RE: Whole House Audio: Streaming

["Don McAllister" <donmc@xxxxxxx>]

Sorry for the delayed response !!

>I downloaded the necessary components from Shoutcast and got a simple
>server

>>What did you get, and where from?

You will need WinAmp then visit
http://www.shoutcast.com/download/broadcast.phtml
and get the SHOUTcast DSP Broadcasting Tools to point WinAmp at a Shoutcast
Server. I didn't need the NetShow tools as I already have MS Windows Media
Player V7. You will need WinAmp also.

The next stop was http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network.htm
and
download SimpleServer:Shout - This is a free ShoutCast Server application
to
stream the Audio around your network.

Configure as per the supplied instructions - very easy.

Once running, just point (CTRL+L) any Winamp session on any PC on the LAN
to
http://<ShoutCastServerPC>:8000 and your local copy of Winamp will
pick up
the streaming audio from the Shoutcast Server.

>The only problem is
>although you can configure winamp on the individual PCs to access the
>streamed audio from the server, there is a significant (and different!)
>delay on each PC causing the whole house audio scenario to be
unworkable.
>

>>One thought just occurred to me - the players' buffer? - even with
streaming
>>media the player buffers a certain amount of it before it starts,
so that
it
>>is always playing from memory, and the incoming stream is buffered
into
>>memory. Now, 2 things strike me:
>>
>>1) the players default buffer settings are probably optimised for
internet
>>speeds - IE a reasonably large buffer.
>>
>>2) on 100MB Ethernet, I would imagine you probably don't need any
buffering
>>at all for speed limitations - 100MB is ample for
"real-time" streaming.
>>
>>I wonder if it might improve if you set the stream pre-buffer size
to the
>>absolute minimum allowed by the player? (zero if it is permitted?)

I've frigged about with the buffer (down to zero) but this doesn't make
much
difference. I've also picked up on the fact that with the free components
(I
think the limitation is the MS encoder supplied with Netshow\Windows Media
Player), the maximum bitrate you can stream at is 56K. If you want to
stream
above that you need to get a copy of a suitable encoder (frau*) at a cost.

I'm sticking with my multiple amplifier set up to have zoned areas rather
than whole house for now. If anyone else has any success, I'd be interested
to hear from them.


Cheers
Don


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