[vorbis] KPFA live vorbis stream

[David Bachner]

I just joined this list, so I'm not sure how many of you are already aware
of this. KPFA is a 59,000 watt free speech community radio station in
Berkeley, California that has been on the air since 1949. They were the
first listener sponsored radio station in North America, paving the way for
many other community stations across the U.S. and around the world. KPFA was
one of first signals to appear on the FM dial in the San Francisco Bay area,
and is the flagship station of the Pacifica network.

Their vorbis stream has been available for about a month now. It's 32
kbps/14 kHz stereo - perhaps not the best choice for optimal audio fidelity,
but person responsible for establishing the vorbis stream wanted it to be
accessable to dial-up modem users. Many of KPFA's listeners are political
activists or people with generally low to moderate incomes.

Anyway, I hope this is of interest to this list. I sort of started the ball
rolling by telling a KPFA host who I regularly listen to about vorbis, and
urging him to talk to their techs about considering ogg vorbis as a format
for streaming KPFA in stereo. I think Vorbis and KPFA are an excellent match
because of the ideas that both projects are founded on. Here are the links:

KPFA's home page: http://www.kpfa.org/
KPFA's Vorbis stream: http://aud-one.kpfa.org:8090/kpfa.ogg

db

<p>----- Original Message ----- 
From: <computing at kpfa.org>
To: "David Bachner" <bachner at subgenius.com>
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: Ogg Vorbis on KPFA

I just checked the
>vorbis email list archives and I see no mention of KPFA, so I wonder if
>they're even aware that you're doing this. I just joined the list so
>I'll make sure I mention it.
>
Thanks. I have thought of contacting them, and you actually are doing it.

>>
>Okay, I do have one small critism. You said you purposely tuned the
>stream to reach dialup users. I can appreciate why you'd want to keep it
>within reach of a dialup audience, but 32k is really pushing the limits
>of what *most* dialup connections can handle - especially in areas where
>the phone lines aren't the most up to date or free of noise. And I have
>to wonder if the resulting loss of fidelity (32 kbps/14 kHz vs.
>45kbps/44 kHz) is really worth the small handful of dialup users that
>can actually receive 32k free of drop-out. You already have dialup users
>covered with your 24k and 16k streams. My guess is that most dialup
>users prefer stability and a better sounding mono signal over a lo-fi
>stereo signal that frequently drops out.

Actually a selfish move on my part...I have a dialup at home. Anyway, there
are lots of people who do not have/cannot afford high speed access, and
still should be able to hear what we do.

<p><p> If you were to raise the data
>rate from 32 to 45k, you'd be able to offer broadband users (and a very
>few dialup users) MUCH better stereo sound at a very low rate, 44 kHz
>per channel, with fidelity that resembles 80 or 96k stereo MP3. I find
>Ogg Vorbis is at its MOST efficient at 64k, assuming server bandwidth
>isn't a huge issue. Increases in fidelity are less noticable as you go
>higher than 64k. But at 64, it sounds waaay better than MP3, or even the
>latest realaudio codecs at the same data rate. This might be something
>worth considering when you move your streaming to the more reliable server.
>
I agree. However, with the higher quality, listeners (with good ears) will
begin to hear the noise from the soundcard. I would like to run some
experiments with higher quality sound cards and actually do some harmonic
distortion and noise testing. I configured a 44K stream, and it does not
sound much different (a bit crisper highs) for the bandwidth it consumes. I
think that a high quality stream starting with a quiet sound card would be
useful for mirroring or relays.

<p>>>I'm hoping that we can publicize this by word of mouth. Not
>>everyone visits the kpfa website, and not many people know
>>what Ogg Vorbis is.
>>
>Ah, but thanks to programs like Democracy Now and the SubGenius Hour of
>Slack, many more people are now exposed to the option of better
>sounding, faster downloading Ogg Vorbis files. And now that KPFA streams
>it live, the other Pacifca stations really aught to pick up on this.
>Those licence restricted realaudio streams at the other stations -
>streams which only play over realnetwork's annoyingly ad-packed
>proprietary player - have gotta go! With widely used players such as
>WinAmp, MacAmp, the latest version of Quicktime Player (Mac version
>only), XMMS for Linux/Unix already supporting Ogg, it makes sense for
>broadcast organisations like Pacifica to support an open, public domain
>format. Especially when it out-performs the proprietary formats.
>
>
People with Macs are having problems. If you know of any reliable players,
please let me know, and I will notify the listeners by some notes on our
website. (OS8,9,X -- all seem to be different. Is there one player
(hopefully free....?)

>Thanks for doing this. I hope I'm not being too evangelistic....
>
>db

My pleasure....And thanks for the encouragement.
Dan.

           Dan Albers
       computing at kpfa.org
       (510)848-6767 x211
=== Measure twice, cut once. ===

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