Slashdot Mirror
Skypecasting - P2P File Sharing
shashark writes "Technologically savvy users are merging these technologies to "Skypecast",
using Skype's service to distribute recordings across the internet for free.
This allows expert users to run their own mini-radio stations, which can be
accessed by any Skype user. Skype does not actively support these uses, but
encourages its users to find new applications for their service. Other possibilities discussed by Skypecasters at
Unbound Spiral or
Moodle are to turn an MP3 player into a radio station for any of Skype's 29
million registered users to dial up using their Skype line. Instructions also
are available on how to record a personal soap opera and use Skype to distribute
it en masse. Even more ominously, some Skypecasters record Skype calls and post
them on the Internet."
That link should be .html, not .htm
click
It's not even difficult to setup -- there is a Winamp plugin -- pick it and hit "Play" and you have a radio station.
Doing it this way requires to to plug a physical device (MP3 player, radio) into your soundcard..
why is it that two of the urls have dw.com.com redirects? smells fishy to me
i don't use skype so i don't know... but i assume, it being a telephone-oriented service, that it has a hard-limited bitrate?
usually telephone conversations only need 8 KHz recordings, in mono. If converted to mp3, this would result in FAR inferior-sounding recordings for music than CD-quality.
but, like i said, maybe this is not a limit.. i don't really know.
in any case, why do people always have to take a decent service and twist it into something the authorities will find "questionable"? It's like they are trying to help discourage VOIP or something by exposing its potential for misuse. Use it for what it was intended -- telephone conversations -- and no one will care. I imagine the current P2P technologies are better adapted for spreading music anyways.. but i guess the rule is, if there's a crack, someone will always fill it. humans are weird.
Quick little blurb about skype... its an application for your computer, created by Sharman Networks, the people who brought you Kazaa in all its glory and shame. Its P2P software that encrypts and tunnels voice conversations generally at better quality than normal phone conversations. I first found skype about a year and a half ago... and have been using it since to make calls accross the US, and around the world. During this bit of time they built themselves a network and suddenly provided the service of allowing you to call normal phones from your computer... the price for using SkypeOut to call most locations on the globe is .02 Euro~dollars per minute. Very recently they came out with SkypeIn where you can have a phone number routed to your computer and a list of secondary locations... at will. Haven't used that one personally.
The only times where rate limiting degrades the performance to below same-room communication is when you add normal phone lines to the mix.
http://skype.net
Gravity Sucks
A lot of people here are questioning the worth and/or validity of skypecasting, citing out technologies that will do the same thing, same as, I believe, Winamp, and other players that will allow you to stream your audio to some other person on the net.
But skype is p2p, so that instead of you streaming directly to your audience, listeners may stream from you AND some other listeners, obviously minimizing the bandwidth required of the originator. The other alternative software packages are client-server, one to one, correct?
Also, one thing that makes this worthwhile as a slashdot topic is that there is already an established base of about 30 million skype users. So, this could serve as a jumpstart, just as napster did bittorrent, even though napster, like skype is proprietary....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
"There are perfectly good open source tools like Icecast which have been around for years and which work with codecs designed for music."
Maybe the average user does not know anything about Icecast? Maybe they'd find it hard to use (I don't know, I have to admit I've never tried Icecast myself, though I do use Skype). But yeah, the quality would worry me, too. Still an interesting thing.
"I also doubt Skype will scale up to be able to support more than a small number of listeners at a time."
Could be. But the arcticle says this: "Skype's peer-to-peer infrastructure--similar in construct to Kazaa, Morpheus and other file-swapping programs--makes it well-suited for turning Net phones into a broadcasting system".
So, maybe the infrastructure is smart enough to handle multiple simultaneus users (because Skype supports conference calls, for example)? Does anyone have more information about this?
For instance, New Hampshire (just picked at random).
'N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. 570-A:2: It is a felony to intercept, or disclose the contents of, any telecommunication or oral communication without the consent of all parties.'
4 users per conference call (max).
My mistake. I copied the links 'as is' from here
e nt/2100-7352_3-5645776.
(Read last paragraphs)
http://news.com.com/VoIP+calls+get+podcast+treatm
very poorly suited to broadcasting. Every listener requires that the transmitter sends a new stream across their Internet connection.
Wrong. In a multi-person conference, one computer is elected as the "central hub", that relies all communication to the other parties. If you're not the central hub, you only have to send your stuff once and receive it once. Interestingly, the central hub is always determined by comparing the upload and download bandwiths of all parties.
So, in a way, Skype is indeed a broadcasting system more efficient than pure P2P connections.
The legal ones that play RIAA music pay the same fees that is. There are several internet radio stations that do not pay those fees and do not play anything except independant artists who allow such uses of their songs. Just because a radio station (internet or regular) doesn't pay those fees doesn't mean it is illegal at least in the US