Sorry - but we're talking about LIVE (radio in - stream out) streaming. And LOW (like 16kbps) bitrates. Your mention of the FhG & Xing encoders show that you're thinking of something different.
First of all, forget mp3. At realistic bandwidths (under 32 kbps) it sucks as a streaming format. RealAudio is the way to go. Their Linux encoder & server are quite robust - & RealAudio at 16 kbps blows away any other low-bandwidth stream quality-wise. The encoder & 60-stream server are free - and it's a rare user that doesn't have a RealAudio player. If anything it's more ubiquitous than mp3.
The RealAudio encoder will use less than 10% of a P2/400 CPU (or about 25% of a 233 MMX) - leaving plenty of room to run the RealAudio server, Apache, & whatever.
If you do decide to go with a remotely located server, forget about linking the encoder to the server over the public Internet. It just won't work. Trust me.
On the bandwidth issue - streaming audio chews it up in a hurry. Even at 16 kbps you're looking at 320 kbps for 20 streams - a lot to ask from a.edu network, which is most likely sharing a T1 connection (1544 kbps) amoung all of its users.
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Sorry - but we're talking about LIVE (radio in - stream out) streaming. And LOW (like 16kbps) bitrates. Your mention of the FhG & Xing encoders show that you're thinking of something different.
First of all, forget mp3. At realistic bandwidths (under 32 kbps) it sucks as a streaming format. RealAudio is the way to go. Their Linux encoder & server are quite robust - & RealAudio at 16 kbps blows away any other low-bandwidth stream quality-wise. The encoder & 60-stream server are free - and it's a rare user that doesn't have a RealAudio player. If anything it's more ubiquitous than mp3.
.edu network, which is most likely sharing a T1 connection (1544 kbps) amoung all of its users.
The RealAudio encoder will use less than 10% of a P2/400 CPU (or about 25% of a 233 MMX) - leaving plenty of room to run the RealAudio server, Apache, & whatever.
If you do decide to go with a remotely located server, forget about linking the encoder to the server over the public Internet. It just won't work. Trust me.
On the bandwidth issue - streaming audio chews it up in a hurry. Even at 16 kbps you're looking at 320 kbps for 20 streams - a lot to ask from a