Streaming Multiple Live Channels?

Maxwell'sSilverLART asks: "I work for a University's Aviation Department. For several years now, we've run a streaming audio server to rebroadcast air traffic control communications over the web as an educational service to our students. This job had been handled by Winamp + SHOUTcast. We've just added a second channel to the system (we're now rebroadcasting approach control, in addition to the local tower), which means I need to find a way to get a second live audio stream into the system (signal comes from radio receivers tuned to the appropriate frequency), encoded (we're using 8-bit, 22kHz mono MP3, which is more than adequate given the source), and broadcast. Has anybody done this before? Surely I'm not the first to want to encode multiple live streams. How did you do it, and what were the pros/cons? Does anybody know of a good hardware device at a reasonable price (I'd need to sell my boss on two of them)? Ideas are always welcome."

"I thought about setting up a Linux box with two sound cards, but I know that can be problematic, and I was also having trouble finding streaming software that would work with multiple soundcards (LiveIce only seems to support one). I would prefer not to use multiple machines. I was looking for software, and it occurred to me that I might be going about this the wrong way--perhaps a hardware encoder/server would be better. I poked around on the web, and only found one (for $2800--I'll pass). If I do end up using a PC, I want the system to be daemonized, and initialize at startup; I'm sick of having to restart Winamp every time the power cycles. (I inherited this system; I would have done things differently)"

Comments

Partial Solution

[bofkentucky]

World famous perl hacker Lincoln Stein has apache::mp3 availabile for using apache as your mp3/ogg stream server. Apache is a daemon so now more reboot worries. Now you have to figure out how to feed two audio streams to their respective filehandle(s). Are you wanting two seperate streams or the two channels overlaid into a single stream, if it is the second option a simple 2-1 (Y) cable should be sufficent.

Possible second half solution.

[bofkentucky]

A PCI/onboard sound card and a TV tuner card could do the trick, just feed the 2nd audio stream into a VCR and the output to the coax on the back of the TV card, split the L/R channels and you are golden.