Serving Streaming Audio With Open Source?

z7209 asks: "I'm reading this article on Salon about audio streaming (MS v RealNetworks!), and happened to be asked last week to advise my company to make a recommendation for Webcasting and audio streaming server software. I dutifully researched MS, RealNetworks, QuickTime and other even more propietary software. None of these are great for one reason or another. But it now occurs to me that I don't even know how to implement the above on my favorite OS (nope, not Linux) FreeBSD. Where is OSS streaming server software? Is Icecast.org the answer? Shouldn't we focus on providing an alternative to these ugly propietary systems, esp. for such an important purpose?"

I think I read somewhere...

[XoXus]

I think I read somewhere that RealServer has been ported to a few Unices, such as Solaris and Linux, but I don't think FreeBSD got included.

Have you tried emailing Real Networks?

David.

who uses Real*Audio* any more?

[Jamie Zawinski]

There is no reason to use proprietary software to send out an audio-only stream. Icecast [icecast.org] is all you need.

Video is a different matter: for Video, you get to choose between: RealVideo (cross-platform, but very, very expensive); Microsoft (Windows-only, but "free"); and QuickTime (Windows and Mac only, but "free".)

• My audio streams [dnalounge.com] and how I do them [dnalounge.com];
• My video stream [dnalounge.com] and how I do it [dnalounge.com].

This aughtta be an FAQ

[acroyear]

I asked this question earlier (I had at least discovered Icecast + xmms). See this discussion [slashdot.org]...

Basically, for a streaming radio station, you want icecast, and either set up playlists directly or use xmms + liveice. That discussion covers stream on demand, like my.mp3.com does.

Re:who uses Real*Audio* any more?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the Darwin Streaming Server [apple.com]?
I believe you're still obligated to serving quicktime media, but at least you can serve from FreeBSD, Solaris, linux, and NT. (Uh, no mention of OS9 or OSX). It's Apple's APSL license, fwiw.
I've been using an earlier version for a while as a technology verification on NT. (Non-windows portion is behind schedule). I can confirm it streams.

Re:who uses Real*Audio* any more?

[pyretic22]

For video try ffmpeg [sourceforge.net], it's not production quality yet, but the author is looking for websites to test it. Aside from the usual mpeg2 streams it also outputs in Flash, Opendivx and RealVideo. From the website:

What can you do with FFMpeg ?

• Record and compress in real time any video source in most file formats.
• Make your Internet Radio or TV, provided you have an audio or video content source.
• Make your video monitoring system, provided you have a video camera.
• Generate your streaming files for your web server in many popular formats faster than any other solution.

Re:This aughtta be an FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week www.icecast.org disappeared off the net. icecast.sourceforge.net is no more. What happened? Jack Moffitt, are you out there ?

And if you're on a multicast network...

[Ross Finlayson]

(such as an Ethernet, or a wireless LAN) You can stream MP3 via multicast using liveCaster [live.com]. (This is built from the Open Source "LIVE.COM Streaming Media [sourceforge.net] libraries.)

ps. Why don't all /. articles go on the front page? Most readers probably don't even know that non-front-page articles (like this one) even exist.

Re:This aughtta be an FAQ

[ndfa]

yeah.... seems to be missing... just when i had something to maybe replace shout! BUT IceCast rocks, a very stable mp3 streamer!
u.

QuickTime (Darwin Streaming Server) IS open source

[stevek]

The darwin streaming server is a free, open source, standards compliant RTP/RTSP server. You can use it with the QuickTime players (free as in beer, but not as in speech), or any other RTP/RTSP clients. The pieces necessary to make free RTP and RTSP clients are all there, we just need to put them together to make a useful free player.

The pieces would be a usable RTP stack (see vic/vat, rat, or other h.323 programs), which include useful codecs, and then some RTSP and GUI glue to put them together.

Put something like that together, use it with the Darwin Streaming Server, and you end up with a first-class streaming media solution which is free (as in speech and beer) from end-to-end.

It's also possible to put together a player with the JMF classes in Java. Then, it becomes accessable to any java-enabled browser, with no plugins or software downloads.

The highest quality codecs are still a difficult issue, but usable unencumbered codecs are out there, and if the community puts this kind of infrastructure together, the codecs will come (either from, eg. the Ogg Vorbis group, or even commercial entities wanting to get their technology into this). I wouldn't be surprised if IBM had something like this up their sleeve they might be willing to donate to such a cause.

Quictkime streaming server management

[Smoking]

The new version of quicktime streaming server has a web interface for management of the server. Currently it's quite simple but it allows normal people to make the basic server config...