a new client or
>> > install a plugin.
>>
>> I don't see a way around this in the general case, until Ogg is so
>> widely used that it would be a bad business idea not to support it.  I
>
>Completely agree.  I know it's a chicken-and-egg thing, and I am
>competely sympathetic--it's just the "Welcome to the 21st Century"
>attitude of the previous poster that irked me.  Things are not so
>cut-and-dried for those of us trying to make our audio accessible
>to as many people as possible, with the minimum hassle and
>maximum quality.

I'm attempting to start up a new radio, and my opinion is that when most 
people hear the sound quality of Ogg Vorbis, they won't mind upgrading 
(especially modem users used to crappy 24Kbps MP3 streams).  However, that 
attitude just may kill me.  ;P

>> That said, we are hoping to have RealPlayer auto-update support in the
>> near future. [snip]
>
>I just returned from OSCON, and went to a talk by an engineer from
>RealNetworks.  She talked about how simple it was to integrate Ogg
>Vorbis support into the Helix Server / Producer framework, which
>you can now download and build from CVS.  Of course they were plugging
>their semi-open platform, and sadly hadn't even thought about taking
>the next step to stream it, or receive it in their client--only
>static encoding to files right now.  Your name actually came up when
>I asked her about streaming, although I wasn't clear what she thought
>you were doing in this regard.

Dude, if RealPlayer gets Icecast2/Vorbis support, that's just one more step in 
the right direction.  Most people don't use WinAmp, but WiMP, Real, or iTunes 
(which is unfortunate).  If you guys at Xiph can get WiMP to accept Icecast2 
streams somehow, then I'll really be rejoicing.  ^_^

>And WRT WinAMP 3--maybe I'm just getting lucky.  If I hack my icecast
>2 server to emit "application/x-ogg" as the mime type, it seems to
>play back fine without locking up.  But I realize WinAMP 3 should and
>will go the way of the dodo.  I'm just not sure how to tell folks in
>the interim "Downgrade to WinAMP 2.91."

How about because WinAmp 2.91 *isn't* a downgrade?  The only thing that WinAmp 
3 has over 2.91 is the skinning interface.  WA2 has some features that were 
never bothered to be ported to WA3, and what extra features were in WA3 were 
added in with WA 2.90

>Thanks, Jack.  Keep up the great work.  Ogg deserves to take over--
>the quality of our low-bitrate (~50Kbps forced VBR) test stream is
>nothing short of stunning.

See?  ;)  I'm hoping that's what kind of reaction listeners will have.

>Matt

- Chris

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