Sierra Radio

[Ari]

I just had an idea:
How about creating an on-line radio station that plays Sierra soundtracks around the clock?
Is this something that's possible at all with this site's resources?

What do you guys think?

[Laust]

Nice idea, but I don't think Tom has a suitable host. He will most certainly need a provider with shell access, and quite often they loathe the idea of streaming due to bandwidth concerns.

Aside from that, it's not too hard to setup (Icecast). Even works on Windows

[Zemus]

http://www.live365.com used to have a free setup with some ads put in now and then, but that was ages ago. I don't know what they use now. I remember I used it about 5 years ago to broadcast from my own computer.

[Ari]

Seems to cost quite a bit these days.
10$ a month for the basic package.
what makes it different from playing a midi, for instance, on a website?

[Zemus]

Annoying MIDI plug-ins not taking forever to load and make BigHugeMess of whatever else you're listening to when you visit that site?

The big deal about internet radio is that it is something you can connect to in Winamp and just listen to the station instead of having to load your own MP3s/whatever. You also have DJs putting on a show between songs, with various degrees of success.

When it comes to a Sierra-specific station... well... nothing would stop you from just making a playlist of the files you've downloaded and play that instead. Without anything more, then I don't really see why a QuestStudios radio station would become successful.

[Alistair]

Zemus sums up my opinion perfectly. I think it's a fairly redundant sort of idea.. Just make WinAmp playlists of your own!

(Though, you can imagine it being kinda nice at work.)

- Alistair

[Wodball]

It would be good for those people who don't want to spend time downloading Mp3's all day. (Though I don't think that's much of a sacrifice.) Of course, for those really slow connections, streaming audio would be a plus.

I wonder if we could make a "show" where we have Sierra or fan game audio interviews. It might cut into JA's job though.

--Woody

[Ari]

Zemus sums up my opinion perfectly. I think it's a fairly redundant sort of idea.. Just make WinAmp playlists of your own!

(Though, you can imagine it being kinda nice at work.)

- Alistair

That's exactly my point. Of course you can make a playlist and listen to it at home, but I was talking about something you could access from virtually any computer without having to d/l mp3 or Oggs (which aren't always supported by certain computers' media players).

If you think the whole idea is redundant, it's like saying is that radio in general is redundant. After all, you can simply d/l all the mp3s you want and never have reason to listen to the radio.  :roll:

When I asked what makes it different than a midi playing on a website, I was talking about it as a concept. Just substitute MIDI with streaming audio and the actual file with a playlist.

[Alistair]

If you think the whole idea is redundant, it's like saying is that radio in general is redundant. After all, you can simply d/l all the mp3s you want and never have reason to listen to the radio.

Ah, a classic 'Ari-Stone'-ism. I suppose if I think the idea of MP3 as a format is redundant now it means all digitalised music is bad, huh?

The two issues are poles apart- the radio will play a lot of music which is copyrighted, which can't be (legally) downloaded. Sierra music is legal to download.
Radio also has far more than just music- come on Ari, you can argue better than that. (Unless, Israeli radio is just folk music.. But I don't think so.)

The idea of 'Sierra radio' isn't a good one because people can, very easily, assemble their own playlists. It would get very few 'listeners'. There's far better Sierra music ventures to bother with.

- Alistair

[Kaminari]

Yeah, but you're making the assumption that everyone has those digital files on his/her drive, or that this radio would be primarily aimed at Quest Studios members. Granted, as a regular here, and as the owner of a CM-64 and CM-500, I surely don't need an online radio per say.

But I like the concept nevertheless, for many reasons. Everyone and his dog, familiar or not with Sierra music, could enjoy it anywhere without any MIDI equipment or without having to download heaps of MP3s (a 48 kbps stream can be very effective if properly encoded). You could even listen to it when visiting your Indian grandmother, the one who lives reclusive in the middle of South Dakota and has to content herself with a dial-up modem. Besides, the concept has proven to be very popular for other formats like MODs or chiptunes (think Kohina or Nectarine here), despite the targeted audience being essentially demosceners.

I say, go for it Ari

[Ari]

Ah, a classic 'Ari-Stone'-ism. I suppose if I think the idea of MP3 as a format is redundant now it means all digitalised music is bad, huh?

I don't quite follow your logic, to tell the truth...  :roll:

The two issues are poles apart- the radio will play a lot of music which is copyrighted, which can't be (legally) downloaded. Sierra music is legal to download.
Radio also has far more than just music- come on Ari, you can argue better than that. (Unless, Israeli radio is just folk music.. But I don't think so.)

A lot of stations specialize only in music and no talk what-so-ever (except for commercials, maybe), and even so, who said we couldn't record interviews and things like that and then play them back?
So besides that, is the mere fact that Sierra music is legal to d/l what makes the whole idea a write off? too bad...

The idea of 'Sierra radio' isn't a good one because people can, very easily, assemble their own playlists. It would get very few 'listeners'. There's far better Sierra music ventures to bother with

- Alistair

Not everyone has such an extensive collection of Sierra music as you do, Alistair. Besides, Sierra music doesn't record itself, you know. In much the same way that every new song that is first heard on the radio and only then arrives on CD in music stores, new Sierra music could be first heard on the Sierra radio station and only then made available for download.


At any rate, it was only an idea. I don't know how this thing could actually be implemented. I wanted to see what people thought of it first.

[Tom]

Personally, I think this is a neat idea.  The trend in radio has been commercial-free radio (satellite radio) for quite some time.  Who wants to listen to advertising.  We've had satellite radio for the past 12 years through DirecTV, which targets dozens of stations with specific music genres.  If one of those were a Sierra Music Station, that'd be neat.  I'm a fan of classic rock, so instead of listening to commercial radio (which probably averages about 35 minutes of music each hour -- and the rest, advertising), satellite radio gives you only the music, without a D.J. interrupting...or a, "let's break for the latest weather update", or playing styles I don't like.  Plus, satellite radio is 100% digital and makes for some excellent recording opportunities.

I have no idea on how something like this works, online.  But it seems like it shouldn't be all that difficult to create playlists for streaming audio.  I know my hosts used to offer something like that, but I never checked it out.

[Laust]

Essentially, need to run server (as in a program, not necessarily a dedicated machine). This acts like a webserver (in the sense, it redistributes content to clients), except no files are stored on it. Instead, another program, usually referred to as the "source client" continuously feeds it the music stream. The source client can range from something as simple as, say, Winamp with a plugin and a playlist, to custom written software with a fully fledged request/voting system.

There's a very nice overview of how it works and some terms here:

http://liveice.sourceforge.net/understanding.html

I recommend Icecast (open source, actively developed, good), but Nullsoft's Shoutcast generally works too, and may be somewhat easier to setup. On the downside, it hasn't been updated (except for bugfixes) in years, and is a lot more limited in what it can do (Most of which is not so relevant if you only want one radio stream).

As a general rule, your webhost either needs to provide a machine running Shoutcast/Icecast that you can use, or direct shell login access so you can download, install, and run it yourself.

[Ari]

So, Tom, would you be willing to check it out and see if your host supports it?
I'll start reading Laust's link.

[Tom]

Yeah...but I don't want to tackle it at this moment; too much going on.  I know Coastinc supports streaming Real Audio, but I'll probably have to write to them about anything more advanced.

[DrJ]

Ehm..
Might be me but why are you not using Shoutcast?

[Ari]

care to elaborate?

[DrJ]

Of course.. I just thought everyone had heard of Shoutcast..

What is SHOUTcast?
SHOUTcast is a free-of-charge audio homesteading solution. It permits anyone on the internet to broadcast audio from their PC to listeners across the Internet or any other IP-based network (Office LANs, college campuses, etc.).

SHOUTcast's underlying technology for audio delivery is MPEG Layer 3, also known as MP3 technology. The SHOUTcast system can deliver audio in a live situation, or can deliver audio on-demand for archived broadcasts.

Shoutcast comes from the wonderful people of Nullsoft. It's a free program to broadcast your WinAmp playlist over the net. That's what you guys want to do right? I think it wont take up too much bandwidth either. You can even put a limit to the number of people listening to your server.

What is the SHOUTcast Server?


Nullsoft SHOUTcast Server is an application that runs as an application on supported operating system such as Windows 95, 98, NT, FreeBSD, etc. The SHOUTcast Server will accept connections via SHOUTcast DSP Plug-in in order to have a SOURCE Stream to broadcast. Once a stream has begun, the SHOUTcast server will only accept connections from other copies of Winamp in order to broadcast that source stream to each listener. In effect, having a micro-broadcast system to allow people to be able to broadcast any content in any of the formats that Wianmp supports. Through the use of specialized SHOUTcast broadcasting plug-ins, audio from a microphone as well as any device attached to the Line-In port on the broadcasters soundcard can be streamed via SHOUTcast Server. The SHOUTcast server is the key to connecting many poeple to one another via Winamp.

This all can be found on (surprise surprise): http://www.shoutcast.com

The funny thing is that with my DVD player (KiSS 1500) I could even listen in to Shoutcast stations on my TV  

[Ari]

Sounds interesting...  
So I could actually playback a playlist from my home computer and allow poeple to connect and listen?

It's a shame, though, that my max upload speed is only 96kbps, it would take up my whole upload stream.  :?

[DrJ]

You could probably limit the bandwidth it is using.. But I agree that catering to the whole Sierra community would cost quite a bit of bandwidth.

Anyhow, I think this program is exactly what you're looking for. A free radio-broadcasting program.