Live Vorbis Streams Over 802.11b From SXSW.com

chupacabra writes "SXSW.com in Austin, Texas has a group of computers in various music venues around town. The ices/icecast stream is sent over 802.11 to a main server at SXSW. There are 6 venues running as of this moment. Thanks to the folks at Vorbis and their CVS we are rocking. See sxsw.com/music/livestreams."

Comments

Great concept...

[SirGeek]

But how long until it gets harassed by the RIAA for paying the music fees ?

And Linksys starts shaking..

[Aliencow]

..thinking about the RIAA, 802.11b streaming music possibilities, and the fact they're a leader in residential WiFi equipment !

Unfortunately

[damiam]

The sound quality sorta sucks. It not vorbis's fault - I can't really hear artifacts. It's just the mics/equipment/soundcards they're using, I guess.

This will never take off

[worst_name_ever]

I predict this service will fail. After all, who would possibly be interested in listening to music broadcast via "radio waves" ?

Re:This will never take off

[mcrbids]

Ultimately, it doesn't come down to the medium used, it doesn't come down to the neat technology, or the gentoo Linux. it all boils down simply and only to this:

Does it provide something people will pay enough for?

Yes, it's neat. I get to hear musicians play music that's not well mixed (it never is "live" unless you spend serious dough) and has alot of background music. (Plates clattering, etc)

But live music is best served... live! Right in front of you!

Live music is when you can experience the sights and smells. It's the sparkle in the eye of your wife (or hopefully, at least girlfriend) as you eat a delicious plate of Italian food, whilst a musician plays to your left.

It's the look of giddy happiness on my lovely 11 y.o. daughter, dancing at a "Concert in the Park" held downtown on a hot summer eve.

It's seeing the attempts by the musician to truly communicate with the audience. It's an interactive, feedback-driven experience.

Recorded music is canned, and attempts to compensate with impeccable mixing and special effects.

One of the most memorable renditions of music I've seen recently was a bum on the street. He appeared to be mildly intoxicated, but had an old catgut guitar. He asked for alms, we agreed but demanded a tune.

I then heard one of the most intense renditions of "Candle in the Wind" I've ever heard. It was unpolished, rough, and a few of the chords were simply wrong. But he played with heart and soul, and gave it all he had.

He earned a few bucks from me, but you could never capture soul and feeling like that if you played it through speakers.

-Ben

true! (trollacide)

[timothy]

True, without WMP support, Ogg has no chance.

Unless they decide to support this crazy upstart format in some other player -- WinAmp would be a good start, since a lot of people use WinAmp. Maybe if they put Ogg support in WinAmp, and if some games start to use it (showing that it's a useful, sustainable format for professional developers), and ... hmmm, maybe some hardware players, too, or at least some handhelds / PDAs that can play this newfangled format. And maybe if people in the music industry take notice of it, that would help -- but that's asking a lot, eh?

If any of those things happen, I think Ogg Vorbis has a chance. But I guess it's toast for now.

Oh. Never mind. As Number One once said. "Ahem. That, also, has already happened."

timothy

Correction

[Brandeissansoo]

SXSW.com in Austin, Texas HAD a group of computers in various music venues around town.

What makes this exciting...

[anubi]

From the Ogg Vorbis page, I quote:

"What is Ogg Vorbis?

Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source."

To me, any time we start developing a technology which can be freely used by all without worry of the letter in the mail, its cause for celebration.

They are testing it, and the better the tools we have in the box, the better we can do a job. And thats the end result isn't it? Getting from here to there with a minimum of effort.

I use the efforts of others daily, and it is my hope that before I leave this planet, I can leave something for others.

Re:Whats the point?

[tjohns]

I think you misunderstood...

They're not using WiFi to let people tune in, but rather to broadcast it. Since it looks like they're doing five different streams at a time, and I'm willing to bet that those places don't have the most accessible internet connections, they're using WiFi Texas to get a connection to each club. There, they've got G3 computers running Gentoo and some streaming software going. After it's encoded, they use the wireless to send it to their XServe (also running Gentoo), which streams it to the internet at large.

Personally, I think this qualifies as being "cool."

tourist? night life? RIAA no involvement?

[sublime99]

This is a very neat idea that utilitizes machines that seem to be already in place and it is great for tourist. They can insert wireless cards in rental cars, then the people driving around the city could listen to the music in the car. Good way to get the night life broadcasted all over. Have different "stations" with different types of music for people to find something they like, while waiting for that parking spot.

My question is would the RIAA be involved in this? If the artists they are broadcasting on this station give them permission to do this. Wouldn't it be out of the RIAA's hands, since the artist gave them permission? I know there are bands like the Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews, and Phish who allowed live recording at their shows fre of charge. You just have to bring your own recording equipment.

Wrong Idea?

[menasius]

It seems to me a lot of posts deal with streaming music over 802.11b to the end user.

However, I took this to be kinda a portable internet brodcasting expirement, in that their ISP is a wireless one. Thus, just like your local radio station can broadcast from a bar during a live performance, so can these fellows. The difference being they dont have to be at a venue that came pre-wired for internet.

As a means of delivery to the end user, I agree, why complicate things with making it an internet stream when there is good ol FM.

However, as the way I saw it, its bringing some benefits that an FM station can have to the realm of an Internet station.

-bart

How to listen, how many can listen

[wifitexas]

The player you need (if on Windows) is Winamp 2.81, it could be that RealAudio owns the m3u filetype, but if you can point .m3u to Winamp, it will work. The 802.11b link is only used for one stream per stage, the icecast server takes this one stream and sends it out to thousands of users at once over a wired LAN. So far, the capacity of the server has not been met. We would like to know what the limit is. If were to roam onto the WiFi network (ssid = wifi-texas), then you would actually get your streams from the icecast server, not from the stage system directly. Because of distance limits, Line Of Sight problems, and other factors, three or four wireless hops connect each stage to the icecast server. hope this helps.

Re:Whats the point?

[ramzak2k]

wouldnt make a difference to general listening but it is definitely an innovation. Think of the possibilities :

What if they could ask what song the users would like to be played next and switch accordingly based upon wishes of the majority ?

What if they could generate a system where people could rate songs over the same Wifi (using PDAs maybe) and systems are in place to determine what might be played next.

What if they are able to transmit the mp3 tags of the songs also so that you can rush to the CD store and get the album for that one song ?