[Icecast] a few more questions...

[oddsock]

At 08:36 PM 8/31/2005, you wrote:

>Frankly, the only reason that I'm even considering relaying WMA9 is 
>because a large number of listeners to the streams may not be all that 
>technically savvy and WMP comes with XP - I'd like to prevent having to 
>ask the users to download another player if preferable.  I don't have very 
>much experience with WMP 9 or WMP 10 etc.  Forgive me if this is a silly 
>question, but can they stream from mp3 audio streams?  If so then I 
>wouldn't have to worry about steaming WMA format at all.

This argument comes up very frequently and we do understand it, however it 
is also quite viral and in the long run causes inferior and restrictive 
technology to flourish.  The Xiph organization was created specifically to 
address the issue of free (as in patent) media and the distribution of such 
media (that's where icecast comes in).  I hear a lot of statements (I 
really do) such as "most people are stupid and won't bother to install a 
new player or even a new codec" but very little empirical data to back that 
up.  That being said, I encourage you to break free from the "I gotta 
provide to the least common denominator" mentality.   Besides, none of us 
really want to have to run WMP to have to listen to internet-based streams. :)

oddsock