[Icecast] guideline for plug-in to icecast2 server

[Geoff Shang]

Neo Jiun Siang - R&D wrote:

> 	actually im trying to add feature to ices2 to able to stream mix
> 	file format such as ogg and mp3 in the same playlist.m3u without
> 	extra decoding and encoding that function like ezstream. the reason
> 	i dont want to use ezstream as source client becoz after going thru
> 	decoding and encoding, the audio quality drops. Therefore im trying
> 	to find out is there any easy way out to add plug-in to ices2 such
> 	as it has the feature of ices0 too please adivse thank you

What you want to do can't be done.  You can't have Ogg Vorbis and MP3 audio 
in the same stream.  The reason is simple.  Once you start listening to a 
stream, the decoder for that format is launched and decodes the stream. 
there is no opportunity for the opening of another decoder to decode 
another codec.

You could end the current stream and start another, but the player would 
have to know what to do when the first stream ended so it could pick up the 
second one.  And since some players are not intelligent enough to look at 
the MIME type, not all players would cope with just being put on repeat.

I guess it could be done if someone decided to implement MP3 in Ogg, but I 
doubt that anyone's interested in doing that.  And then you'd need a player 
which would be able to play it.

If you don't want to reencode at all, rerip your audio as all one format or 
the other and use either Ices or EZStream to send it.  Otherwise you'll 
have to reencode on the fly.  Sorry, but they are your only two options as 
far as I can see it.

Geoff.