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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."
..thinking about the RIAA, 802.11b streaming music possibilities, and the fact they're a leader in residential WiFi equipment !
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.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
True, without WMP support, Ogg has no chance.
... 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?
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
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
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
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.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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."
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